ABSTRACT
WHEN A PERSONAL JOURNEY BEG INS and where it leads are often determined not by the traveler but by a confluence of outside events. I did not grow up with a passion for things Russian nor was I born with Russian ancestry. My earliest interest began and was nourished at Swarthmore College, where I wanted to fulfill my undergraduate foreign language requirement with something entirely different from the Latin and French I had already studied. Chinese was my first choice. At that time, however, the college did not offer Chinese. But it did offer Russian, and Russian became an inviting alternative that filled not only my request for something very different but also the school’s requirement for foreign language study. As an outgrowth of this choice, my Russian language professor later offered me the opportunity to live with her and appreciate life in an entirely different setting. She was a white Russian, the daughter of a prince, who had escaped with her family to Turkey at the end of the revolution. During the two years I spent with her, she became my mentor, spurring me on to pursue my interests and apply my capabilities.
