Book Club Discussion Questions
For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, The History of Russia & The Soviet Union during the first half of the 20th Century and our BookBrowse Review of Stalin's Children.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
These discussion questions are designed to enhance your group's conversation
about
Stalin's Children, a riveting family history of romance, politics,
and extreme hardship in Russia, from Stalin's Soviet Union to today's Moscow.
About this book
Owen Matthews made a wonderful discovery in his parents' attic: a collection of
their love letters from the 1960s, during a six-year separation between this
reserved Englishman, Mervyn Matthews, and his lively Russian fiancée, Mila
Bibikova. Matthews barely recognized his parents in these passionate letters:
How did they meet, how did their love grow so strong, and how did it wither when
they reunited?
Mila lived through the darkest period in Russian history. Her father was
tortured and executed during Josef Stalin's purges. Her mother was sentenced to
hard labor, and Mila, three, and her elder sister Lenina, nine, were shuttled
between orphanages, nearly starving to death during World War II. Mila,
permanently disabled from her childhood neglect, was determined not just to
survive, but to thrive in her rapidly changing homeland.
Mervyn Matthews met Mila in Moscow, and he was just as infatuated with Mila as
he was with Russia itself. But after the KGB tried and failed to recruit Mervyn
as a double agent, he was expelled from the country. The couple spent the next
six years exchanging letters between Russia and England, pouring their love onto
the page. But once reunited, Mervyn and Mila's marriage could never match the
bittersweet ardor of their letters.
Owen Matthews, by discovering his parents' past, comes to terms with his own
complicated attachment to Russia.
Stalin's Children is a portrait of an
evolving country, through the eyes of one captivating family.
For discussion
- Owen Matthews writes about his mother, "the idea that the individual
could overcome seemingly impossible obstacles shaped her life" (9). What are
some of the obstacles that Mila was able to overcome in her lifetime? What
challenges was she unable to surmount?
- Matthews never had the opportunity to meet his grandfather, Boris
Bibikov. How does he manage to trace his grandfather's history? What sense
does Matthews have of his grandfather's personality?
- When Boris returned from his army service, his two-year-old daughter,
Lenina, didn't recognize him: "Little Lenina said no, that's not Daddy, and
pointed to the tin box where Martha kept her husband's lettersthat's Daddy
in there" (25). Why did letters play such an important role for the Bibikov
women: Martha, Lenina, and Mila? How did absence turn two of their husbands,
Boris and Mervyn, into a "stack of paper that equaled one human life?" (48)
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- How does the author develop themes of identity and belonging throughout the narrative?
- What role does the setting play in shaping the characters' decisions and relationships?
- Discuss how the ending reframes the events of the story. Were you surprised?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Walker & Company.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.