JRT:
Book offers new look at Boston History – in Russian
There is a new book out there for the thousands of Russian-speaking Americans. Entitled “From Boston – About Boston”, it is the first book that tells the Boston’a complete history in Russian.Written by Ella Gorlova – a native Russian speaker and Brookline resident who has lived in the area for more than 30 years, the book tells the city’s 375 history from its beginning in 16-th century England to the present day Big Dig project.
It describes what Boston was like during the Revolution and the Civil War, introduces readers to the structure of the city’s government including the complete list of its mayors. The book also tells about Boston’s historic neighborhoods, from the Back Bay to the North End, and the city’s cultural institutions, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Isabella Stuart Gasrdner Museum, the Atheneum Library (which collection led to the founding of the Boston Public Library and the Museum of the Fine Arts) and the Christian Science Church.
“I wanted my former compatriots to learn more about Boston’s history and by it to understand more about American life”, - said the book’s author, Ella Gorlova.
Her 420-page book which was published last September in St. Petersburg, Russia, goes beyond translating accounts of Bostonian history from English to Russian. Many parts of the book are based on Gorlova’s own search in local archives and libraries and her firsthand experience as a structural engineer who worked for a long time on various projects in Boston including the Big Dig project. The comprehensive story about the Atheneum Library which is the oldest private library in the United States and possesses the original copy of the King James Bible, as well as description of the Boston’s Holocaust Memorial and its creator – Stanley Saltowitz, are described in the Gorlova’s book with many interesting details The turbulent story of the design and construction of the John Hancock Tower is presented with a keen engineering analysis of a professional engineer but in a very amusing way.
Ella Gorlova and her husband Alexander Gorlov, now a professor at Northeastern University of Boston were among the first Soviet refugees to arrive in Boston in 1970-s, obliged to flee their homeland by the KGB due to their friendship with prominent dissidents and human right activists in the former USSR. After more than 20 years of having worked as a professional structural engineer at various Boston engineering companies Gorlova turned to the local history. She authored the first Russian-language book about Cape Cod “Cape Cod: Its Towns and Their History” which was published several years ago and is currently working on a volume about Brookline.
“From Boston – About Boston” is available for sale at the “Petropol” book store on Beacon Street in Brookline.
Here is Table of Contents of the book translated into English by the author.
posted by: jrtelegraph
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