The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine

The three main characters’ historical settings influence their understandings of themselves. Because Matthew, Mila, and Helen are all 12 and 13 years old, they’re all coming of age in the narrative present of their respective chapters. Therefore, their environmental, political, and social backdrops affect how they see their identities. In Matthew’s chapters, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic influences how he sees the world and himself. In Mila’s chapters, Joseph Stalin’s rule and the 1933 Holodomor affect how she navigates her world and understands her place in it. In Helen’s chapters, the 1933 Great Depression in the US impacts her understanding of herself and her family. Matthew, Mila, and Helen are all living through what Matthew’s dad refers to as “real history” (27). The more that Matthew learns about Mila and Helen’s experiences via his great-grandmother’s stories, the more important history becomes to his life in the present. In his storyline, GG’s boxes of diaries, letters, articles, and official documents offer Matthew a living gateway into this history. The boxes are a direct connection to GG’s past and, therefore, to Matthew’s ancestors’ lives in Ukraine and New York.