The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine

Mila Lomachenko is one of the primary characters in the 1930s storyline. Her first-person account appear in chapters interspersed between those of the other characters. In 1933, Mila is 12 years old and living in Kyiv, Ukraine, with her father, Lev Lomachenko. Her mother died giving birth to her, so Mila is entirely reliant upon her father for her sense of home and family. She is a member of the Young Pioneers group and values the lessons she has learned about Papa Stalin and the Soviet Union. Her sense of truth and reality are, therefore, inspired by her familial and social contexts. Because her father is an important Party member, she lives a comfortable lifestyle defined by luxury and privilege. She takes private piano lessons, gorges herself on specialty chocolates, and cuddles with her father, listening to his tales about Soviet glory. Therefore, Mila feels confused and skeptical when Nadiya shows up on her doorstep, insisting that she is Lev’s niece, that her father is Lev’s brother, and that her whole family recently starved to death. Mila does everything in her power to disprove Nadiya’s story because she doesn’t want to believe that her father has been lying to her. He’s told her that he is an orphan and doesn’t have any family. He’s also convinced her that all kulaks like Nadiya are deceitful, wicked, manipulative, and greedy.

The more time that Mila spends with Nadiya, the more she learns about her true origins. She not only discovers that Nadiya is in fact her cousin, but also that her whole family are kulaks. She also learns that her father betrayed and disowned his parents, four brothers, and their families to protect himself. These discoveries change how Mila sees herself and her relationship with her father: She later learns that he’s deemed a traitor and killed by the secret police.

Mila takes Nadiya’s identity after Nadiya dies in the orphanage, and this experience changes Mila’s life forever. For the rest of her life, Mila keeps this secret. In Matthew’s portions of the novel, he discovers that his great-grandmother GG is actually Mila, highlighting The Impact of the Past on the Present. Matthew is the first person to whom GG reveals this lifelong secret about her identity. Ultimately, revealing the truth frees GG and allows her to die in peace.

Helen Lomachenko is one of the primary characters in the 1930s storyline. Her first-person account features in named chapters interspersed with those of the other characters. Like Matthew and Mila, Helen is a dynamic character, which means that she changes throughout the novel. At the start of her storyline, 12-year-old Helen is living in Brooklyn, New York, with her father, mother, and younger brother, Peter. The country is in the midst of the Great Depression, but Helen’s primary concern is fitting in at school. She often defies her parents because she doesn’t want others to make fun of her for how she looks, talks, and dresses, and even for what she eats. However, Helen’s perspective begins to change after Pop has a heart attack and Mama reveals how much their family is actually struggling. Helen learns that they have had to rely on neighbors and friends for financial support and that Pop is perpetually worried about his brother Mykola’s family’s dire situation in Ukraine.

Helen’s character changes the more that she invests in her family’s and community’s stories, highlighting How Family Stories Shape Identity. She not only sends her precious cross necklace to her cousins’ family in Ukraine but starts to record her neighbors’ accounts of the Ukrainian famine. She also develops a friendship with her classmate Ruth, which helps her to see herself differently and to embrace her identity. Because Helen is an empathetic and sensitive character, she is eager to help her cousin Nadiya. She welcomes Nadiya when she arrives in Brooklyn and treats her like a sister. Nadiya pulls away from Helen over the years because she’s hiding the truth of her identity. Despite Nadiya’s withholding, Helen doesn’t give up on her and continues writing to her over the years. Helen also devotes her life to collecting and preserving the stories of her Ukrainian people, proving how important history is to her self-understanding.

Nadiya Lomachenko is a secondary character. She appears in Matthew, Mila, and Helen’s chapters of the novel and lives during the 1930s storyline. Nadiya is one of Mila’s and Helen’s cousins. Her father is Mykola, one of the five Lomachenko brothers. After Mykola is arrested and sent to Siberia, he dies, leaving Nadiya, her mother, and her two brothers, Mykola and Antin, to fend for themselves. After Nadiya appears at Mila’s house, she relays the entirety of her story to her cousin. She informs Mila that the police sent the family to a collective farm, where her mother and brothers starved to death. Nadiya fled this situation and came to Mila’s family because she had no other options and her mother thought Lev would take mercy on her.

Although Nadiya has lost everything, she is a strong, resilient, and determined character. She does everything in her power to survive while maintaining a kind and patient demeanor. Mila forms a close bond with her throughout their time together in Kyiv and is devastated when Nadiya dies of typhus. Everyone believes that Mila is in fact Nadiya until GG reveals the truth to Matthew. Although GG feels guilty for her secret, she has ultimately preserved Nadiya’s memory by inhabiting her identity throughout her life.

Matthew’s dad is a minor character, who features in the margins of Matthew’s storyline. Throughout the narrative present, Matthew misses his dad, who is stuck is stuck overseas in Paris during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dad is a journalist, who loves to research and write. He encourages Matthew to start a journaling practice of his own because he believes that writing might help Matthew to make sense of what he’s experiencing. Although Matthew only communicates with Dad on the phone, Dad’s character is a force of change in Matthew’s storyline and highlights The Challenges of Widespread Crises. He is patient and encouraging and helps Matthew to navigate his unprecedented circumstances. He gives his son advice throughout the novel which helps Matthew to think about himself and his life in new ways.