Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs features Dancing on Thin Ice
Juliana Geran Pilon, a senior fellow at The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, published a joint review of the late Arkady Polishchuk’s two memoirs, Dancing on Thin Ice and its prequel, As I Was Burying Comrade Stalin (MacFarland, April 2020). Both tell the story of his evolution from young Soviet citizen to questioning dissident. Shortly after his latest book was published, Polishchuk passed away from COVID-19 in his home country of Russia.
She writes, “The virus succeeded where Marxism-Leninism, prison, arctic cold, and hunger together had failed, silencing this fearless, irrepressibly funny man. That is not to say that it vanquished him—nothing could do that. Arkady’s unselfconscious compassion and integrity had long since secured him a place among the truly chosen: those who save not merely lives but souls.” Pilon continues, praising Polishchuk, “[He writes] with literary skill worthy of an I. J. Singer. […] No dry facts or a brief review of his books could ever capture Arkady’s luminous nature.”