How the Cherry Orchard Was Cut, or The Long Road from Bad Ems

In a new book dedicated to the memory of the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences archivist in New York, Oksana Miyakovska-Radysh (1919–2020), Oksana Zabuzhko turns to her favorite genre — a mix of memoir, literary investigation, and intellectual detective. The reader is invited to follow a fascinating route spanning a century and a half, from a family photo in a New York living room to the Ukrainian Taganrog and children's performances of "Moskal the Magician" in the Chekhov's house, to find an answer to one of the main questions of today: what lessons of history were missed in the 19th century, Ukraine is forced to pay even in the 21st?