When the River Ice Flows, I Will Come Home: A Memoir - Paperback

by Elisa Brodinsky Miller (Author)

"When the River Ice Flows, I Will Come Home is a moving memoir that lovingly recreates the lives of Elisa Miller's father and his family as Jews in the dying years of the Romanov dynasty." --Douglas Smith, author of Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy

Shortly after her father's death, Elisa Brodinsky Miller uncovered a cache of letters among his belongings. Written in Russian and Yiddish, with datelines in Tsarist and early Soviet Russia, the letters detail eight long years (1914-1922) during which Elisa's father, his five siblings, and their mother spend apart from Elisa's grandfather who had left for America, believing their separation would be short.

Miller, a Russian affairs specialist, learns bit by bit with each translation about the family she knew so little about, and the eight years of history they lived through, enabling her for the first time to connect her own experiences with those who came before her. This captivating memoir bridges the past with the present, as we learn about her grandparents' struggles to escape Tsarist Russia, her parents' hopes for their marriage in America, and her own reach for meaning and purpose: each a generation with dreams--first theirs, now hers.

Author Biography

Elisa Brodinsky Miller, PhD, has a long career in Russian Far East business and trade: both in academia (University of Washington) and in the business community. Based in Seattle, her monthly publication, Russian Far East Update (1991-1999) provided commercial intelligence on the Russian Far East for a global readership. Alongside her newsletter, she published four editions of The Russian Far East: A Business Reference Guide. She presently works in graphic narrative and lives on Whidbey Island in the State of Washington.