Grisha’s Loop

– My Slavic Saga

From the Bolshevik Revolution to America
A Story of Courage and Survival

Grisha’s Loop – My Slavic Saga is based on Gregoire Ivanovich Samoylenko’s unfinished autobiography, My Slavic Saga, which he wrote in the early 1930s with the help of his friend, Arthur Cornwall Knapp. This is the story of Gregory’s childhood and subsequent involvement in the Russian Revolution as a Tsar army soldier.

Book reviews

“‘Reading “Grisha’s Loop’ is a bargain, as you will be getting a book within a book. The author’s personal experiences and observations book-end her father’s amazing story, written in beautiful prose in his second language. It tells of unbelievable challenges, courage and accomplishments in the life of a brave man who lived through one of our most turbulent times. This book would make a fascinating movie.”

– Review on Amazon

“A compelling story of one man’s journey from early childhood in Russia through his participation in the Russian Revolution as a member of the Tsar’s army. After witnessing the horrific scenes of war, an excellent read! Gregory grows into a man and eventually abandons his country and flees to America to begin a new life. His ‘Saga’ has never been published before and is presented unedited as originally written by him. The author, his daughter seeks to reconstruct his life, and in the process of doing so, comes to know her father as an ordinary man, who lived an extraordinary life.”

– Review on Amazon

About the Author

Marsha Samoylenko Denison

Marsha Denison was born in Boston and grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. She received a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts and her M.A. in Gerontology from St Joseph’s College in Connecticut. She has published two books, Grisha’s Loop in 2016 and My Name is Buttons -and this is My Story in 2023. Grisha’s Loop is a memoir of her immigrant father’s life and escape from Russia in 1922. The author has two daughters and now lives in Maine.

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