What do you think?
Rate this book
On Our Way Home from the Revolution: Reflections on Ukraine
In 2014 Sonya Bilocerkowycz is a tourist at a deadly revolution. At first she is enamored with the Ukrainians’ idealism, which reminds her of her own patriotic family. But when the romantic revolution melts into a war with Russia, she becomes disillusioned, prompting a return home to the US and the diaspora community that raised her. As the daughter of a man who studies Ukrainian dissidents for a living, the granddaughter of war refugees, and the great-granddaughter of a gulag victim, Bilocerkowycz has inherited a legacy of political oppression. But what does it mean when she discovers a missing page from her family’s survival story—one that raises questions about her own guilt?
In these linked essays, Bilocerkowycz invites readers to meet a swirling cast of post-Soviet characters, including a Russian intelligence officer who finds Osama bin Laden a few weeks after 9/11; a Ukrainian poet whose nose gets broken by Russian separatists; and a long-lost relative who drives a bus into the heart of Chernobyl. On Our Way Home from the Revolution muddles our easy distinctions between innocence and complicity, agency and fate.
In these linked essays, Bilocerkowycz invites readers to meet a swirling cast of post-Soviet characters, including a Russian intelligence officer who finds Osama bin Laden a few weeks after 9/11; a Ukrainian poet whose nose gets broken by Russian separatists; and a long-lost relative who drives a bus into the heart of Chernobyl. On Our Way Home from the Revolution muddles our easy distinctions between innocence and complicity, agency and fate.
232 pages, Paperback
First published September 23, 2019
16 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
Sonya Bilocerkowycz
1 book11 followersSonya Bilocerkowycz is the author of On Our Way Home from the Revolution (OSU Press/Mad Creek Books, 2019), selected by David Lazar and Patrick Madden as winner of the Gournay Prize for a debut essay collection.
Sonya's writing has appeared in Colorado Review, Guernica, The Southampton Review, Ninth Letter, Image, Lit Hub, Crab Orchard Review, The Normal School, and elsewhere. Before completing her MFA at Ohio State, she served as a Fulbright Fellow in Belarus, an educational recruiter in the Republic of Georgia, and an instructor at Ukrainian Catholic University in L'viv. She is originally from the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Currently, Sonya teaches creative writing at SUNY Geneseo and is a senior editor for the journal of Speculative Nonfiction. She has been named a 2022 Creative Writing Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts and is at work on a second book.
Sonya's writing has appeared in Colorado Review, Guernica, The Southampton Review, Ninth Letter, Image, Lit Hub, Crab Orchard Review, The Normal School, and elsewhere. Before completing her MFA at Ohio State, she served as a Fulbright Fellow in Belarus, an educational recruiter in the Republic of Georgia, and an instructor at Ukrainian Catholic University in L'viv. She is originally from the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Currently, Sonya teaches creative writing at SUNY Geneseo and is a senior editor for the journal of Speculative Nonfiction. She has been named a 2022 Creative Writing Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts and is at work on a second book.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 20, 2022
I picked up this book this morning and have hardly put it down, that is how enthralled I became. From the back cover: “As the daughter of a man who studies Ukrainian dissidents for a living, the granddaughter of war refugees, and the great-granddaughter of a gulag victim, Bilocerkowycz has inherited a legacy of political oppression.”
Describing her Ukrainian grandmother’s kitchen, Sonya Bilocerkowycz writes, “Wooden spoons showcase flavors from meals long ago.” When she talks to her grandmother over the phone, “it is part folk science, part poetry, part proverb. ‘Don’t call the devil,’ she says to me because I am whistling while waiting for her to pick up.” In Ukraine, to whistle inside is to summon evil spirits.
Regarding her last name, Bilocerkowycz, she writes, “My surname spans like a line of hills, toothing the horizon.”
In the summer of 2013, Bilocerkowycz travels to western Ukraine to teach in a university there. Her students submit essays on the European Union (EU) that are “layered and complicated.” They are conflicted, on the one hand, joining the EU “would help restrict the tyranny and kleptocracy of the ruling class,” however, it is not a quick fix, and, on the other, the students have family and friends in Russia. Perhaps it is a case of ‘the devil you know,’ as “they acknowledged that Europe was still an unknown devil.”
On the train back to Lviv from visiting the Maidan in Kyiv, “a Russian-speaking babushka” […] opens a bag of hardboiled eggs and proceeds to salt and eat them in large bites. […] Her ritual is the most complicated thing I want to think about.” She writes about being “a tourist at a revolution.”
This is interesting to think on: “Though western Ukrainians especially tend to “otherize” Russians, it is also true that by most visible markers – culture, religion, physical attributes, lifestyle – the groups aren’t so different at all.”
“In 1932-33 the Soviet authorities manufactured famine conditions by seizing grain and murdering Ukrainian peasants who attempted to keep or consume their own harvest.” It was a type of ethnic cleansing. “Stalin’s Five-Year Plan intended to jumpstart the collectivization process and rid the USSR of one of its more economically and ethnically problematic groups. Accounts from the Holodomor are the stuff of horrible nightmares.”
Meanwhile, “the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was growing.” They were not concerned with fighting for the rights of ethnic minorities, so much as setting up a sovereign Ukraine. They began assassinating high-ranking Poles and Soviets and anyone, including Ukrainians who were working collaboratively with them. They even carried out pogroms on Jewish people in Ukraine.
“According to [Yale historian] Timothy Snyder, “between 1933 and 1945 there was no more dangerous place in the world than Ukraine. More people were killed as a result of policy in Ukraine than anywhere else in the world….””
Bilocerkowycz publishes an essay on a US-based travel website that gets her noticed and suspended from her teaching job at the university. She writes, “My co-workers wanted me, the American, to understand that they understood their own government to be an undemocratic nuisance. But just because they were comfortable disparaging the dictator around me, does not mean I was in a position to disparage him myself.” She may resume her work at the university perhaps if she writes something more positive. Although she doesn’t retract the original article, she does write something ‘more positive’ and wins back her teaching position.
In mid-January of 2015, then president, Viktor “Yanukovych rams a series of anti-protest laws through parliament. On paper, Ukraine looks like a dictatorship, but in the streets people dissent.”
Then Russia annexes Crimea and tanks enter the Donbass region. This indicates that the revolution has crossed over into a full-on war.
Boris Nemtsov, a Russian physicist and liberal politician and actively opposed to Vladimir Putin was assassinated while out strolling in Moscow with his girlfriend just a short distance from the Kremlin. Funnily enough, the security cameras were out of action due to maintenance.
“The murder happened two days before a planned protest against the war in Ukraine was to be held; Nemtsov was one of its organizers.”
October 7, 2016 is the tenth anniversary of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s death. She was assassinated. “Four shots, one to the head, and a standard issue Makarov pistol. The assassin left her crumpled on the ground like a pile of dead, wet leaves, a heap of rotten leaves. Anna was a critic of the Kremlin’s war in Chechnya.” In total, at least thirty-seven journalists have been murdered since Putin’s first inauguration in 2000.
“I have heard that hope is a trap, but what if we choose it, knowingly? Is that not also our agency?”
From the chapter: “Encyclopedia of Earthly Things” - here are a few of my favorite things:
“Poppy – suggests sleep. Petals of red paper easily lost. Suggests virginity. The seeds are like fish eggs. […] The most precious things are buried inside.”
“Black soil – It is chornzem. It is burnt. It has all the acids good for growing. It is primarily composed of dead things. […] As Europe’s breadbasket, we are famous for it. […] There is a black market for chornozem. In a nutshell, we are fighting over dead cells.”
“Coal – It is the other black earth. It is a monster. We throw down good men and it swallows.” Donbass region is famous for its coal.
“An Onion - It is a ghost vegetable, which means it is everywhere and nowhere, forever and ever. Its beige papers blow across the counter when we open the back door. They collect like dead leaves between the stove and refrigerator, our own little archive.”
“The Corner of a Table – It is sharp like a cliff-face. If you’re single and hope to marry, do not sit here.”
“Kyiv, Ukraine – It is the center of old empires and new. It is the center of revolution. It is sliced in two by a groaning river, knifed by a green ravine, topped with a rainbow.”
“A dolphin – It is useful for disorientating enemy. The enemy is a moving target. […] Sevastopol is one of only two military dolphin training facilities in the world. San Diego is the other.”
“Wheat – It is the golden bar at the bottom of our flag. It lines every road and window. It comes up to our bellies. As the sixth largest producer, we are world famous for it.”
Describing her Ukrainian grandmother’s kitchen, Sonya Bilocerkowycz writes, “Wooden spoons showcase flavors from meals long ago.” When she talks to her grandmother over the phone, “it is part folk science, part poetry, part proverb. ‘Don’t call the devil,’ she says to me because I am whistling while waiting for her to pick up.” In Ukraine, to whistle inside is to summon evil spirits.
Regarding her last name, Bilocerkowycz, she writes, “My surname spans like a line of hills, toothing the horizon.”
In the summer of 2013, Bilocerkowycz travels to western Ukraine to teach in a university there. Her students submit essays on the European Union (EU) that are “layered and complicated.” They are conflicted, on the one hand, joining the EU “would help restrict the tyranny and kleptocracy of the ruling class,” however, it is not a quick fix, and, on the other, the students have family and friends in Russia. Perhaps it is a case of ‘the devil you know,’ as “they acknowledged that Europe was still an unknown devil.”
On the train back to Lviv from visiting the Maidan in Kyiv, “a Russian-speaking babushka” […] opens a bag of hardboiled eggs and proceeds to salt and eat them in large bites. […] Her ritual is the most complicated thing I want to think about.” She writes about being “a tourist at a revolution.”
This is interesting to think on: “Though western Ukrainians especially tend to “otherize” Russians, it is also true that by most visible markers – culture, religion, physical attributes, lifestyle – the groups aren’t so different at all.”
“In 1932-33 the Soviet authorities manufactured famine conditions by seizing grain and murdering Ukrainian peasants who attempted to keep or consume their own harvest.” It was a type of ethnic cleansing. “Stalin’s Five-Year Plan intended to jumpstart the collectivization process and rid the USSR of one of its more economically and ethnically problematic groups. Accounts from the Holodomor are the stuff of horrible nightmares.”
Meanwhile, “the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was growing.” They were not concerned with fighting for the rights of ethnic minorities, so much as setting up a sovereign Ukraine. They began assassinating high-ranking Poles and Soviets and anyone, including Ukrainians who were working collaboratively with them. They even carried out pogroms on Jewish people in Ukraine.
“According to [Yale historian] Timothy Snyder, “between 1933 and 1945 there was no more dangerous place in the world than Ukraine. More people were killed as a result of policy in Ukraine than anywhere else in the world….””
Bilocerkowycz publishes an essay on a US-based travel website that gets her noticed and suspended from her teaching job at the university. She writes, “My co-workers wanted me, the American, to understand that they understood their own government to be an undemocratic nuisance. But just because they were comfortable disparaging the dictator around me, does not mean I was in a position to disparage him myself.” She may resume her work at the university perhaps if she writes something more positive. Although she doesn’t retract the original article, she does write something ‘more positive’ and wins back her teaching position.
In mid-January of 2015, then president, Viktor “Yanukovych rams a series of anti-protest laws through parliament. On paper, Ukraine looks like a dictatorship, but in the streets people dissent.”
Then Russia annexes Crimea and tanks enter the Donbass region. This indicates that the revolution has crossed over into a full-on war.
Boris Nemtsov, a Russian physicist and liberal politician and actively opposed to Vladimir Putin was assassinated while out strolling in Moscow with his girlfriend just a short distance from the Kremlin. Funnily enough, the security cameras were out of action due to maintenance.
“The murder happened two days before a planned protest against the war in Ukraine was to be held; Nemtsov was one of its organizers.”
October 7, 2016 is the tenth anniversary of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s death. She was assassinated. “Four shots, one to the head, and a standard issue Makarov pistol. The assassin left her crumpled on the ground like a pile of dead, wet leaves, a heap of rotten leaves. Anna was a critic of the Kremlin’s war in Chechnya.” In total, at least thirty-seven journalists have been murdered since Putin’s first inauguration in 2000.
“I have heard that hope is a trap, but what if we choose it, knowingly? Is that not also our agency?”
From the chapter: “Encyclopedia of Earthly Things” - here are a few of my favorite things:
“Poppy – suggests sleep. Petals of red paper easily lost. Suggests virginity. The seeds are like fish eggs. […] The most precious things are buried inside.”
“Black soil – It is chornzem. It is burnt. It has all the acids good for growing. It is primarily composed of dead things. […] As Europe’s breadbasket, we are famous for it. […] There is a black market for chornozem. In a nutshell, we are fighting over dead cells.”
“Coal – It is the other black earth. It is a monster. We throw down good men and it swallows.” Donbass region is famous for its coal.
“An Onion - It is a ghost vegetable, which means it is everywhere and nowhere, forever and ever. Its beige papers blow across the counter when we open the back door. They collect like dead leaves between the stove and refrigerator, our own little archive.”
“The Corner of a Table – It is sharp like a cliff-face. If you’re single and hope to marry, do not sit here.”
“Kyiv, Ukraine – It is the center of old empires and new. It is the center of revolution. It is sliced in two by a groaning river, knifed by a green ravine, topped with a rainbow.”
“A dolphin – It is useful for disorientating enemy. The enemy is a moving target. […] Sevastopol is one of only two military dolphin training facilities in the world. San Diego is the other.”
“Wheat – It is the golden bar at the bottom of our flag. It lines every road and window. It comes up to our bellies. As the sixth largest producer, we are world famous for it.”
November 12, 2019
Absolutely loved this book. History, memoir, woven like poetry. Was hard to put to down. Read it!
May 7, 2020
This is an incredible, nearly perfect collection of essays that is also a book about revolution and collective responsibility as a form of love. Read for the voice and the echoing images and stay for the story, which is rich and intimately known.
April 26, 2023
A very personalized look at Ukraine in the time of Maidan. The author’s Ukrainian descent draws her into the actions and thinking around that and subsequent events.
The book is more suitable for browsing than straight through reading. But it’s deeply felt and often very moving.
The book is more suitable for browsing than straight through reading. But it’s deeply felt and often very moving.
lost-interest
February 25, 2024Скучно. Автор описывает свои внутренние переживания, которые, увы, основаны не на собственном мнении, а на мнении других людей, а также СМИ.
Boring. The author describes her inner experiences, which, alas, are not based on her own opinion but on the opinions of others as well as the media.
Boring. The author describes her inner experiences, which, alas, are not based on her own opinion but on the opinions of others as well as the media.
July 10, 2025
Yeah favorite book of the year by far. It weaves the reality of Ukraine into the idealism of the West on the situation so beautifully and poetically that at times I wanted to highlight a whole chapter. By golly you gotta read this one
October 22, 2019
That was the best book I read all year!
March 28, 2022
Absolutely loved this book. It was thought provoking and sincere. I couldn’t put it down!
December 30, 2022
Just not my normal read. I tried to step outside the box and it wasn’t for me. This is just my personal rating for how I liked it. Not rating the writing
December 31, 2023
i felt so seen
December 14, 2025
A pretty solid collection of essays from a personal experience with the revolution of Ukraine. Some bits were more confusing than poetic in a sense.
February 22, 2021
beautiful, sad, poignant, incredibly educational. i couldn't put this down! a collection of essays, each different but linked together through Bilocerkowycz's lens as a Ukrainian-American, as well as someone who has spent a considerable amount of time in Eastern Europe.
also Professor B was my creative writing professor who I loved so that made me want to read this book that much more :)
also Professor B was my creative writing professor who I loved so that made me want to read this book that much more :)
August 20, 2025
In a sentence: This book is a beautifully woven work of creative nonfiction reminiscent of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.
Review:
I absolutely loved this book. As a lover of memoirs, of books that explore the brutal, painful parts of ourselves and our history, of creative language, of poetry and symbolism: Sonya writes to the soul, to the ache, to the search for humanity and self and understanding. Although this work is not a direct portrait of combat- it's written from the reporter's perspective, from Sonya and her life and work- it's still completely intertwined with a complex and writhing narrative. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Tim O'Brien's works, and I believe this book should become a cornerstone of modern American literature studies. I picked it up by accident, in a little bookstore in Chicago—how noteworthy, as the Chicago-Ukrainian community is a strong influence on the author and the book— and I believe perhaps that there is something that must be written in these coincidences, as Sonya suggests in her story.
This is a story for the writers, for the diaspora, for the searchers. I hope I am given an opportunity to teach this story someday, because it seems to me to be pulling on the heart of something surely human, surely alive, surely necessary.
One of my favorite books.
Review:
I absolutely loved this book. As a lover of memoirs, of books that explore the brutal, painful parts of ourselves and our history, of creative language, of poetry and symbolism: Sonya writes to the soul, to the ache, to the search for humanity and self and understanding. Although this work is not a direct portrait of combat- it's written from the reporter's perspective, from Sonya and her life and work- it's still completely intertwined with a complex and writhing narrative. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Tim O'Brien's works, and I believe this book should become a cornerstone of modern American literature studies. I picked it up by accident, in a little bookstore in Chicago—how noteworthy, as the Chicago-Ukrainian community is a strong influence on the author and the book— and I believe perhaps that there is something that must be written in these coincidences, as Sonya suggests in her story.
This is a story for the writers, for the diaspora, for the searchers. I hope I am given an opportunity to teach this story someday, because it seems to me to be pulling on the heart of something surely human, surely alive, surely necessary.
One of my favorite books.
May 20, 2025
I wanted to understand more about the possibilities of essay collections -- interwoven? stand-alone pieces? "innovative structure"? pre-published and then assembled in a new order, or written as a collection from the start? -- so I picked up Sonya Bilocerkowycz's 2019 prizewinning book. (I also wanted to understand what Mad Creek Books publishes.)
To my surprise and delight, and because I've been trying to get my head around the relationship between Ukraine and Russia and Russian imperialism in general since the attack in 2022, this book was well-informed, personal, a fascinating read. I particularly loved "Samizdat" and any time Bilocerkowycz references her grandmother, Busia, or returns to the "Village".
To my surprise and delight, and because I've been trying to get my head around the relationship between Ukraine and Russia and Russian imperialism in general since the attack in 2022, this book was well-informed, personal, a fascinating read. I particularly loved "Samizdat" and any time Bilocerkowycz references her grandmother, Busia, or returns to the "Village".
August 23, 2020
A profound, beautifully written book. I practically devoured it in one sitting! Bilocerkowycz tells her story in prose that is at once raw and poetic, and shares experiences that are certainly unique to Ukraine and to Ukrainian-Americans, but will ring with a universal truth for any readers whose family identities/demographics have a hyphen in them and who have old war stories in their pasts.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews