Book Review - Glorious People
Set during the final decades of the Soviet Union, Sasha Salzmann’s second novel — originally published in 2021 as Im Menschen muss alles herrlich sein — explores migration, integration, identity and intergenerational relationships, following the intertwined fates of two Russian-speaking Ukrainian women called Lena and Tatyana. As a child in the 1970s, Lena visits her grandmother in Sochi, where she helps her pick and sell hazelnuts. Then she is sent to a Pioneer summer camp, where she learns how to be a good socialist. Her mother is sick, so Lena watches in despair as her parents pool their savings in order to ensure they can pay the bribes and afford the drugs prescribed by an unethical local doctor. Lena resolves to train as a neurologist but initially finds her route into medical school blocked. With perestroika, corruption and patronage become endemic. The title, Glorious People , is taken from Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, the great playwright’s examination of thwarted dreams a