May You Live In Interesting Times: A New World

 

May You Live In Interesting Times: A New World: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1949 to 1960. Coming Labor Day from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books. The fourth and last volume of the Ostrogorsky - Ivanauskas family history and archive distilled from nine hundred family photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, World War II Allied bombing, and train and transport ship journeys to the New World. Available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller.

The first three volumes have been published by Blue Parrot Books. Volume One, May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Family Memoir and Archive Circa 1885 to 1960, traces the arc of family history from the depths of Tsarist Russia to a new world of 1950s America. War and revolution chase the family out of their ancestral home in old Russian to refuge in central Europe to post-World War II transport ships bound for a new home in a new world. Volume Two, May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945, focuses on the volatile period from the end of World War I to the end of World War II, 1918 to 1945. Volume Three, May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1945 to 1950, covers the immediate post-World War II period 1945 to 1950, when the Ostrogorsky - Ivanauskas family resided in displaced persons camps in Kempten, Germany while searching for a new home in a new world, and where most importantly to me, my mother and father happened to walk into the same café and ended up dancing with each other.

Volume Four covers the period 1949 to 1960 when the family relocated to Canada and the United States, when my parents married to start a new life in a new world. 8.5 x 11 hardcover. 164 pages. ISBN 978-0-578-91983-6.

May You Live In Interesting Times -- Purported Chinese Curse

 

May You Live In Interesting Times -- purported Chinese curse. In the process of wrapping up my Covid winter project, a four volume family history and archive distilled from nine hundred family photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing.

This collection includes hundreds of family photographs and letters, as well as documents from Russia's post-Tsarist Bolshevik government, the Russian White Army, assorted military officials during the Russian Civil War, the French Consul of Constantinople, the British and French Red Cross Missions in Constantinople, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the German occupation government of Yugoslavia, the Nazi Third Reich, the U.S. Military Government of Germany, the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the International Refugee Organization, the U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile, and any number of private refugee relief organizations.

First two volumes covering the years 1918 to 1945 have been published by Seattle's Blue Parrot Books. Blue Parrot Books will publish the third volume, 1945 to 1950, July 4th. The final volume, covering the 1950s, to be published this fall by Blue Parrot Books.

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945.

Coming from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books April 15th, second of a four volume family history and archive distilled from a collection of 900 photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing. Available for pre-order now from your favorite bookseller.

This second volume presents the collection covering the volatile period from the end of World War I to the end of World War II, 1918 to 1945, and includes documents issued by Russia's post-Tsarist Bolshevik government, the Russian White Army, assorted military officials during the Russian Civil War, the French Consul of Constantinople, the British and French Red Cross Missions in Constantinople, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the German occupation government of Yugoslavia, the Nazi Third Reich, and the U.S. Military Government of Germany.

ISBN 9780578867533 8.5 x 11.0 hardcover. 184 pages.

The War to End All Wars

The War to End all Wars that ended 100 years ago today did not end my grandfather's war. As Tsarist Russia collapsed into revolution and civil war, my grandfather, Vasilly, a Tsarist Cavalry Captain of Engineers, joined up with the anti-Bolshevik White Army to continue fighting for another two long years.

Grandfather is the dapper officer right front with the cavalry boots. The rather tall man in the center of the first photo is Baron Pyotr Wrangel, the last White Army general.

Grandfather right front again. Presumably these officers are Baron Wrangel's command staff.

Wounded in combat in the Crimea on the southern front grandfather found himself in a field hospital. There he met a charming White Army nurse named Maria. The rest, as they say, is history.

With the collapse of Baron Wrangel's army in 1920, Vasilly and Maria fled with their baby daughter Vera, my aunt, to Constantinople. As the War for Independence engulfed Turkey they fled again to Belgrade in the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where my dad, Vasilly Junior, was born in 1922.