Before, during, and after World War II, Maria Savchyn Pyskir served in the Ukrainian Underground resistance. Her dramatic and poignant memoir tells of her recruitment into underground service at age 14, her participation in resistance activities during the War, her bittersweet marriage to revolutionary leader “Orlan,” her struggle against Stalinist forces, and her captures by and escapes from the KGB. In the 1950s when she escaped to the West, she began these memoirs, which were not published in Ukrainian until after the fall of the Soviet Union. Their appearance in Ukrainian caused a sensation, as she remains the only survivor of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to have told her tale, now offered in English. Pyskir, whose escape came at the cost of her husband, children, and family, recreates in her memoir an astonishing account of her experiences as a Ukrainian partisan, a woman, a wife, a mother, and an outcast from her own land. The book contains maps, many of the author’s own photographs, and a foreword by John A. Armstrong.

After immigrating to the United States, Maria Savchyn Pyskir remarried and raised a second family. She lives in Wauwatose, Wisconsin.

Born in the Ukraine, translator Ania Savage fled the country with her family after World War II. Now an award-winning journalist and member of the University of Denver faculty, she lives in Denver, Colorado, and is also the author of three hiking books, mountaineering being her avocation.

Maria Savchyn Pyskir

Translated by Ania Savage

Foreword by John A. Armstrong

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 243
Bibliographic Info: photos, index
Copyright Date: 2001
pISBN: 978-0-7864-0764-4
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5066-4
Imprint: McFarland

• “Captivating”—Public Library Quarterly
• “Dramatic…fascinating memoir…countless interesting details…captivating”—Seer
• “Highly recommended”—Argunners Magazine