Zuleikha

A story of hardship and struggle of a Tartar woman in the first years of the Soviet Union during the Stalin purges. It is a story of Zuleikha's remarkable transformation from a submissive and unhappy young woman who despises her husband and mother-in-law to a vibrant woman who learns to hunt, fish, farm and love in the Siberian wilderness. Although the novel is extremely critical of the hardships of the Stalin regime it also emphasises the goodwill and compassion of many representatives of the Soviet society

This was a wonderfully immersive reading experience, or maybe I was just in the right frame of mind to be swept up by a story. Zuleikha is old-school linear storytelling, and there is something grand and epic about it. It has grueling hardship, formative guilt, a slow building love story, haunting ghosts and desperate fights for survival. We encounter the Russian peasant experience, a journey across the country, the coldness of the Siberian Taiga alongside with memorable characters that experience memorable transformations.

The story spans about 2 decades (~1930-1948) and follows Tatar women Zuleikha, who's life gets uprooted when her abusive husband is killed for hiding grain from the state. Swept up in the Soviet campaign of dekulakization, she and other political dissidents are sent to Sibiria, to start a new labour camp, a gulag. The life conditions are punishing and most perish during their first winter. Yet strict and aloof commandant Ignatov, who's battling his demons of guilt, drives them to establish shelter and to set up a strict food and firewood regime. Slowly the settlement takes shape, and they find their way of living, in this harsh isolated environment.

I love that the original Russian title for the novel translates to “Zuleikha opens her eyes”, which is also the first line of the book. And when the line returns towards the end of the story, it speaks to the slow transformation she has undergone. How she found her freedom and worth in the hardships she had to undergo.