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The Bronski House: A Return to the Borderlands
In the summer of 1992, the exiled poet Zofia Ilinska stepped into the Belorussian village where she'd spent her childhood. It was 53 years since the day she'd been forced to flee. In part, this is the remarkable story of what she found, the account of a woman coming face-to-face with her own past. But it is also the reconstruction of a world which vanished in 1939 when Soviet tanks rolled into eastern Poland.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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139 people want to read
About the author
Philip Marsden
46 books49 followersPhilip Marsden is the author of a number of works of travel writing, fiction and non-fiction, including The Bronski House, The Spirit Wrestlers and The Levelling Sea. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and his work has been translated into fifteen languages. He lives in Cornwall.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 23, 2016
Philip Marsden has created a small masterpiece from the stories of exiled poet, Zofia Ilinska, and her mother, Helena Bronska, both Polish women whose homes were in land that is now part of Belorus. The peasants in the region were ethnically Belorussians, the borders of that part of Europe changed three times as German and Russian armies advanced and retreated, and the Bronski family were fated always to flee no matter who the invader.
Using Helena's diaries and letters as sources, Marsden vividly portrays their life in Eastern Europe from 1914 until Helena and Zofia's final flight westward in 1939. Helena and her family first fled in 1915, north to Wilno as the German armies invaded from the south in World War I. Then back home again as the Russians advanced. Then threatened by the Bolsheviks they fled to Warsaw. Backwards and forwards.
The farm house built after Helena's marriage by her husband and Zofia's father, Adam, was looted and destroyed in the 1920s by 'partisans' probably local peasants, while Adam and Helena were away. But they stayed, rebuilt, carried on, even after Adam's death on 1934, until the Russian and Nazi invasions of 1939, when Helena and her mother escaped by the slenderest of chances to England via Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden and Norway.
Helena's story is told brilliantly, the pace and colour of the prose bringing it fully alive.
Zofia's story is quieter as we enter her world of memories and begin to see the threads of the underlying sadness Marsden always felt were in her house in Cornwall, even though it operated as a hotel (he had known her and the house since his childhood).
In the early 1990s, once the former Soviet union begins to open, she plans then undertakes her journey back to her parents' former estate at Mantuski, on the River Niemen in Belorus, accompanied by Marsden, who gives himself very little space in the story - it is the story of Bronski family, and these two women in particular. Marsden is carefully unobtrusive throughout.
Two of the reviews on the back cover of the Bronski House refer to it as 'travel writing', which I find difficult to accept. It is memoir, biography, personal and cultural history. Yes, journeys were involved, many forced, the memory-journeys returning to Belorus voluntary. But not travel writing as I understand it.
Marsden's writing is superb. the book is wonderful
Highly recommended to anyone interested in this part of the world and its people.
Using Helena's diaries and letters as sources, Marsden vividly portrays their life in Eastern Europe from 1914 until Helena and Zofia's final flight westward in 1939. Helena and her family first fled in 1915, north to Wilno as the German armies invaded from the south in World War I. Then back home again as the Russians advanced. Then threatened by the Bolsheviks they fled to Warsaw. Backwards and forwards.
The farm house built after Helena's marriage by her husband and Zofia's father, Adam, was looted and destroyed in the 1920s by 'partisans' probably local peasants, while Adam and Helena were away. But they stayed, rebuilt, carried on, even after Adam's death on 1934, until the Russian and Nazi invasions of 1939, when Helena and her mother escaped by the slenderest of chances to England via Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden and Norway.
Helena's story is told brilliantly, the pace and colour of the prose bringing it fully alive.
Zofia's story is quieter as we enter her world of memories and begin to see the threads of the underlying sadness Marsden always felt were in her house in Cornwall, even though it operated as a hotel (he had known her and the house since his childhood).
In the early 1990s, once the former Soviet union begins to open, she plans then undertakes her journey back to her parents' former estate at Mantuski, on the River Niemen in Belorus, accompanied by Marsden, who gives himself very little space in the story - it is the story of Bronski family, and these two women in particular. Marsden is carefully unobtrusive throughout.
Two of the reviews on the back cover of the Bronski House refer to it as 'travel writing', which I find difficult to accept. It is memoir, biography, personal and cultural history. Yes, journeys were involved, many forced, the memory-journeys returning to Belorus voluntary. But not travel writing as I understand it.
Marsden's writing is superb. the book is wonderful
Highly recommended to anyone interested in this part of the world and its people.
September 1, 2016
What I like best about Goodreads are those times when a friend here reads and recommends a book that just knocks my socks off; especially when it is a book that I would have been unlikely to find on my own. That is the case with The Bronski House. The story unfolds like the best historical fiction yet it is really a biography/memoir of Zofia, a Polish expatriate/refugee living in England, her mother, grandmother and the loves and losses of their lives in the Borderlands of Eastern Europe from the first years of the 20th century until the Second World War. Patrick Leigh Fermoor wrote admiringly about the life of the Hungarian gentry during the same period as a visiting outsider. Marsden gives us the life of the Polish gentry from the inside through the words of Zofia and her mother Helen. Not only do we get a look inside a Dwor, the Polish manor house at the close of this way of life forever but we gain these insights from a woman's point of view.
November 5, 2007
The Bronski House is the true story of Zofia, a Polish woman who returns to her homeland in 1992 after fleeing the country in 1939, partly running from Germans and Russians, partly from constantly shifting borders. Part of the story is about her mother, Helena, coming of age during the Bolshevik revolution. The book depicts the effect of war on a wealthy family who became impoverished refugees.
It seems like all the war stories I have read recently are about displaced wealthy families. I guess peasants didn’t write and save memoirs and letters. I don’t think too many of my ancestors had the kind of money and household help that most of these people in the book did.
It seems like all the war stories I have read recently are about displaced wealthy families. I guess peasants didn’t write and save memoirs and letters. I don’t think too many of my ancestors had the kind of money and household help that most of these people in the book did.
January 6, 2008
Excellent book on the life of two women - mother & daughter growing up in Poland during WW1 and peace time afterwards. Then fleeing during WW2. Written from the mother's diary and what the daughter tells to a young friend as they travel back to the homeland after 30 years. Worth the read.
December 30, 2008
great journey tale - i think it is out of print now - i gave my copy to someone and they never returned it... i am pissed
September 14, 2011
Well done.
April 23, 2014
I enjoyed the opening section, and the other parts directly about Zofia, but not so much the sections about Helena.
April 10, 2009
A slow start but finally it develops into an interesting look at a polish life between the wars
May 4, 2017
This book is written around the lives of two women, a mother and daughter living in what is now Belarus but what was then Poland. The mother had to flee during the First World War and then again, with her daughter during the Second as both Russians and Germans invaded and boundaries changed.
Intertwined with this is the return of the daughter after Perestroika to see where she had been brought up and the graves of relatives. This is a beautiful, poetical book about a sad but apparently, lovely place.
Intertwined with this is the return of the daughter after Perestroika to see where she had been brought up and the graves of relatives. This is a beautiful, poetical book about a sad but apparently, lovely place.
March 2, 2022
3.5 for this one. A fascinating story that unfortunately seems to fit with the current situation in Ukraine. People living and being forced to move between various countries during wars in Eastern Europe over the years. Beautifully written but I had to keep looking back at the map to see about where they might be. Many Polish (?)words were used without translations so a glossary would have helped.
April 7, 2025
I loved this intimate telling of the Bronski family pre and during WW1 and leading up to WW2. The family lived in what is today Belorussia and were caught between the Germans and Russians. An enormous amount of detail of their daily lives survives in letters and diaries.
October 14, 2019
Een onderbelichte geschiedenis van Polen met schokkende gebeurtenissen, zeker voor een mensenleven maar teveel in documentaire stijl om echt te raken.
August 12, 2020
Very good story of Polish family riding the war tossing them about.
July 6, 2022
We live on borrowed time. A journey back. Really enjoyed this book, because it doesn't focus on the story all the time, but gives room to dreams and poetry.
August 11, 2025
The Bronski House by Philip Marsden
Survival and hope in times of war and peace, downfall and distinction. Set in Poland, Belarus and Russia in the first half of the twentieth century, we discover the lives of Helena and people she crosses path with, via her detailed diaries. Everything in this book is all real and riddled with travails- yet it reads like the most uplifting novel ever. Philip Marsden the author in 1992 has accompanied an elderly friend in Cornwall to her roots in Belarus, in the process discovering the effects of war on ordinary families and tales of a common woman's heroism and strength. His friend Sofia rediscovers her roots and helps rebuild it, bringing acceptance and healing...
Survival and hope in times of war and peace, downfall and distinction. Set in Poland, Belarus and Russia in the first half of the twentieth century, we discover the lives of Helena and people she crosses path with, via her detailed diaries. Everything in this book is all real and riddled with travails- yet it reads like the most uplifting novel ever. Philip Marsden the author in 1992 has accompanied an elderly friend in Cornwall to her roots in Belarus, in the process discovering the effects of war on ordinary families and tales of a common woman's heroism and strength. His friend Sofia rediscovers her roots and helps rebuild it, bringing acceptance and healing...
March 28, 2022
A better map - with a scale and more detail.
Also some assumptions made about knowledge of the history of the period - but some glossed over so you had to guess. IE about the Bolshevick intentions towards Poland - needed some explanation.
But I loved the detail and the landscapes and the feelings of hardship and what being a war refugee was like.
Also some assumptions made about knowledge of the history of the period - but some glossed over so you had to guess. IE about the Bolshevick intentions towards Poland - needed some explanation.
But I loved the detail and the landscapes and the feelings of hardship and what being a war refugee was like.
March 9, 2021
Helena is a young wealthy Polish woman when her life is changed completely by the First World War.
Zofia, her daughter, is the same age at the approach of the Second World War.
The story follows their numerous journeys as their lives, families and homes are threatened by the changing borders of Poland as invasions approach them from all sides.
It is based on a true story that is mostly narrated by the author who is a friend of the now much older Zofia.
Helena has left many letters and notes describing her life and the destructive effects of both wars, a jigsaw for the author to assemble with Zofia's help.
The pace start's slow but soon the terrible events that lead them to flee their homes takes hold and speeds up the narrative. The descriptions paint a picture of how beautiful the countryside was before the threats of war arrived at their doors. The characters are fascinating, strong, focussed and hard working. The young, beautiful Helena has no shortage of suitors but prefers her tomboy life outdoors in the forests and by the river with her horses, dogs and the various animals she tries to nurture. How can she choose who to marry? She has no experience of men, their words and their meanings. But eventually she must do so and her wild character stands her in good stead for what life will put before her. .
'After lunch she walked down to the river. She sat beneath a stand of birches. Swallows gave out a continuous squeaking from across the water. She lay on her back and closed her eyes. The sun glowed bright orange behind her eyelids. If she moved her head the birch branches broke the sunlight and the world was full of orange flashing. She heard the guns and saw the charging horses. She saw columns of men and rows of uniforms. That was war.'
'So the most feared and appalling thing happened. We fled Mantuski, left our beloved Mantuski. The house rebuilt by Adam, the precious rooms, the carpets, the furniture and books - all gone. Our beloved staff, the dogs, the herd carefully bred over 17 years, the forest, the bees, the orchards, the dreaming river, all gone. We are homeless, beggarly, broken. No Poland, no Mantuski. Everything vanished like a fata morgana. And so many, many left behind.'
Despite their losses the Bronski's wealth and connections helped them to escape and this story is their family story only and doesn't paint the story of the many who faced a much bleaker future.
Zofia eventually settled in Cornwall. England, where she ran a hotel, wrote poetry and sailed (badly).
She met Philip Marsden when he was a young boy visiting Corwall for his annual holiday. They became close friends and he travelled to Poland with Zofia to revisit the places of her childhood.
He wrote her obituary for The Independent newspaper -
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ob...
Zofia, her daughter, is the same age at the approach of the Second World War.
The story follows their numerous journeys as their lives, families and homes are threatened by the changing borders of Poland as invasions approach them from all sides.
It is based on a true story that is mostly narrated by the author who is a friend of the now much older Zofia.
Helena has left many letters and notes describing her life and the destructive effects of both wars, a jigsaw for the author to assemble with Zofia's help.
The pace start's slow but soon the terrible events that lead them to flee their homes takes hold and speeds up the narrative. The descriptions paint a picture of how beautiful the countryside was before the threats of war arrived at their doors. The characters are fascinating, strong, focussed and hard working. The young, beautiful Helena has no shortage of suitors but prefers her tomboy life outdoors in the forests and by the river with her horses, dogs and the various animals she tries to nurture. How can she choose who to marry? She has no experience of men, their words and their meanings. But eventually she must do so and her wild character stands her in good stead for what life will put before her. .
'After lunch she walked down to the river. She sat beneath a stand of birches. Swallows gave out a continuous squeaking from across the water. She lay on her back and closed her eyes. The sun glowed bright orange behind her eyelids. If she moved her head the birch branches broke the sunlight and the world was full of orange flashing. She heard the guns and saw the charging horses. She saw columns of men and rows of uniforms. That was war.'
'So the most feared and appalling thing happened. We fled Mantuski, left our beloved Mantuski. The house rebuilt by Adam, the precious rooms, the carpets, the furniture and books - all gone. Our beloved staff, the dogs, the herd carefully bred over 17 years, the forest, the bees, the orchards, the dreaming river, all gone. We are homeless, beggarly, broken. No Poland, no Mantuski. Everything vanished like a fata morgana. And so many, many left behind.'
Despite their losses the Bronski's wealth and connections helped them to escape and this story is their family story only and doesn't paint the story of the many who faced a much bleaker future.
Zofia eventually settled in Cornwall. England, where she ran a hotel, wrote poetry and sailed (badly).
She met Philip Marsden when he was a young boy visiting Corwall for his annual holiday. They became close friends and he travelled to Poland with Zofia to revisit the places of her childhood.
He wrote her obituary for The Independent newspaper -
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ob...
January 24, 2016
Philip Marsden, The Bronski House, is a nonfiction work about a Polish woman he knew in England, from whom he got the story of her mother, especially on her experiences in WWI and WWII (they fled in 1939) and her courtships. Beautifully written, and it absolutely captured the Slavic view of the world, which is a fatalistic expectation of the tragic, but in the meantime intensely enjoying the beautiful and often comic world (I speak as someone whose grandparents were from the Balkans, so I am not just buying into a stereotypical view of that culture). A wonderful, absorbing book.
December 16, 2015
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. It was an interesting and accessible account of the life of one family, in particular one girl/woman, living in Belorussia during several wars. It's a story of growing up, living in exile and connection with the land.
November 5, 2016
I'm leaning more toward a 3.5 than a 3, but more of a 3 than a 4. The story was interesting but I was often confused with places and characters, and didn't really care for any of the main characters. It was fine for what it was, wouldn't read it again.
August 3, 2012
The interesting thing is they were originally IRISH!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews