A vividly intense and personal saga.... It stirred such powerful emotions..."
-Marina Romanov, grandniece of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
One Hundred Years of Exile: A Romanov's Search for Her Father's Russia is the story of one woman's journey through 100 years of history to find peace with her father. Tania Romanov Amochaev and her father were both exiled from their homelands as infants; both knew life in refugee camps. Their shared fate does not lead to mutual understanding.
The family's immigration to San Francisco heralded a promising new future-but while Tania just wanted to be an American, her father could not trust that this was his final asylum. His fears and his resistance to assimilation leave Tania with deep resentment toward him and her Russian heritage. Decades later, his unexpected death exposes Tania's open wounds and a host of unanswered questions about her father and his story.
A serendipitous meeting with a last surviving member of the Russian royal family, followed by a baffling error that miraculously connects her with unknown relatives, catapults Tania on a quest for answers in her father's homeland.
Tania's story proves inseparable from Russia's, featuring Cossacks who fled revolution, a family who survived Stalin, and a family of royal exiles, culminating in a meeting between princess and peasant.
One Hundred Years of Exile is a moving story of how revisiting the past can bring not only forgiveness and redemption, but something far more powerful as well.
"Romanov has situated her absorbing story exactly at the intersection of history and memoir. It's a wonderful read."
-Tamim Ansary, author of Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
Table of Contents:
Part One
Chapter 1 A Royal Romanov
Chapter 2 Russia calling
Part Two
Chapter 3 A Determined Daria
Chapter 4 Daria meets her future husband
Chapter 5 Ivan decides
Chapter 6 Turnabout
Chapter 7 Married life
Chapter 8 The other Romanova
Chapter 9 WWI and Revolution
Chapter 10 The Revolution
Chapter 11 Leaving Kulikov
Chapter 12 Flight
Chapter 13 On to Crimea
Map
Chapter 14 Leaving a Homeland
Chapter 15 Lemnos 1920
Chapter 16 Meanwhile in Russia
Chapter 17 The ones who stayed
Part Three
Chapter 18 In Yugoslavia
Chapter 19 Tolya's New Homeland
Chapter 20 Refugees, Again
Chapter 21 An Intolerable interlude
Chapter 22 Becoming American
Chapter 23 Understanding Tolya
Chapter 24 1977 - My First Visit to the Homeland
Part Four
Chapter 25 Two family trees
Chapter 26 Logistics
Chapter 27 Meeting the Amochaevs
Chapter 28 Ghenya
Chapter 29 Russia immersion
Chapter 30 Amochaevskiy is real?
Chapter 31 Backwater capital
Chapter 32 Kulikovskiy
Chapter 33 Serp I Molot
Chapter 34 Unlikely encounters
Chapter 35 Amochaevskiy
Chapter 36 Crimea
Chapter 37 Livadia and the Romanovs
Chapter 38 Evpatoria
Chapter 39 Moscow
Chapter 40 The ties that bind us
About the Author :
Tania Romanov Amochaev is the author of Mother Tongue: A Saga of Three Generations of Balkan Women and Never a Stranger, a collection of travel essays. She has won Solas Awards for her stories, and her work has been featured in multiple travel anthologies, including the Best Travel Writing series.
Born in the former Yugoslavia, Tania fled the country and spent her childhood in a refugee camp in Trieste, Italy, before immigrating to the United States. Tania attended San Francisco public schools, and grew up in the city's Russian community. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Tania forged a successful business career in high tech, serving as CEO of three companies. She also earned an MS in Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and received an honorary PhD from Saint Catherine University.
Tania lives in San Francisco and Sonoma County.
Review :
“In a vividly intense and personal saga, Tania Romanov transcends the societal differences of old Mother Russia, bringing to life our determined grandparents and the pain history dealt them. Her story weaves through our shared Russian heritage to a uniquely American immigrant experience which broke the barriers of class structure. It stirred such powerful emotions that I had to occasionally just put the book down and let them sweep through me.” —Marina Romanov, grandniece of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
“Romanov has situated her absorbing story exactly at the intersection of history and memoir. We see a tapestry of monumental events stretching from the last days of Tzarist rule in Russia through tumults of war and revolution to the near-destruction of an entire people, the Don Cossacks. But we see this vast story as a fabric woven of individual lives: the private stories of vividly realized characters, picking their way through history. It's a wonderful read. —Tamim Ansary, author of West of Kabul, East of New York and Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
“In this wonderfully written, intensely personal recap of a complicated history, Tania Romanov paints a beautiful portrait of family and immigrant life here and in war-torn Europe. From her poetic descriptions of Russian celebrations to the bittersweet memories of her father’s photography at the refugee camp where her family was held for years, she creates a sweeping narrative full of darkness, light, and beauty.” —Linda Watanabe McFerrin, author of Navigating the Divide and Dead Love
“One Hundred Years of Exile is travelogue, history lesson, personal journey rolled into one, and a riveting read. Tania Romanov not only introduces a cast of characters as fascinating and complex (and with such names!) as those of Tolstoy, but in telling a private story also makes real the overwhelming march of Russia from the 20th century to today. Rebellions, world wars, Red vs. White Russians, revolution—from the toppling and assassination of a Tsar to the genocide of whole peoples, including the Cossacks from whom she descended—Bolshevism to Communism to the post-Soviet Union Russia, the story unfolds through the lives of those who lived it. In the end, we are left not only enlightened, but with compelling questions about our own ‘creation myths’ and the meaning of family.” —Joanna Biggar, author of That Paris Year and Melanie’s Song
