Grisha's Loop - My Slavic Saga

Grisha' s Loop -My Slavic Saga: From the Bolshevik Revolution to America -A story of Courage and Survival is based on Gregoire Ivanovich Samoylenko's unfinished autobiography, My Slavic Saga, which he wrote in the early 1930's with the help of his friend, Arthur Cornwall Knapp. This is the story of Gregory's childhood, and subsequent involvement in the Russian Revolution as a soldier in the Tsar's army. He is forced to abandon his engineering studies at Petrograd University when he is conscripted into military service to defend his country. He experiences a nomadic journey through Russia and the Black Sea witnessing the horrific ravages of war and individual abuse. The boy grows into a man, never forgetting the extended family who raised him.

Love, loss, intrigue, and danger beset Gregory's path. Eventually he escapes to America, settles in Boston, marries, and raises a family. Yet, his haunting nightmares compel him to record his thoughts and feelings in an effort to lessen the terrifying memories of his past. Marsha Samoylenko Denison, Gregory's daughter, extends her Ukrainian father's epic journey further through the prism of her own personal recollections. In so doing, she preserves treasured memories for future generations.

Marsha Denison was born in Boston and grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. She received a B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts, and her M.A. degree in Gerontology from St Joseph's College in Connecticut. She has published two books, "Grisha's Loop" in 2016, and "My Name is Buttons-and this is My Story" in 2023. Grisha's Loop is a memoir of her immigrant father's life and escape from Russia in 1922. The author has two daughters and now lives in Maine.