Last Letter from Moscow is a captivating narrative that combines the pace of a thriller with the depth of historical memoir. Abrasha Rotenberg, born in Teofipol, a village in Ukraine within the former Soviet Union, was a direct witness to some of the most tumultuous events of the 20th century: the Russian Revolution, communism, Nazism, and later, Peronism and the establishment of the State of Israel. His life is an emblematic journey of exile, filled with challenges and contradictions.
From his childhood under the newly established Bolshevik regime, to his first migration to the city of Magnitogorsk in the Ural Mountains—where his young eyes witnessed Stalin's grand experiment in industrialization—and his experiences in Moscow, the epicenter of Soviet power, the author recreates a dizzying universe.
The story of the protagonist, a de facto orphan, takes a dramatic turn when he manages to leave the Soviet Union with his mother, heading to Buenos Aires to reunite with a father he knew only through photographs. Decades later, while exiled in Spain, the author and his wife, Dina, meet a Spanish couple in a small town in the Sierra de Madrid. During this casual encounter, he shares fragments of his life, now enriched with new perspectives and challenges.
Two letters shape the course of events: the first, in 1947, delivers the devastating news of the narrator's family being murdered by the Nazis. The second, twenty years later, initiates a correspondence laden with suspicion and tension. This epistolary exchange, alongside the fraught relationship between father and son, creates a tense atmosphere that culminates in an unexpected and striking conclusion.
Last Letter from Moscow is a story that explores the weight of memory, the pain of uprooting, and the scars of the past, while reflecting on the complexities of identity and human relationships. A must-read for those seeking to understand the profound changes of the 20th century through the life of a singular author.
