Harra Csurik

"Please, lord, please. All I want is m'justice."

―Harra seeking Count's justice

Harra Mattulich Csurik (HAA-ruh SHUH-rihk) was a resident of Silvy Vale, and the wife of Speaker Csurik.

Raina's murder

A few days after Harra gave birth to her first daughter Raina, she discovered her dead of a broken neck in her crib. She was blamed of mishandling the baby, but she suspected her husband Lem of killing the baby due to its cleft palate, viewed as a mutation by the rest of the village. Feeling she was not receiving proper justice from Speaker Karal, she sought out her liege lord Count Vorkosigan, who in turn sent his son Miles to investigate as his Voice.

Miles, during the course of his investigation, cleared Lem of the charges and determined the crime had been committed by Harra's mother, Mara Mattulich, instead. Miles, as punishment, sentenced Mara to spend the rest of her life in Harra's permanent custody (transferrable to the Village Speaker if Harra chose to travel). He then strongly suggested she receive adult education for three years in Hassadar to be trained as a teacher, and establish a new school; he offered The Raina Csurik School as a title.

Teacher

"You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on."
"What do you find on the other side? When you go on?"
"Your life again. What else?"
"Is that a promise?"
"It's an inevitability. No trick. No choice. You just go on."

―Harra Csurik and Miles Vorkosigan

Harra took Miles' advice, and established The Raina Csurik School. By the time Miles returned ten years after the murder investigation, the school was large enough to have two teachers; Harra taught the older students while an assistant taught the younger.

Miles, seeking answers after he was forcibly discharged by Barrayaran Imperial Security, asked Harra how she dealt with public shame. Her answer resonated with Miles: "You just go on." Miles later imparted the same advice to Ekaterin Vorsoisson in A Civil Campaign on dealing with the aftermath of the death of her husband Tien.

Personality and traits

"The woman, now, was local and more than local—she had back-country written all over her. She was younger than her strained voice had at first suggested. Tall, fever-red from her weeping, with stringy blond hair hanging down across a ferret-thin face and protuberant grey eyes. If she were cleaned up, fed, rested, happy and confident, she might achieve a near-prettiness."

―Miles meets Harra

Harra was born to a small, tough-mindied family. While her mother took it to extremes, she was determined to find truth and justice for hr baby, and didn't let her near-illiteracy stop her from completing training at Hassadar Teacher's College.

She was not particularly attractive.

Children

Harra and Lem had two more children after Raina's death, a son and a daughter (4 and 1 years old respectively at the time of Miles' visit ten years later).

Appearances

• "The Mountains of Mourning" chapters 10,11
• Memory
• A Civil Campaign chapter 17