The author of this book has been working on restoring his familyÕs history for over 20 years. At first, possessing only minimal information about his ancestors, he gathered and collected bits and pieces of data, found witnesses of the past and his relatives on four continents, involved in his search many people who had been long forgotten or lost their roots. The result of his work is a grand family tree restored with many boughs, branches, and leaves, with its roots going down into the depth of the past. He succeeded in discovering some forgotten or even seemingly lost branches and reconnecting the people who had once lost one another.
Yuri Okunev significantly contributed to the development of genealogical research and the genre of memoir in the Russian-language literature abroad. In essays and books, the story of his family evolves against the backdrop of the key events of the century and creates a unique image of that era: Letters to Relatives from the 20th Century (Art of Russia, St. Petersburg, 2002); The Axis of World History (Xlibris, Philadelphia, 2008); Saga of the Risen from the Ashes (M¥Graphics, Boston, 2010); Deliberate Reflections Around the Family Tree (_____/Word, USA, 2017).