Breaking Through

…the world weeps, and mortal matters move the heart.

Nowadays, I am acutely aware of the power of transgenerational trauma that has come to life in new circumstances. I feel like it's getting scary to speak openly. This is what was passed down to me from my ancestors from the USSR, what the people already lived during the oppressive Stalin years.” Finding a Voice recounts a special day in the life of Elena Ozerova: her ten-year-old son's graduation from elementary school. “Last week,” she writes, “my son asked me to explain what is happening between Russia and Ukraine. He wants to know: Are we good or bad? Are we attacking or defending? My son is no longer a small child but not yet an adult. He wants to draw together with his classmates, write letters (to the soldiers), be a good kid and send sweets to the defenders of the country. He wants to feel like a part of something good.” Ozerova writes from Moscow, but as a mother, she could easily be writing these words from New York, Jerusalem, or Kabul.

“The country he dreams of being a part of is kind and noble, driven by justice and dignity, where people live in peace and travel the world…I love my son very much and I love my country, but to my regret, this ideal country has never existed.” Ozerova's anguish is being felt the world over.

Cosimo Schinaia also wonders if the country “indelibly fixed” in his mind ever even existed. In Memories of My Vanished Birthplace, he recalls the Ionian shore where, as a small boy, “We saw the beach starting from the top, with golden dunes covered by white wild lilies, and then going down, after the rows of wooden cabins and the mills with roofs of reed, in a large shoreline ending in the transparent seawater.” Now it is a “dead and terrifying place” decimated by pollution. Had he been dreaming? “Was I seeking an idealized beach that was all mine, a place in my mind, an image distorted by the deceptive memory of some