Yes, Not Everything is in a Name

For decades I have both been proud and wary of my name. Coming to the States at the age of nine from Belgium in 1956 but, of Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian heritage, I was constantly reminded of Cold War ideas and images. My classmates wanted me to be Tina, as even the short form of my name, Tanya, was strange for them.

I refused. I was Tatiana, Tanya for them, as Tatiana became Tashyana, Tazina, anything but Tatiana. Even Tanya became Tainia a lot of the time.

For those of you old enough, those were the times that saw the rise of Ian Fleming’s novels with the famous James Bond in the movies. There was ‘From Russia with Love’, and the spy, a beautiful woman, was Tanya. Thankfully, though I got a lot of ‘Russian spy’ from my classmates, being really fat at a time when most kids were skinny was a saving grace.

Had few friends as my parents, immigrants, did not approve of what they called the wild behavior of ‘American kids’, and the landlord did not want a fat girl playing outside. Result, I was locked in during the summer when my parents went to work. Since they didn’t like me to watch television, that was disconnected every morning.

Having nothing to do, I turned daydreaming into a novel “Against her Will” at the great, old age of ten. Knowing no one would read a story about a princess in France in the 18th century if it was written by Tatiana, I invented a name, Louise Leiften. The manuscript, actually a typed version, is still with me. The book never saw the shelves of a bookstore.

I kept that name, as in various times of my life, I continued to write, always keeping the name ‘Louise Leiften’. There were so many things to write about based on places and people that none in my classroom would have dreamed that their fat Tanya would get to.

Well, I got to be normal, even thin at times and went to a great college, an elite girls’ college, one of the seven sisters, Mount Holyoke. Of course, with my name, they thought they would turn out a Russian specialist, perhaps even a Soviet specialist. Those were the days of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. But this Tanya, Tatiana, didn’t do that. I studied China and Chinese.

Went to Europe, where for the first time the name with a bit of embellishment, will talk about that at some point, instead of being a liability turned into an asset. I wound up, incredible for a poor immigrant in the United States, in stratospheric power circles, engaged to someone I could only dream of as a child. But, when that fell apart, and I crashed down to earth, the name of the college education got me into the United Nations, and that, in turn, led to a new, different and really great international relations program.

Of course, being the 1970’s, with barriers keeping women out of the positions they deserved, the program did not land me the United Nations job I was qualified for. Instead, I wound up being an interpreter, yes into English from French and Russian. See the play of the name.

Now, comes the matter of the name again even though there was, starting in the mid-seventies, a designer with same first name Tatiana von Furstenberg and even a perfume Tatiana. By the way, I have a bottle but don’t like the particular smell! I make a move that makes me even more Russian! I had my stepfather, the best of all fathers, adopt me. He had no children, and I wanted to carry his goodness on. Instead of being Ukrainian by last name, Mazenko, I became Russian, an Androsov.

However, it seemed to make no difference. Leaving interpretation, I went to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and later, finally, into a part of the United Nations that really did the kind of work I felt good doing — development. Now, a funny story. Getting to Cameroon in 1982, I was taken aside and kept for a couple of hours in a special place. Well, it seems the guys, for they were men, misread something and thought I was ‘Andropov’, a relation of then head of the Soviet KGB, just a month or later to follow Brezhnev as the head of the Soviet Union. Only a call with the UN office in the capital cleared that matter up.

Actually, I liked my name, so much so that I didn’t change it even for the man I love. Incredibly, on a United Nations mission in Mozambique, which took place in 1994, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the name got a set of unexpected admirers. I was the head of the mission in the province of Nampula and the mission had among its planes and pilots, Russian planes and pilots. When I, the boss, got into their plane, they brought me cookies, invited me to come sit with the pilot and lo and behold, I get to pilot a Tupolev. Yes, I piloted a plane through the clouds!

Finally, of course, I got to be, at 55, the president of the Thanks-Giving Foundation, the home of American and World Thanksgiving. Heh, I bridged that gap. I ended my career as the ‘mother’ of that greatest American holiday, the one that brings all Americans together, wherever they come from, whatever their race, their culture, their religion. And, more, through the Mosaic Version of Norman Rockwell’s Golden Rule that the Foundation gave to our country which gifted it to the United Nations brings the precept of giving thanks for others to the four corners of the globe.

But, then, came the books. Suddenly, reaching the age of 72, when for dozens of reasons, I went over the ‘manuscripts’ I had accumulated for over sixty years and was about to self-publish the first, I was tempted to do it as ‘Louise Leiften’, my alter ego, but thanks to the push of a French brother of the heart at the United Nations, who pointed out that I deserved a chance, to be known as a good, bad or indifferent writer, brought that book, CHOICES, as well as subsequent ones, out under Tatiana Androsov.

And, since you have come so far, are you wondering whether any of those books, novels, go into the matter of names, cultures, provenances, etc.? Of course, they do, but the one that takes it on headlong in a story of love across all those divides is A QUESTION OF SEDUCTION — EROS and its second volume A QUESTION OF SEDUCTION — AGAPE whose main characters are a Russian/French/American, Lana Bogdanow, and a Gulf Arab, Karim Al-Mahabbi.