Soul to Soul: A Black Russian American Family 1865-1992

by Yelena Khanga, Susan Jacoby

The granddaughter of two American communists--one black, one white--who settled in the Soviet Union in 1931, retraces her family's history, from a former slave in Mississippi to the rise of a democratic Russia

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Russia, Biography, Judaism, Russian Literature

318 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1992

About the author

Yelena Khanga (Russian: Елена Абдулаевна Ханга), also known as Elena Hanga, is a Russian-born journalist who was raised in Moscow, USSR, and came to the United States in 1990 to write (with Susan Jacoby) Soul to Soul: The Story of a Black Russian American Family: 1865–1992. Khanga divides her time between New York City and Moscow.

See Елена Ханга

Reviews

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote my second term paper about the ultimate fusion of three very unlikely identities into the Soviet mold. This piece is quite a story after the movie was circulating, where suddenly, one of the "purple polka-dotted" children of Soviet Russia had surfaced, and suddenly, the culture had to catch up with it. This was a time where women were encouraged to have as many children as they could sustain to fuel the Soviet Union labor force, and for all minorities to come and join the workers of the world, where there was a place where they were only judged by their contributions as workers, not minority status. However, this examines Khanga's story. Now, a famous Oprah equivalent in Russia, she has this autobiographical text to show her experience and to encourage further examination of identity and the Russian ideal.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good book for learning more about the Soviet culture from the perspective of one of its citizens as she looks at her own family background. Khanga does a good job of describing her life in Russia and her encounter with her extended family in America. She also chronicles changes to Soviet life directly after Glasnost. I note that the title of the book I read is "Soul to Soul: A Black Russian Jewish Woman's Search for her Roots."

[Shelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I initially tracked down this book because of the subject matter, Russians of African American descent. But it is also an important documentation of the changes the journalism profession went through during the glasnost period and the years immediately following. It's sad and frightening to read the author's optimistic account of that time and to see what has happened to Russian free speech and journalism in the intervening 30 years.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot better than I thought I would. It was very readable, very relatable, and it had some very funny moments. Imagine, being a black woman in the Soviet Union, a black American woman, third generation Russian, who is often the only one of her kind in her school, her tennis club, her university classes, etc. This is NON-Fiction, and both eye-opening and likable.

[Cyril · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and thought provoking. It is always fascinating to see your own culture from the outside. The Soviet experiment has always been a captivating topic, and learning about it from someone who grew up within it, yet with the capacity for contrast with American democracy, did not disappoint.

[Roberta Seitzman]

Interesting non fiction about a Black Russian Jewish woman and her family from the USA.

[Lious Moco · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very intriguing autobiography with a lot of historical important informations

[Marcia Van Camp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yelena Khanga has a fascinating family history. Her grandmother was Jewish and emigrated to the U.S. from Poland as a young girl, and her grandfather was African American the son of a former slave. These amazing individuals met in New York where they were both fighting for various workers’ rights. They fell in love, but with the country being what it was, racism and anti-Semitism, not to mention miscegenation laws, it was really hard for them to be together. Amazingly, it was easier to live in the USSR where there was no segregation. They had a daughter, and she married a man from Zanzibar. They had a daughter, and thus, Yelena Khanga was born. Her perspective on politics and race relations in both the U.S. and USSR pre and post the Cold War was really interesting to read. She was trained as a journalist to write a certain, approved way in the USSR, but then during the thaw had to completely change her methods to be more like investigative journalists in the U.S. I would really love to meet her!
After the Cold War ended she was able to travel in the USA and discover more about both sides of her family, cousins she had, older generations who disapproved of her grandparents were gone, and so she was able to connect with so many people. She was even able to travel to Zanzibar to visit her father’s homeland as well.
Here are some of the things I found interesting:
1. Yelena reminds the reader of how strong anti-Semitism was at the turn of the century and she made an interesting observation. She said that blacks and Jews should have a lot of common ground because they knew what it meant to feel fear in America. It was not strange to her that her grandparents got together because they were experiencing many of the same problems.
2. Yelena’s grandfather worked with Washington Carver to get a group together of black agricultural specialist to travel to the USSR to help them improve their crops. Some were interested in Communism but for the most part they went because the pay was much better than they could get in the U.S.
3. In the fifth grade, Yelena and her classmates learned the “I have a dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King. This scene, right in the middle of the Cold War is so fascinating to me because thinking of those children with their adorable accents trying to match his cadence is delightful to think about. It’s also amazing to me that Yelena escaped so much of the hate that her descents experienced by being born and raised in Russia.
4. Yelena relates many stories about how difficult it was to not have a community of other black people to be around growing up. She said, for example, that she never knew how to take care of her hair growing up, and so her mother would cut it short and stuff pillows with it. There were no magazines to show her what to do, and certainly no products in the USSR that would have helped her.
5. Many interesting people visited Yelena’s family such as Langston Hughes, and even a man from Kremlin, VA. I feel I must travel there some day.

[Paul Brandel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished reading this fine memior by Yelena Khanga. What a fine
retelling of her biracial family history. She mentions hold its rude
in America to ask about how much one paid for their home,but talking
about sex was fine. In Russia it's the other way around.
Yelena stated that growing up in Russia she experience little
racism.But ant-semitism was another matter.Her points on Americans
racism was on point. She is very balanced talking not just the
white bigotry,but black bigotry too.

Well worth my few hours to read SOUL TO SOUL.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elena Khanga, a Russian TV talk show host in the 90s, tells the story of her fascinating ancestry. Her mother was the daughter of a Jewish woman and a black American man who had come to the USSR during the Depression to escape racism and work in the modernization of agriculture. Her father was a student from Africa studying in the USSR. All of this makes her mostly black, and Jewish, and also native Russian -- a combination that gives her a unique outlook.

[Rabin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Wrote more about this at the Boldvoyager blog. Read this years ago and changed a lot of my thoughts on how far the African diaspora reached. Have heard her speak in person and the Russian accent coming from a woman of African descent tripped out a lot of brothas and sistahs.

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intersting story. The author has an amazing heritage.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating, excellent, great story, well written