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Voices of Utopia #5
Second-Hand Time
‘Communism had an insane plan: to refashion the “old” breed of man, ancient Adam. And it accomplished this...’ writes Svetlana Alexievich. ‘This was perhaps communism’s only achievement. Seventy plus years in the Marxist-Leninist laboratory gave rise to a new kind of man, the Homo sovieticus.’ This ‘red man’: that’s whom Alexievich has been studying since her first book, published in 1985 – a people and a culture condemned to extinction by the implosion of the
Soviet Union. In this magnificent requiem to a civilization in ruins, the author of Voices from Chernobyl reinvents a singular, polyphonic literary form, bringing together the voices of dozens of witnesses to the collapse of the USSR in a formidable attempt to chart the disappearance of a culture and to surmise what new kind of man may emerge from the rubble.
Alexievich’s method is simple: ‘I don’t ask people about socialism, I ask about love, jealousy, childhood, old age. Music, dances, hairstyles. The myriad sundry details of a vanished way of life. This is the only way to chase the catastrophe into the framework of the mundane and attempt to tell a story. Try to figure things out. It never ceases to amaze me how interesting ordinary, everyday life is. There are an endless number of human truths... History’s sole concern is the facts; emotions are out of its realm of interest. It’s considered improper to admit feelings into history. I look at the world as a writer, not strictly an historian. I am fascinated by people...’
From this fascination emerges a brilliant, poignant and unique portrait of post-Soviet society, built on the traumatisms of its predecessors’ collapse.
Soviet Union. In this magnificent requiem to a civilization in ruins, the author of Voices from Chernobyl reinvents a singular, polyphonic literary form, bringing together the voices of dozens of witnesses to the collapse of the USSR in a formidable attempt to chart the disappearance of a culture and to surmise what new kind of man may emerge from the rubble.
Alexievich’s method is simple: ‘I don’t ask people about socialism, I ask about love, jealousy, childhood, old age. Music, dances, hairstyles. The myriad sundry details of a vanished way of life. This is the only way to chase the catastrophe into the framework of the mundane and attempt to tell a story. Try to figure things out. It never ceases to amaze me how interesting ordinary, everyday life is. There are an endless number of human truths... History’s sole concern is the facts; emotions are out of its realm of interest. It’s considered improper to admit feelings into history. I look at the world as a writer, not strictly an historian. I am fascinated by people...’
From this fascination emerges a brilliant, poignant and unique portrait of post-Soviet society, built on the traumatisms of its predecessors’ collapse.
695 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2013
About the author
Svetlana Alexievich
44 books5,577 followersSvetlana Alexievich was born in Ivano Frankivsk, Ukraine. Her father was Belarusian and her mother Ukrainian. Alexievich grew up in Belarus, where both her parents were teachers. She studied to be a journalist at the University of Minsk and worked a teacher, journalist and editor. In Minsk she has worked at the newspaper Sel'skaja Gazeta, Alexievich's criticism of the political regimes in the Soviet Union and thereafter Belarus has periodically forced her to live abroad, for example in Italy, France, Germany and Sweden.
Svetlana Alexievich depicts life during and after the Soviet Union through the experience of individuals. In her books she uses interviews to create a collage of a wide range of voices. With her "documentary novels", Svetlana Alexievich, who is a journalist, moves in the boundary between reporting and fiction. Her major works are her grand cycle Voices of Utopia, which consists of five parts. Svetlana Alexievich's books criticize political regimes in both the Soviet Union and later Belarus.
In 2015 Ms Alexievich was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Svetlana Alexievich depicts life during and after the Soviet Union through the experience of individuals. In her books she uses interviews to create a collage of a wide range of voices. With her "documentary novels", Svetlana Alexievich, who is a journalist, moves in the boundary between reporting and fiction. Her major works are her grand cycle Voices of Utopia, which consists of five parts. Svetlana Alexievich's books criticize political regimes in both the Soviet Union and later Belarus.
In 2015 Ms Alexievich was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
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November 4, 2022
There are some who are in darkness
And the others are in light
And you see the ones in brightness
Those in darkness drop from sight.
(Bertold Brecht, The Threepenny Opera)
Last year I read Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991: A History, in which Orlando Figes outlines the history of the Soviet Union as ‘a hundred-year cycle of violence in pursuit of utopian dreams’ - a fluently written, very concise synthesis , predominantly political and narrative in structure. Having finished the book, Figes’s inappropriately denigratory, almost mocking undertone towards the common Russian people and. their meek Soviet nostalgia in the epilogue of the book left me somewhat fidgety. I frowned at his weird display of lack of compassion and empathy, knowing he documented thoroughly the suffering of the Russian people in the 20th century, both in A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924 and in The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia . Although one could argue the question was beyond the scope of the book, I was also disappointed that Figes didn’t give a flint of an explanation why such a large part of the Russian population yearned for the old times. As I didn’t want to stay in the dark on this question, and aware there was no other option but to continue reading on Russian history and present society, I had high hopes of Svetlana Alexievich’s Second-Hand Time. Having a totally different set-up than Figes’s broad stroked recount of the turbulent historical events Russia went through, Alexievich’s book surpassed my expectations in every respect.
Second-Hand Time, which deals with the period 1991-2012, seamlessly dovetailes Revolutionary Russia, which covers the 1891-1991 period. Featured are respectively the Yeltsin (1991-2001) and the Putin (2002-2012) decades.
The approach and perspective taken by the Belarusian investigative journalist couldn’t be more different from Figes’s broad-scoped traditional historiography ‘from above’ which focusses on the great outlines and the leaders of the land. Not just an observer or analyst – quite on the contrary, no analysis, personal comment or judgement is to be found, – she yields the floor to the men and women living in the post-Soviet era like herself, to the Homo sovieticus, who experienced History and the breakdown of the Soviet system and civilization personally. She registers and recounts a myriad of her fellow travelers’ often deeply tragic stories, collaging their striking first-hand testimonials in which they look back on who and what they were and are before and after 1991, judging, contemplating and commenting themselves their former and present lives, opinions, identities, hopes and ideals, dreams and illusions.
Nearly overnight they woke up in world totally alien to them, a world indifferent to their suffering and sacrifices – when all they had was their suffering (”Where is our capital? All we have is our suffering, everything that we went through (…). We’re always talking about suffering. That’s our path to wisdom. People in the West seem naïve to us because they don’t suffer like we do, they have a remedy for every little pimple. We’re the ones who went to the camps, who piled up the corpses during the war, who dug through the nuclear waste in Chernobyl with our bare hands. We sit atop the ruins of socialism like it’s the aftermath of a war. We’re all run down and defeated. Our language is the language of suffering.”). Their former lives, their nation, smashed to smithereens, not a single stone left standing:
My reading copy is littered with sticky notes all over now, marking passages that struck me – and browsing it through again in order to pick some representative quotes, it seems unfeasible to make a selection that would do justice to the multifaceted and diversified opulence of this book. Abounding with tears. Abounding with suicides. Abounding with lost and broken lives, misery and suffering – useless sacrifices.
Predictably, as a reader, I was also particularly touched by the numerous passages illustrating the importance of words, books and reading to the Soviets before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the nostalgia for the better moments breathing from these reminiscences:
Although as a literary fiction aficionada I cannot agree with Alexievich’s statement that ‘art has failed to understand many things about people’, the exceptional qualities of her embedded journalism are most clearly apparent and I highly recommend this impressive book to anyone interested in contemporary Russia and its recent past. I also recommend Timothy Snyder’s magnificent article on Svetlana Alexievich’s background and her work.
The photographs are from the Belgian photographer and Magnum member Bieke Depoorter. Within her 2009 project Ou menya (‘With you’), she has let the Trans-Siberian train take her alongside Russian villages, accidental encounters leading her to places where she could sleep. She slept on couches and in grown children’s old bunks; she huddled with others for warmth on floors and unfolded newspaper over linoleum tiles. The next morning, she’d take a picture of the night’s bed and set off again, continuing her photographical ‘exploration of small-town family life and the transient bonds between photographer and subject’.
My sincere thanks goes to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC.
And the others are in light
And you see the ones in brightness
Those in darkness drop from sight.
(Bertold Brecht, The Threepenny Opera)
Last year I read Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991: A History, in which Orlando Figes outlines the history of the Soviet Union as ‘a hundred-year cycle of violence in pursuit of utopian dreams’ - a fluently written, very concise synthesis , predominantly political and narrative in structure. Having finished the book, Figes’s inappropriately denigratory, almost mocking undertone towards the common Russian people and. their meek Soviet nostalgia in the epilogue of the book left me somewhat fidgety. I frowned at his weird display of lack of compassion and empathy, knowing he documented thoroughly the suffering of the Russian people in the 20th century, both in A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924 and in The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia . Although one could argue the question was beyond the scope of the book, I was also disappointed that Figes didn’t give a flint of an explanation why such a large part of the Russian population yearned for the old times. As I didn’t want to stay in the dark on this question, and aware there was no other option but to continue reading on Russian history and present society, I had high hopes of Svetlana Alexievich’s Second-Hand Time. Having a totally different set-up than Figes’s broad stroked recount of the turbulent historical events Russia went through, Alexievich’s book surpassed my expectations in every respect.
Second-Hand Time, which deals with the period 1991-2012, seamlessly dovetailes Revolutionary Russia, which covers the 1891-1991 period. Featured are respectively the Yeltsin (1991-2001) and the Putin (2002-2012) decades.
The approach and perspective taken by the Belarusian investigative journalist couldn’t be more different from Figes’s broad-scoped traditional historiography ‘from above’ which focusses on the great outlines and the leaders of the land. Not just an observer or analyst – quite on the contrary, no analysis, personal comment or judgement is to be found, – she yields the floor to the men and women living in the post-Soviet era like herself, to the Homo sovieticus, who experienced History and the breakdown of the Soviet system and civilization personally. She registers and recounts a myriad of her fellow travelers’ often deeply tragic stories, collaging their striking first-hand testimonials in which they look back on who and what they were and are before and after 1991, judging, contemplating and commenting themselves their former and present lives, opinions, identities, hopes and ideals, dreams and illusions.
‘Everyone is terribly lonely. Life has completely transformed. The world is now divided into new categories, no longer ‘white’ and ‘red’ or those who did time and the ones who threw them in jail, those who’ve read SolzhenitsynIn 2015 The Nobel Prize committee awarded the prize to Alexievich ‘for her Polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time’. Alexievich’s documentary approach airs a polyphonic, at times dissonant and jarring multitude of voices, collected during conversations throughout the country, amongst a cross section of the Russian population: veterans from the Afghanistan and Chechen wars, former apparatchiks, directors, a writer, a musician, entrepreneurs, technicians, teachers, family members of the CCCP elite, retired factory workers and students, emigrants. Alexievich alternates the poignant testimonials of victims, executioners, obdurate Stalinists, supporters and opponents of Perestroika and Gorbachev (“the great Gorby”, “traitor of the Motherland”, “the prophet”, “the perfect German”). She demonstrating the successive generations’ diverging perception of the present and the past and how differently all those former soviet citizens experience their country and its current state. The mutual incomprehension between the subsequent generations is harrowing:
and those who haven’t. Now it’s just the haves and the have-nots.
“(…)the young who will never understand their parents because they didn’t spend a single day of his life in the Soviet Union – my mother, my son – me…we all live in different countries, even though they’re all Russia.Her writing-style immerses the reader into the lives of her interlocutors, involving the reader irresistibly into the haunting conversations. Like in genuine ‘people’s history’ or ‘history from below’, Alexievich’s primary focus is not on the facts and figures, the leaders, the new class of rulers or the oligarchs. Almost like a contemporary historical anthropologist she elucidates the attitudes, hearts and mindsets of the post-Soviet citizens, many of her own generation – of which so many got adrift psychologically and professionally, when the system imploded. Left behind again by History like human flotsam and jetsam, they voice their despair, their anger, their cynicism and sorrow.
Nearly overnight they woke up in world totally alien to them, a world indifferent to their suffering and sacrifices – when all they had was their suffering (”Where is our capital? All we have is our suffering, everything that we went through (…). We’re always talking about suffering. That’s our path to wisdom. People in the West seem naïve to us because they don’t suffer like we do, they have a remedy for every little pimple. We’re the ones who went to the camps, who piled up the corpses during the war, who dug through the nuclear waste in Chernobyl with our bare hands. We sit atop the ruins of socialism like it’s the aftermath of a war. We’re all run down and defeated. Our language is the language of suffering.”). Their former lives, their nation, smashed to smithereens, not a single stone left standing:
Does anyone care about any of this anymore? Our country doesn’t exist anymore, and it never will, but here we are…old and disgusting…with our terrifying memories and poisoned eyes.And instead of the ‘socialism with a human face’ and the mature democracy many hoped for, the former Soviet citizens got a new tsar and the most virulent and harsh predatory capitalism:
They were fooled by the shiny wrappers. Now our stores are filled with all sorts of stuff. An abundance. But heaps of salami have nothing to do with happiness. Or glory. We used to be a great nation! Now we’re nothing but peddlers and looters….Grain merchants and managers…..
The thing is, you can’t buy democracy with oil and gas; you can’t import it like bananas or Swiss chocolate. A presidential decree won’t institute it….you need free people, and we didn’t have them.
What did we get? On the streets, it’s bloodthirsty capitalism. Shooting. Showdowns. The gangsters have risen to the top. Black marketeers and money changers have taken power. Jackals!
My reading copy is littered with sticky notes all over now, marking passages that struck me – and browsing it through again in order to pick some representative quotes, it seems unfeasible to make a selection that would do justice to the multifaceted and diversified opulence of this book. Abounding with tears. Abounding with suicides. Abounding with lost and broken lives, misery and suffering – useless sacrifices.
Predictably, as a reader, I was also particularly touched by the numerous passages illustrating the importance of words, books and reading to the Soviets before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the nostalgia for the better moments breathing from these reminiscences:
Could you imagine my mother sitting down and embroidering something or going out of her way to decorate our house with porcelain vases or little elephant figurines…. Never! That would be a pointless waste of time. Petit bourgeois nonsense! The most important thing is spiritual labor…Books…You can wear the same suit for twenty years, two coats are enough to last a lifetime, but you can’t live without Pushkin or the complete works of Gorky. You’re part of the grand scheme of things.The intangible Russian soul
I ran into my neighbor: “I’m embarrassed that I’m so excited because of a German coffee grinder…but I’m just so happy!” It had only been moments ago – just a moment ago- that she’d spent the night waiting in line to get her hands on a volume of Akhmatova.
In reality for me, I am just a twit, freedom of speech would have been enough for because, as it soon turned out, at heart, I’m a Soviet girl. Everything Soviet went deeper in us than we’d ever imagined. All I really wanted was for them to let me read Dovlatov and Nekrasov and listen to Galich. That would have been enough for me. I didn’t even dream of going to Paris and strolling through Montmartre…Or seeing Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia…Just let us read and talk. Read! Our little Olga got sick, she was just four months old. In the hospital I kept pacing and pacing with her back and forth through the corridors. And if I managed to get her to sleep for even half an hour, what do you think I would do? Even though I was beyond exhausted…Guess! I always had The Gulag Archipelago under my arm, and I would immediately open it and start reading. In one arm, my baby is dying, and with my free hand, I’m holding Solzhenitsyn. Books replaced life for us. They were our whole world.
We’re dreamers, of course. Our souls strain and suffer, but not much gets done – there is no strength left over after all that ardor. Nothing ever gets done. The mysterious Russian soul….Everyone wants to understand it. They read Dostoevsky: ‘what is behind that soul of theirs? Well, behind our soul there’s just more soul. We like to have a chat in the kitchen, read a book. ‘Reader’ is our primary occupation. (…)Our country is full of Oblomovs lying around on their couches, awaiting miracles. There are no Stoltzes. The industrious, savvy Stoltzes are despised for chopping down the beloved birch grove, the cherry orchard.Demystifying the eternal obsession with the enigmatic Russian soul or not, reading Second-Hand Time is probably the closest I ever got to it.
Although as a literary fiction aficionada I cannot agree with Alexievich’s statement that ‘art has failed to understand many things about people’, the exceptional qualities of her embedded journalism are most clearly apparent and I highly recommend this impressive book to anyone interested in contemporary Russia and its recent past. I also recommend Timothy Snyder’s magnificent article on Svetlana Alexievich’s background and her work.
The photographs are from the Belgian photographer and Magnum member Bieke Depoorter. Within her 2009 project Ou menya (‘With you’), she has let the Trans-Siberian train take her alongside Russian villages, accidental encounters leading her to places where she could sleep. She slept on couches and in grown children’s old bunks; she huddled with others for warmth on floors and unfolded newspaper over linoleum tiles. The next morning, she’d take a picture of the night’s bed and set off again, continuing her photographical ‘exploration of small-town family life and the transient bonds between photographer and subject’.
My sincere thanks goes to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC.
May 28, 2016
"We sit atop the ruins of socialism like it's the aftermath of war."
UNLIMITED STARS.
One of the best books I've ever read. THE most personally touching and relevant book I've EVER read. A book that penetrates the soul of my being and explains me to myself.
An Autobiographical Review
this book is my autobiography, and it speaks my heart better than I ever have articulated it myself; many details below are personal, but they are also in the book, and what the book is about.
Not sure there is any overlap of experience between a life lived under communism as it manifested in Eastern Europe vs. a life lived in a capitalistic society, such as that embodied in the United States.
My experience has straddled both, with the transition from the former to the latter a violently, radically sudden rupture at a young and impressionable age. One day, I was accompanying my mom on her daily errands through Bucharest's dilapidated landscape of empty government-run stores and identically dreary blocks of (state-issued of course) tenement housing, waiting in the 4th line of the day, for an extra handful of eggs she would receive for bringing me along. Then excitedly heading home for the 30 minutes of kids' TV programming offered daily (of 2 or 3 hours total broadcasting, on one channel). All the while, being tailed by the Securitate (my father had defected and been sentenced in absentia, so we lived under constant surveillance).
Seemingly the next day - well. You've heard the stories of immigrant shock: the vast highways, insanely stocked supermarkets (supermarkets! we had no such thing). The variety, the diversity, the choices, the sheer mass, density, amount of STUFF. And people who nonchalantly wander through it all, completely nonplussed at the fact that there are mounds of bananas everywhere and people aren't shoving each other out of the way to get to them. Ok so I had had ONE banana my entire childhood - smuggled into the country illegally of course. To this day I'm still ... touched? surprised, just a little? at how much we take bananas for granted, at least here in the DC area.
Of course the stuff is only the beginning, only the surface layer that one immediately notices upon stepping off a plane into the Land of Abundance and Freedom for the first time. The divergences penetrate deep into the psyche/soul/historical memory/collective un/consciousness of the people and place. Everything down (up?) to structures of thought, modes of interaction, even constructs for understanding the self - ALL are different in a society that limits ALL material conditions and social acts (energy, food, media, knowledge, books, speech, movement, communication) vs. a society that views freedom and choice as fundamental.
Understanding the radical rupture created in my being by my move from Eastern Europe (Romania) to the US is the Holy Grail Quest of my life. I was young, it's true, but you never forget-
No - you do not forget: childhood baths taken in a little pot in the middle of the living room, with mom pouring hot water heated on the stove. You do not forget relatives from the country bringing you the only meat you would eat that month - to this day, you do not scoff at pig feet or intestines or whatever items are too unfashionable in your new environment. You do not forget Sandy Bell, the only cartoon on TV for years, 30 minutes every weekday night. You do not forget salami (salami, the lifeblood/black market currency/favorite delicacy/only deli meat of communism - appears on almost every other page of Secondhand Time).
Because you do not forget these things, because you can never quite look at bananas in the same way as your new neighbors or new generations, because you never do overcome the cynicism and bravado you learned in diapers torn from old sheets and laundered with coarse hand-made soap, because you do not forget, you don't ever fully adapt to Capitalism. Or, you adapt but do not fully accept - there is always a streak of nostalgia for old days of suffering, or a melancholy for the self-determination needed to survive 'back then', or paranoia, denial, indelible, fundamental distrust of/about existence, society, other people in your new environment.
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets is an oral history of this transition from full-blown privation, closed-off-to-the-world communism to a more or less capitalistic society. Told, as always with Alexievich's work, through a complex tapestry of voices, collected over many hundreds of hours worth of interviews, The Last of the Soviets is an explosively profound rendering of the collective memory of the region, before-during-after revolution.
HIGHLY recommended for anyone interested in either modern Russia/Eastern Europe, or the old USSR/Eastern Europe, or the transition from communism to capitalism, or in life under totalitarianism more broadly, or in the psychology of oppression and resistance.
Note About Reading this in Parallel with The Fox was Ever the Hunter
Eastern European literature speaks to me in a way that no other work can (the reasons are obvious). I find my heart somewhere between Alexievich and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, and was so saddened/disappointed just earlier this week in my reading the first (German-)Romanian work about the period translated into English, by Herta Müller. The differences are stark. While both are Nobel laureates, and both write about life under communism - Alexievich's work showcases the triumphant, perhaps naively romantically melancholic, but, proud, self-respecting Eastern European soul, while Müller's worlds depict pathetic creatures unable to help themselves. While I wanted to throw The Fox out the window many a times (I settled for calling my mother to vent in frustration), Alexievich's work is like salve to my soul, and everything I remember about the people and spirit of the region.
One last personal note
For me, this was a tremendously personally important book, because, as an immigrant/emigrant, I have no grasp whatsoever of how the transition from communism to capitalism occurred for my fellow country wo/men. For me, it was an overnight affair: one day I'm in Romania, the next, in the United States. Which is perhaps why, when I visit Romania now, which I tend to every year/summer, it's so foreign to me. This book goes a long way into filling in the gaps from my absence.
I received a copy from the publisher through Netgalley. Then I bought the book anyway when it came out - no question I need a physical copy to mark up and peruse like a personal bible. Obviously, all opinions are very much my own.
UNLIMITED STARS.
One of the best books I've ever read. THE most personally touching and relevant book I've EVER read. A book that penetrates the soul of my being and explains me to myself.
An Autobiographical Review
this book is my autobiography, and it speaks my heart better than I ever have articulated it myself; many details below are personal, but they are also in the book, and what the book is about.
"Communism had an insane plan: to remake the "old breed of man," ancient Adam. And it really worked … Perhaps it was communism’s only achievement. Seventy-plus years in the Marxist-Leninist laboratory gave rise to a new man: Homo sovieticus. Although we now live in separate countries and speak different languages, you couldn’t mistake us for anyone else. We’re easy to spot! People who’ve come out of socialism... We have a special relationship with death. How much can we value human life when we know that not long ago people had died by the millions? We’re full of hatred and superstitions. All of us come from the land of the gulag and harrowing war. Collectivization, dekulakization, mass deportations … This was socialism, but it was also just everyday life."
Not sure there is any overlap of experience between a life lived under communism as it manifested in Eastern Europe vs. a life lived in a capitalistic society, such as that embodied in the United States.
My experience has straddled both, with the transition from the former to the latter a violently, radically sudden rupture at a young and impressionable age. One day, I was accompanying my mom on her daily errands through Bucharest's dilapidated landscape of empty government-run stores and identically dreary blocks of (state-issued of course) tenement housing, waiting in the 4th line of the day, for an extra handful of eggs she would receive for bringing me along. Then excitedly heading home for the 30 minutes of kids' TV programming offered daily (of 2 or 3 hours total broadcasting, on one channel). All the while, being tailed by the Securitate (my father had defected and been sentenced in absentia, so we lived under constant surveillance).
Seemingly the next day - well. You've heard the stories of immigrant shock: the vast highways, insanely stocked supermarkets (supermarkets! we had no such thing). The variety, the diversity, the choices, the sheer mass, density, amount of STUFF. And people who nonchalantly wander through it all, completely nonplussed at the fact that there are mounds of bananas everywhere and people aren't shoving each other out of the way to get to them. Ok so I had had ONE banana my entire childhood - smuggled into the country illegally of course. To this day I'm still ... touched? surprised, just a little? at how much we take bananas for granted, at least here in the DC area.
Of course the stuff is only the beginning, only the surface layer that one immediately notices upon stepping off a plane into the Land of Abundance and Freedom for the first time. The divergences penetrate deep into the psyche/soul/historical memory/collective un/consciousness of the people and place. Everything down (up?) to structures of thought, modes of interaction, even constructs for understanding the self - ALL are different in a society that limits ALL material conditions and social acts (energy, food, media, knowledge, books, speech, movement, communication) vs. a society that views freedom and choice as fundamental.
Understanding the radical rupture created in my being by my move from Eastern Europe (Romania) to the US is the Holy Grail Quest of my life. I was young, it's true, but you never forget-
"It wasn’t that long ago, but it’s as though it happened in another era … a different country … That’s where we left our naïveté and romanticism. Our trust. No one wants to remember it now because it’s unpleasant; we’ve lived through a lot of disappointment since then. But who could say that nothing has changed? Back then, you couldn’t even bring a Bible over the border. Did you forget that? When I’d come visit them from Moscow, I’d bring my relatives in Kaluga flour and noodles as presents. And they would be grateful. Have you forgotten? No one stands in line for sugar and soap anymore. And you don’t need a ration card to buy a coat. Did you forget that?
No - you do not forget: childhood baths taken in a little pot in the middle of the living room, with mom pouring hot water heated on the stove. You do not forget relatives from the country bringing you the only meat you would eat that month - to this day, you do not scoff at pig feet or intestines or whatever items are too unfashionable in your new environment. You do not forget Sandy Bell, the only cartoon on TV for years, 30 minutes every weekday night. You do not forget salami (salami, the lifeblood/black market currency/favorite delicacy/only deli meat of communism - appears on almost every other page of Secondhand Time).
Because you do not forget these things, because you can never quite look at bananas in the same way as your new neighbors or new generations, because you never do overcome the cynicism and bravado you learned in diapers torn from old sheets and laundered with coarse hand-made soap, because you do not forget, you don't ever fully adapt to Capitalism. Or, you adapt but do not fully accept - there is always a streak of nostalgia for old days of suffering, or a melancholy for the self-determination needed to survive 'back then', or paranoia, denial, indelible, fundamental distrust of/about existence, society, other people in your new environment.
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets is an oral history of this transition from full-blown privation, closed-off-to-the-world communism to a more or less capitalistic society. Told, as always with Alexievich's work, through a complex tapestry of voices, collected over many hundreds of hours worth of interviews, The Last of the Soviets is an explosively profound rendering of the collective memory of the region, before-during-after revolution.
HIGHLY recommended for anyone interested in either modern Russia/Eastern Europe, or the old USSR/Eastern Europe, or the transition from communism to capitalism, or in life under totalitarianism more broadly, or in the psychology of oppression and resistance.
Note About Reading this in Parallel with The Fox was Ever the Hunter
Eastern European literature speaks to me in a way that no other work can (the reasons are obvious). I find my heart somewhere between Alexievich and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, and was so saddened/disappointed just earlier this week in my reading the first (German-)Romanian work about the period translated into English, by Herta Müller. The differences are stark. While both are Nobel laureates, and both write about life under communism - Alexievich's work showcases the triumphant, perhaps naively romantically melancholic, but, proud, self-respecting Eastern European soul, while Müller's worlds depict pathetic creatures unable to help themselves. While I wanted to throw The Fox out the window many a times (I settled for calling my mother to vent in frustration), Alexievich's work is like salve to my soul, and everything I remember about the people and spirit of the region.
One last personal note
For me, this was a tremendously personally important book, because, as an immigrant/emigrant, I have no grasp whatsoever of how the transition from communism to capitalism occurred for my fellow country wo/men. For me, it was an overnight affair: one day I'm in Romania, the next, in the United States. Which is perhaps why, when I visit Romania now, which I tend to every year/summer, it's so foreign to me. This book goes a long way into filling in the gaps from my absence.
I received a copy from the publisher through Netgalley. Then I bought the book anyway when it came out - no question I need a physical copy to mark up and peruse like a personal bible. Obviously, all opinions are very much my own.
May 1, 2022
This is a book about ‘homo sovieticus’. People shaped by a great failed experiment. People who weren’t ready for this failed experiment to end and to be thrown into the world they didn’t know how to properly survive in, left behind in the world where they no longer fit while those with specific mindset were quickly appropriating the riches. It’s a story of a tragedy, a generational PTSD, people who still remained Soviet at heart - willingly or not - even when the country by that name ceased to exist.
Your familiar world can end in many ways, and even the events that the rest of the world views as something good can shatter your life just the same. The end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union that became official in 1991 was a life-changing event, reshaping the course of politics and power quite drastically. And yes, it can be viewed as a win for Western values or democracy or freedom, or the clear sign that totalitarianism has within it the seeds of its own destruction. But however you look at it, it is also a life-changing cataclysm for those caught in the gears of shifting political and economic machine, those whose value system and beliefs were suddenly changed, those who were not shrewd enough or ruthless enough or just lucky enough to rise to the top and ended up just hanging on and trying to keep their heads above water.
Disposing with the Soviet Union was supposed to better those who wanted change and freedom, those who felt the exhilaration of being able to cast votes that counted, those who in the uncertain days of power shifts did not think twice about potentially risking their lives to protect the ideals they craved. But what happened to many of them is exactly what one would expect. The economically devastating 1990s were not for the idealists — they were fertile ground for future oligarchs and racketeers and various hangers-on to those. And you, suddenly penniless intellectuals — you were free now, once the places you worked for went bankrupt and insane price inflation hit, vaporizing all your savings in days and teaching you to pay millions of now useless money for bread and matches (and rope and soap, as I remember adults bleakly semi-joking around that time) and reducing you to try and peddle what remained of your valuables in street markets.
Life eventually - eventually - got better, but the scars remained.
This is a story of collective trauma brought on by the sudden change in the world. That “second-hand” in the title in Russian immediately brings to mind the rummaging through cheaply sold bins of second-hand clothing coming to us as humanitarian aid from the West — the time when you rocked those pre-worn 80s styles because affording new clothes was unthinkable. It’s not vintage, it’s poverty. When your safety and security and sense of self-worth are gone in the winds of change, it’s hard to care about freedom and all that jazz.
But history goes around in circles. When good rich coveted life ends up being for the “haves”, the “have-nots” are remembering the past through the lens of nostalgia - for youth, for security, for time “before”. Dictatorship presented as “strong leadership” starts seeing more attractive, the world splits back into camps, the cult of Stalin making a comeback. And that may give just a bit of insight into why things are the way they are in the post-Soviet Russia. It’s easy to see how the complete and cynical embrace of wild capitalism with money worship and disdain for anything non-materialistic and rise of criminal enterprises to the “elite” helped foster nostalgia and desire to bring back the past and venerate the past regardless of atrocities in it.
There is a common leitmotif among those interviewed by Alexievich through the 90s, and it’s the sense of loss and humiliation. This book is full of narratives of people who, despite coming from the families that suffered through the Stalin regime (or even experienced the repressions and the camps firsthand) still continued to romanticize and cling to the idea of worshipping what they saw as a great state despite all the wrongness and all the devastation state terror caused. They still continued to mourn the idea of “what a great country that they destroyed”. And I feel torn between feeling really bad for them after their entire world and their values system crumbled overnight and the horrible wild capitalism took over — and feeling sad how desperately they were clutching to the system that destroyed them and their parents.
People who matured in Soviet times mourned the loss of being the part of a “great country” that was respected and feared (and to many, those are really interchangeable). Regardless of how their lives were, it seemed that many found meaning in belonging to something they viewed as greater than themselves. A sense of self-worth by association, perhaps? Even if lives were poor and miserable, being a part of an entity feared (and respected, as people chose to interpret that fear) brought a feeling of security and importance. And that the feeling that proved to be hard to let go of, and the sense that they missed once the former USSR was no longer considered a formidable world power. That’s both pathetic and relatable, isn’t it?
It’s the final book in Alexievich’s study of Soviet people. The story of those who lived through tragedies and internalized either the glorification of the system that was based on humiliation and subjugation or the deep fear of the consequences of disobedience; those who despite everything sincerely believed in heroic idealism and romanticism of placing those ideals above everything else. And pain when these came crushing against new reality.
4.5 stars. A difficult book to read, but the one that really hits a particular nerve.
—————
Buddy read with Justin.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
“I asked everyone I met what “freedom” meant. Fathers and children had very different answers. Those who were born in the USSR and those born after its collapse do not share a common experience—it’s like they’re from different planets.”
Your familiar world can end in many ways, and even the events that the rest of the world views as something good can shatter your life just the same. The end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union that became official in 1991 was a life-changing event, reshaping the course of politics and power quite drastically. And yes, it can be viewed as a win for Western values or democracy or freedom, or the clear sign that totalitarianism has within it the seeds of its own destruction. But however you look at it, it is also a life-changing cataclysm for those caught in the gears of shifting political and economic machine, those whose value system and beliefs were suddenly changed, those who were not shrewd enough or ruthless enough or just lucky enough to rise to the top and ended up just hanging on and trying to keep their heads above water.
“People read newspapers and magazines and sat in stunned silence. They were overcome with unspeakable horror. How were we supposed to live with this? Many greeted the truth as an enemy. And freedom as well.”
———
“So here it is, freedom! Is it everything we hoped it would be? We were prepared to die for our ideals. To prove ourselves in battle. Instead, we ushered in a Chekhovian life. Without any history. Without any values except for the value of human life—life in general. Now we have new dreams: building a house, buying a decent car, planting gooseberries…Freedom turned out to mean the rehabilitation of bourgeois existence, which has traditionally been suppressed in Russia. The freedom of Her Highness Consumption.”
Disposing with the Soviet Union was supposed to better those who wanted change and freedom, those who felt the exhilaration of being able to cast votes that counted, those who in the uncertain days of power shifts did not think twice about potentially risking their lives to protect the ideals they craved. But what happened to many of them is exactly what one would expect. The economically devastating 1990s were not for the idealists — they were fertile ground for future oligarchs and racketeers and various hangers-on to those. And you, suddenly penniless intellectuals — you were free now, once the places you worked for went bankrupt and insane price inflation hit, vaporizing all your savings in days and teaching you to pay millions of now useless money for bread and matches (and rope and soap, as I remember adults bleakly semi-joking around that time) and reducing you to try and peddle what remained of your valuables in street markets.
“They’re renaming the streets: Merchant, Middle Class, Nobleman Street…I’ve even seen “Prince’s salami” and “General’s wine.” A cult of money and success. The strong, with their iron biceps, are the ones who survive. But not everyone is capable of stopping at nothing to tear a piece of the pie out of somebody else’s mouth. For some, it’s simply not in their nature. Others even find it disgusting.”
Life eventually - eventually - got better, but the scars remained.
I reminisced alongside my protagonists. One of them said, “Only a Soviet can understand another Soviet.” We share a communist collective memory. We’re neighbors in memory.”
“Although we now live in separate countries and speak different languages, you couldn’t mistake us for anyone else. We’re easy to spot! People who’ve come out of socialism are both like and unlike the rest of humanity—we have our own lexicon, our own conceptions of good and evil, our heroes, our martyrs.”
This is a story of collective trauma brought on by the sudden change in the world. That “second-hand” in the title in Russian immediately brings to mind the rummaging through cheaply sold bins of second-hand clothing coming to us as humanitarian aid from the West — the time when you rocked those pre-worn 80s styles because affording new clothes was unthinkable. It’s not vintage, it’s poverty. When your safety and security and sense of self-worth are gone in the winds of change, it’s hard to care about freedom and all that jazz.
“Most people were not anti-Soviet; they only wanted to live well. They really wanted blue jeans, VCRs, and most of all, cars. Nice clothes and good food.”
But history goes around in circles. When good rich coveted life ends up being for the “haves”, the “have-nots” are remembering the past through the lens of nostalgia - for youth, for security, for time “before”. Dictatorship presented as “strong leadership” starts seeing more attractive, the world splits back into camps, the cult of Stalin making a comeback. And that may give just a bit of insight into why things are the way they are in the post-Soviet Russia. It’s easy to see how the complete and cynical embrace of wild capitalism with money worship and disdain for anything non-materialistic and rise of criminal enterprises to the “elite” helped foster nostalgia and desire to bring back the past and venerate the past regardless of atrocities in it.
“My grandmother’s greatest fear was a new Stalin and another war. Her whole life, she’d been anticipating arrest and starvation. She grew onions in egg cartons on the windowsill, fermented huge pots of cabbage. Stockpiled sugar and butter. Our storage cabinets were glutted with grains. Pearl barley. She always told me, “Don’t say anything! Nothing!” Keep your mouth shut in school…in university…That’s how I was raised, those were the people I grew up with. We had no reason to love the Soviet regime.”
There is a common leitmotif among those interviewed by Alexievich through the 90s, and it’s the sense of loss and humiliation. This book is full of narratives of people who, despite coming from the families that suffered through the Stalin regime (or even experienced the repressions and the camps firsthand) still continued to romanticize and cling to the idea of worshipping what they saw as a great state despite all the wrongness and all the devastation state terror caused. They still continued to mourn the idea of “what a great country that they destroyed”. And I feel torn between feeling really bad for them after their entire world and their values system crumbled overnight and the horrible wild capitalism took over — and feeling sad how desperately they were clutching to the system that destroyed them and their parents.
“The market became our university… Maybe it’s going too far to call it a university, but an elementary school for life, definitely. People would visit it like they were going to a museum. Or to the library. Boys and girls stumbled around with crazed expressions, like zombies among the stalls… […] Millions of new little boxes and jars. People would bring them home as though they were sacred texts and, after using their contents, they wouldn’t throw them out, they’d display them in a place of honor on their bookshelves or put them in their china cabinets behind glass. People read the first glossy magazines as though they were the classics, with the reverent faith that behind the cover, directly under that packaging, you’d find the beautiful life. There were kilometer-long queues outside of the first McDonald’s, stories about it on the news. Educated, intelligent adults saved boxes and napkins from there and would proudly show them off to guests.”
People who matured in Soviet times mourned the loss of being the part of a “great country” that was respected and feared (and to many, those are really interchangeable). Regardless of how their lives were, it seemed that many found meaning in belonging to something they viewed as greater than themselves. A sense of self-worth by association, perhaps? Even if lives were poor and miserable, being a part of an entity feared (and respected, as people chose to interpret that fear) brought a feeling of security and importance. And that the feeling that proved to be hard to let go of, and the sense that they missed once the former USSR was no longer considered a formidable world power. That’s both pathetic and relatable, isn’t it?
“Our faith was sincere…Naïve…We thought that any minute now…there were buses idling outside waiting to take us away to democracy. We’d finally leave behind these run-down Khrushchyovkas and move into beautiful houses, build autobahns to replace these broken-down roads, and we’d all turn into respectable people. No one searched for rational proof that any of this would really happen. There was none. What did we need it for? We believed in it with our hearts, not our reason. At the district polling stations, we voted with our hearts, as well. No one told us what exactly we were supposed to do: We were free now and that was that.”
It’s the final book in Alexievich’s study of Soviet people. The story of those who lived through tragedies and internalized either the glorification of the system that was based on humiliation and subjugation or the deep fear of the consequences of disobedience; those who despite everything sincerely believed in heroic idealism and romanticism of placing those ideals above everything else. And pain when these came crushing against new reality.
“I’ve fallen behind…I’m one of the people who’s fallen behind…Everyone else transferred from the train that was hurtling toward socialism onto the train racing to capitalism. I’m late.”
4.5 stars. A difficult book to read, but the one that really hits a particular nerve.
—————
Buddy read with Justin.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
July 20, 2018
Hay libros que deben leerse porque su belleza nos procurará un gran placer; otros porque la hondura de su percepción y comprensión de la naturaleza humana nos abrirán vías de autoconocimiento y tolerancia; otros porque nos admirará su compromiso; otros porque nos estremecerá su testimonio; otros porque nos sacarán de nuestros errores o nos sanarán de nuestra ignorancia. Este libro de Svetlana Aleksiévich hay que leerlo por todas esas razones.
Pero he de advertir que este un libro exige del lector un triple compromiso de confianza. Confianza en que todo lo leído son auténticos testimonios, confianza en que los testimonios son, a su vez, veraces, y, por último pero no menos importante, confianza en que las dramáticas revelaciones, confesiones, confidencias sobre la vida que llevaron antes, durante y después de la revolución, si así puede calificarse a todo lo que ocurrió en los años 90 en la extinta Unión Soviética, así como todas las reflexiones y juicios recogidos en el libro son algo más que meras opiniones personales y que en verdad representan y retratan una época o, al menos, la situación social, económica, sentimental y política de una parte más o menos amplia de la gente que lo vivió.
Yo asumo todos esos compromisos y mantengo todas esas convicciones, y lo hago por algo así como una razón ontológica: el libro me parece tan terrible, tan bello, tan cruel, tan conmovedor que se me hace muy difícil pensar que entre sus muchos dones no se encuentra por encima de todos ellos el de la verdad. El libro me ha impactado por su dureza, por la humanidad con la que trata a víctimas y verdugos, no siempre fáciles de distinguir, por la inteligencia con la que indaga en la naturaleza humana, por la belleza de esos testimonios que muchas veces funcionan como auténticos relatos literarios.
“Homo sovieticus” es un término despectivo referido a una cierta forma de pensar, de sentir, de comportarse, de aquellos que vivieron la era soviética y que ahora se ven incapaces de adaptarse o comprender el mundo que se abrió tras la caída de la URSS. Es también una burla sobre ese hombre nuevo que traería el comunismo y de cuya posibilidad este libro es una concluyente refutación. Es un término que distingue a esa generación que se reunían cada noche en las cocinas a hablar de su vida cotidiana, de su vida sentimental, y que a los cinco minutos ya discutían, en susurros, sobre cómo enderezar el destino de Rusia. Y eso es este libro, una larga conversación en la cocina, tumultuosa a veces, íntima las más, en la que gente de muy diversa procedencia, ideología, vivencias hablan de ellos mismos, de sus padres o hijos, de vecinos o amigos y, sin que medien preguntas, vierten sus vidas y la influencia que sobre ellas tuvieron el experimento comunista y todo lo terrible que vino después. ¿Quién que ha sufrido es capaz de resistirse a contar su vida?
Parece que alguien dijo una vez que “en Rusia todo puede cambiar en cinco años, pero no cambia absolutamente nada en doscientos”. El libro, que parece marcarse como objetivo demostrar la verdad de esta frase, expone, apoyándose en una diversa y significativa polifonía de voces, como en apenas 20 años los exsoviéticos pasaron del reinado del partido comunista a una mala copia del mismo tras el paso por la glorificación de “su Majestad el Consumo”; de la ortodoxia del marxismo leninismo a la Iglesia ortodoxa rusa; del odio a Stalin a exhibir su rostro en camisetas y posters; del sueño de una felicidad eterna y compartida al sueño de un nuevo Mercedes-Benz privado; de una país de soviéticos a muchos países de georgianos, abjasios o rusos; de compartir el mismo autobús, los mismos colegios, los mismos libros, el mismo idioma a matarse unos a otros, los vecinos a los vecinos, los escolares a sus compañeros de clase; de un zar despreciado y vilipendiado a un zar añorado y adorado; de que los defensores del socialismo pasaran a ser una panda de criminales para acabar siendo un mal menor, quizás necesario entonces y ahora; de ser humilde a ser gentuza; del honor a la vergüenza de ser comunistas para acabar avergonzados de ser liberales; del miedo al KGB al miedo a las mafias para volver al miedo al estado; de que los bandidos se conviertan en gente respetable; de los poemarios prohibidos a los anillos de brillantes; de vivir en una casucha sin comodidades, ni agua, ni tuberías, ni gas, a lo mismo; de comer solo macarrones y patatas a lo mismo; de tener solo un abrigo a tener el mismo. Todo ello a través de voces nostálgicas, rabiosas, arrepentidas, desencantadas, cínicas, furiosas, afectivas, furiosas, desesperadas, tristes en las que se repiten una y otra vez palabras como guerra, gulag, miseria, amor, refugiados, violencia, vodka, crueldad, suicidio, perestroika, heroicidad, frío, torturas, marginación, revolución, hambre, xenofobia, piedad, delación, libertad, mezquindad, amor, esperanza, especulación, sacrificio, manifestación, patria, sueños, miedo, solidaridad, sagrado, poemas y canciones, ideales, el imperio perdido.
Pero he de advertir que este un libro exige del lector un triple compromiso de confianza. Confianza en que todo lo leído son auténticos testimonios, confianza en que los testimonios son, a su vez, veraces, y, por último pero no menos importante, confianza en que las dramáticas revelaciones, confesiones, confidencias sobre la vida que llevaron antes, durante y después de la revolución, si así puede calificarse a todo lo que ocurrió en los años 90 en la extinta Unión Soviética, así como todas las reflexiones y juicios recogidos en el libro son algo más que meras opiniones personales y que en verdad representan y retratan una época o, al menos, la situación social, económica, sentimental y política de una parte más o menos amplia de la gente que lo vivió.
Yo asumo todos esos compromisos y mantengo todas esas convicciones, y lo hago por algo así como una razón ontológica: el libro me parece tan terrible, tan bello, tan cruel, tan conmovedor que se me hace muy difícil pensar que entre sus muchos dones no se encuentra por encima de todos ellos el de la verdad. El libro me ha impactado por su dureza, por la humanidad con la que trata a víctimas y verdugos, no siempre fáciles de distinguir, por la inteligencia con la que indaga en la naturaleza humana, por la belleza de esos testimonios que muchas veces funcionan como auténticos relatos literarios.
“Homo sovieticus” es un término despectivo referido a una cierta forma de pensar, de sentir, de comportarse, de aquellos que vivieron la era soviética y que ahora se ven incapaces de adaptarse o comprender el mundo que se abrió tras la caída de la URSS. Es también una burla sobre ese hombre nuevo que traería el comunismo y de cuya posibilidad este libro es una concluyente refutación. Es un término que distingue a esa generación que se reunían cada noche en las cocinas a hablar de su vida cotidiana, de su vida sentimental, y que a los cinco minutos ya discutían, en susurros, sobre cómo enderezar el destino de Rusia. Y eso es este libro, una larga conversación en la cocina, tumultuosa a veces, íntima las más, en la que gente de muy diversa procedencia, ideología, vivencias hablan de ellos mismos, de sus padres o hijos, de vecinos o amigos y, sin que medien preguntas, vierten sus vidas y la influencia que sobre ellas tuvieron el experimento comunista y todo lo terrible que vino después. ¿Quién que ha sufrido es capaz de resistirse a contar su vida?
Parece que alguien dijo una vez que “en Rusia todo puede cambiar en cinco años, pero no cambia absolutamente nada en doscientos”. El libro, que parece marcarse como objetivo demostrar la verdad de esta frase, expone, apoyándose en una diversa y significativa polifonía de voces, como en apenas 20 años los exsoviéticos pasaron del reinado del partido comunista a una mala copia del mismo tras el paso por la glorificación de “su Majestad el Consumo”; de la ortodoxia del marxismo leninismo a la Iglesia ortodoxa rusa; del odio a Stalin a exhibir su rostro en camisetas y posters; del sueño de una felicidad eterna y compartida al sueño de un nuevo Mercedes-Benz privado; de una país de soviéticos a muchos países de georgianos, abjasios o rusos; de compartir el mismo autobús, los mismos colegios, los mismos libros, el mismo idioma a matarse unos a otros, los vecinos a los vecinos, los escolares a sus compañeros de clase; de un zar despreciado y vilipendiado a un zar añorado y adorado; de que los defensores del socialismo pasaran a ser una panda de criminales para acabar siendo un mal menor, quizás necesario entonces y ahora; de ser humilde a ser gentuza; del honor a la vergüenza de ser comunistas para acabar avergonzados de ser liberales; del miedo al KGB al miedo a las mafias para volver al miedo al estado; de que los bandidos se conviertan en gente respetable; de los poemarios prohibidos a los anillos de brillantes; de vivir en una casucha sin comodidades, ni agua, ni tuberías, ni gas, a lo mismo; de comer solo macarrones y patatas a lo mismo; de tener solo un abrigo a tener el mismo. Todo ello a través de voces nostálgicas, rabiosas, arrepentidas, desencantadas, cínicas, furiosas, afectivas, furiosas, desesperadas, tristes en las que se repiten una y otra vez palabras como guerra, gulag, miseria, amor, refugiados, violencia, vodka, crueldad, suicidio, perestroika, heroicidad, frío, torturas, marginación, revolución, hambre, xenofobia, piedad, delación, libertad, mezquindad, amor, esperanza, especulación, sacrificio, manifestación, patria, sueños, miedo, solidaridad, sagrado, poemas y canciones, ideales, el imperio perdido.
January 5, 2021
It DESTROYED me, but it's one of the most powerful books I've ever read. Check out my video on Booktube!
March 7, 2021
This is an excellent and essential book but there was simply too much of it, it’s nearly 700 pages long. Transcriptions of dozens of interviews with dozens of Russians, all ex-Soviet citizens, about what it was like to live through the collapse of the USSR, the defeat of communism and the rise of the gangster oligarchy. There are many sincere communists in these pages who wring their hands in different ways, some denouncing that perfect idiot Gorbachev, some that ridiculous stooge Yeltsin, there were enemies of the unique Soviet way of life every way you looked. Yes, they say, it was all true about the empty shelves and the shortages and the cramped lives, but in those days they were doing something unique, they had this dream, it badly needed to be reformed, but instead the crazy hotheads threw the whole project in the bin and prostrated themselves before the mighty capitalists.
Over and over again.
Let’s take a core sample. Page 50:
Today, they accuse us of fighting for capitalism…that’s not true! I was defending socialism, but some other kind, not the Soviet kind
Page 100
One of my girlfriends got into such a big fight about Lenin with her son and daughter-in-law, she kicked them out.
Page 150
There was a mountain of red flags and pennants. Party and Komsomol membership cards. And Soviet war medals! Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner. Medals! For Valor!...being sold for dollars…”These are relics from the era of totalitarianism” Those were his words…Like these were just refuse, but the foreigners liked them.
Page 200
I read an essay by a so-called democrat who said that the war generation… which is to say, us…was in power too long. We won the war, rebuilt the country, and after that we should have left because we had no conception of how to live in peacetime.
Page 250
There were kilometer-long queues outside of the first McDonald’s, stories about it on the news. Educated, intelligent adults saved boxes and napkins from there and would proudly show them off to their guests.
You can see how it is. So for me there were a couple of big problems. First is that this huge book seemed like raw material gathered for another book. And it was the other book I was wanting to read. For me, there was simply too much of the same kind of woeful sorrowful tale of bitter regret. But I can’t fault a book for doing what it set out to do and not what I think it should have wanted to do. But I wanted to find out how the gangsters actually took over (the “pirate privatisation” as one guy calls it), whether they had been there in the background all along, how the transformation from 1989 to (say) 2000 happened, piece by piece.
Although I quite see that Svetlana Alexievich is not going to be able to get some despicable billionaire to sit down and say “well, this is how we stole the natural gas industry…”
Finally a note on the crazy cover policy of the publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions. They have uniform covers for all their books and they are the world's dullest.
Wow, okay, we get you're really a Serious company, but give us readers a break, please.
Over and over again.
Let’s take a core sample. Page 50:
Today, they accuse us of fighting for capitalism…that’s not true! I was defending socialism, but some other kind, not the Soviet kind
Page 100
One of my girlfriends got into such a big fight about Lenin with her son and daughter-in-law, she kicked them out.
Page 150
There was a mountain of red flags and pennants. Party and Komsomol membership cards. And Soviet war medals! Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner. Medals! For Valor!...being sold for dollars…”These are relics from the era of totalitarianism” Those were his words…Like these were just refuse, but the foreigners liked them.
Page 200
I read an essay by a so-called democrat who said that the war generation… which is to say, us…was in power too long. We won the war, rebuilt the country, and after that we should have left because we had no conception of how to live in peacetime.
Page 250
There were kilometer-long queues outside of the first McDonald’s, stories about it on the news. Educated, intelligent adults saved boxes and napkins from there and would proudly show them off to their guests.
You can see how it is. So for me there were a couple of big problems. First is that this huge book seemed like raw material gathered for another book. And it was the other book I was wanting to read. For me, there was simply too much of the same kind of woeful sorrowful tale of bitter regret. But I can’t fault a book for doing what it set out to do and not what I think it should have wanted to do. But I wanted to find out how the gangsters actually took over (the “pirate privatisation” as one guy calls it), whether they had been there in the background all along, how the transformation from 1989 to (say) 2000 happened, piece by piece.
Although I quite see that Svetlana Alexievich is not going to be able to get some despicable billionaire to sit down and say “well, this is how we stole the natural gas industry…”
Finally a note on the crazy cover policy of the publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions. They have uniform covers for all their books and they are the world's dullest.
Wow, okay, we get you're really a Serious company, but give us readers a break, please.
May 29, 2024
26.02.2022
Съществата уродливи от тази книга държат на власт чудовището Путин вече над 20 години. Фашистката им агресия срещу суверенна Украйна е вече факт, хиляди невинни са убити, още хиляди ще бъдат убити, градове и села ще бъдат разрушени.
Проклети да са и Путин и върхушката му, но и хомо совиетикус, които го издигнаха и му дадоха възможност да краде, да набере сила и да убива масово хора...
Гнус ме е!!!
Чудесен текст на Теодора Димова, допълващ тази книга:
https://www.dnevnik.bg/sviat/voinata_...
Втора книга на Алексиевич прочетена след "Войната не е с лице на жена" и отново нямам грам желание да напиша ревю...
Историите вътре са много, всяка различна и все пак приличащи си всичките. Съветските хора са феномен, останал и до ден днешен неразбираем за останалите хора, имали щастието да не са засегнати пряко от червената чума. И нямат свършване те, възпитават и в момента свои душевно увредени клонинги...
Хора-чудовища и чудовища-хора, жертви и палачи, идеалисти и грозни опортюнисти и най-вече хора удобно неразбиращи и не знаещи, какво се е случвало около тях. И тълпа от същества, които жалеят по СССР и които си построиха нов такъв - Русия на Путин. Грешките от историята се повтарят и аз не мога и не искам да ги съжаля.
Трябва да се прочете и осмисли задължително и се надявам и другите и книги скоро да се появят на български!
Междувременно, в Русия отново надига глас мракобесието - безсрамните подлоги на путинския режим настояват книгите на Алексиевич да бъдат иззети от библиотеките и книжарниците и публично изгорени... А самата писателка да бъде обявена за враг на Русия... Все едно са им малко другите врагове, но "хомо совиетикус" не може да съществува, без да е заобиколен от врагове!!!
Задават се отново страшни, тъмни времена! И ако руснаците са свикнали и нямат нито сила, нито воля за промяна, то аз го намирам за ужасно, та ние едва наскоро свикнахме да дишаме свободно и да живеем като нормални хора...
P. S. България по време на късния соц фалира за трети път след 1944 година. Всичко по-читаво от селскостопанската продукция се изнасяше по второ направление на Запад за валута, в безуспешен опит да се обслужат поне лихвите по заемите ни. Заеми отишли в бездънните ями наречени тежко машиностроене, металургия и промишлена химия, жестоко нерентабилни и на загуба (КЦМ, Кремиковци и прочие). Лошото качество селскостопанска продукция - за СССР срещу преводни рубли, с които купувахме петрол на завишени над пазарните цени, за кретането на горните недоразумения.
За това и в нашите магазини нямаше нищо за народа. Но комунягите ни, подобно на руските такива, си имаха специална служба към УБО/ДС, която им доставяше безплатно и от пиле мляко по домовете, летяха на шопинг, но ти да видиш - предимно на Запад...
Отделно се наляха милиарди в износа на революции в Иран, Ирак, Ангола, Виетнам, Куба, Ливан, Сирия, Никарагуа и прочие "братски" държави - пари, които никога не ни върнаха.
Харчовете на червената върхушка за мегаломански изхвърлян��я бяха безчет - основно в така презираната уж конвертируема валута.
Хиляди български специалисти бачкаха като роби на държавата в чужбина, която им обменяше валутата по разбойнически курсове веднъж и ги грабеше втори път при покупките с останалото количество от Кореком - там без ред можеха да се купят фантастичните вещи за бита, като бяла и черна техника произведени на Запад, автомобили, алкохол, цигари и сладкарски изделия, неща които абсолютно липсваха по магазините и беше невъзможно дори да се купят некачествените им соц аналози без връзки.
И като си помисля, че доста хора мечтаят това време да се завърне и се оказва някак, че червения човек няма начало и край... :(
P.S. Виц, от епохата на загнилия соц:
Човек пише писмо до брат си в САЩ, в което между другото се оплаква и от високите цени в социалистическа България.
На другия ден след като го е пуснал в пощата, на вратата му се звъни, отваря той и вижда тлъст милиционер да размахва писмото в ръка.
- Какво си писал тук бе, как така в България всичко е много скъпо? Я веднага да напишеш, как евтино и добре се живее в социалистическата ни родина! И внимавай...
Седнал човека да пише ново писмо:
"Мили брате, в България живеем от ден на ден все по-добре. Ето, ако искам да си купя слон, вадя десет лева и готово. Ма, за какво ми е на мене слон, по-добре да дам още пет и да си купя кило луканка...".
Съществата уродливи от тази книга държат на власт чудовището Путин вече над 20 години. Фашистката им агресия срещу суверенна Украйна е вече факт, хиляди невинни са убити, още хиляди ще бъдат убити, градове и села ще бъдат разрушени.
Проклети да са и Путин и върхушката му, но и хомо совиетикус, които го издигнаха и му дадоха възможност да краде, да набере сила и да убива масово хора...
Гнус ме е!!!
Чудесен текст на Теодора Димова, допълващ тази книга:
https://www.dnevnik.bg/sviat/voinata_...
Втора книга на Алексиевич прочетена след "Войната не е с лице на жена" и отново нямам грам желание да напиша ревю...
Историите вътре са много, всяка различна и все пак приличащи си всичките. Съветските хора са феномен, останал и до ден днешен неразбираем за останалите хора, имали щастието да не са засегнати пряко от червената чума. И нямат свършване те, възпитават и в момента свои душевно увредени клонинги...
Хора-чудовища и чудовища-хора, жертви и палачи, идеалисти и грозни опортюнисти и най-вече хора удобно неразбиращи и не знаещи, какво се е случвало около тях. И тълпа от същества, които жалеят по СССР и които си построиха нов такъв - Русия на Путин. Грешките от историята се повтарят и аз не мога и не искам да ги съжаля.
Трябва да се прочете и осмисли задължително и се надявам и другите и книги скоро да се появят на български!
Междувременно, в Русия отново надига глас мракобесието - безсрамните подлоги на путинския режим настояват книгите на Алексиевич да бъдат иззети от библиотеките и книжарниците и публично изгорени... А самата писателка да бъде обявена за враг на Русия... Все едно са им малко другите врагове, но "хомо совиетикус" не може да съществува, без да е заобиколен от врагове!!!
Задават се отново страшни, тъмни времена! И ако руснаците са свикнали и нямат нито сила, нито воля за промяна, то аз го намирам за ужасно, та ние едва наскоро свикнахме да дишаме свободно и да живеем като нормални хора...
P. S. България по време на късния соц фалира за трети път след 1944 година. Всичко по-читаво от селскостопанската продукция се изнасяше по второ направление на Запад за валута, в безуспешен опит да се обслужат поне лихвите по заемите ни. Заеми отишли в бездънните ями наречени тежко машиностроене, металургия и промишлена химия, жестоко нерентабилни и на загуба (КЦМ, Кремиковци и прочие). Лошото качество селскостопанска продукция - за СССР срещу преводни рубли, с които купувахме петрол на завишени над пазарните цени, за кретането на горните недоразумения.
За това и в нашите магазини нямаше нищо за народа. Но комунягите ни, подобно на руските такива, си имаха специална служба към УБО/ДС, която им доставяше безплатно и от пиле мляко по домовете, летяха на шопинг, но ти да видиш - предимно на Запад...
Отделно се наляха милиарди в износа на революции в Иран, Ирак, Ангола, Виетнам, Куба, Ливан, Сирия, Никарагуа и прочие "братски" държави - пари, които никога не ни върнаха.
Харчовете на червената върхушка за мегаломански изхвърлян��я бяха безчет - основно в така презираната уж конвертируема валута.
Хиляди български специалисти бачкаха като роби на държавата в чужбина, която им обменяше валутата по разбойнически курсове веднъж и ги грабеше втори път при покупките с останалото количество от Кореком - там без ред можеха да се купят фантастичните вещи за бита, като бяла и черна техника произведени на Запад, автомобили, алкохол, цигари и сладкарски изделия, неща които абсолютно липсваха по магазините и беше невъзможно дори да се купят некачествените им соц аналози без връзки.
И като си помисля, че доста хора мечтаят това време да се завърне и се оказва някак, че червения човек няма начало и край... :(
P.S. Виц, от епохата на загнилия соц:
Човек пише писмо до брат си в САЩ, в което между другото се оплаква и от високите цени в социалистическа България.
На другия ден след като го е пуснал в пощата, на вратата му се звъни, отваря той и вижда тлъст милиционер да размахва писмото в ръка.
- Какво си писал тук бе, как така в България всичко е много скъпо? Я веднага да напишеш, как евтино и добре се живее в социалистическата ни родина! И внимавай...
Седнал човека да пише ново писмо:
"Мили брате, в България живеем от ден на ден все по-добре. Ето, ако искам да си купя слон, вадя десет лева и готово. Ма, за какво ми е на мене слон, по-добре да дам още пет и да си купя кило луканка...".
September 28, 2018
The book "Secondhand-Zeit" was written by Svetlana Alexiewitsch in 2013. She reports on life after the Cold War in Russia. The Country is in a phase in which the Country has to find itself again.
Svetlana Alexiewitsch (Nobel Prize Laureate) İnterviewed people from different Social strata of the Nomenklatura, as well as numerous citizens of the former Soviet Union of different age groups, between the Years 1992 and 2012.
The emancipated improvement in life conditions did not simply occur.
Important in advance: This book requires endurance and readiness to read about others' suffering.
Svetlana Alexiewitsch (Nobel Prize Laureate) İnterviewed people from different Social strata of the Nomenklatura, as well as numerous citizens of the former Soviet Union of different age groups, between the Years 1992 and 2012.
The emancipated improvement in life conditions did not simply occur.
Important in advance: This book requires endurance and readiness to read about others' suffering.
July 31, 2023
- سفيتلانا ألكسييفيتش، الصحافية التي نالت جائزة نوبل غير عادية في الأدب عن أعمالها الصحافية، تقطّر الألم وتسكبه كلمات... فعلى الجميع اذن الإستعداد لجرعات متتالية من الألم والحزن والفجائع.
- سفيتلانا ألكسييفيتش تقوم بتسجيل ما يقوله الآخرون ويشعرون به. تترك ل��م الحرية بالكشف عن مشاعرهم العميقة، عن تلك الكلمات المختبأة في المناطق الداكنة من نفوسهم، عن تلك الغصات التي لا يجرؤن بالبوح بها الا لأقرب المقربين، تقوم باللعب بين الأدب والتاريخ لتسجل قصة البشر الذين سقطوا على هوامش التاريخ فيكون الأدب هنا انعكاساً للتجربة الإنسانية، واضاءة على القطع المكسورة المتناثرة وإظهار العديد من وجهات النظر.
- تأخذنا الكاتبة في هذا الكتاب الى لحظة سقوط الإتحاد السوفياتي، عشرون عامًا من المقابلات المعقدة والأصوات المتعددة التي تمثل الذاكرة الجماعية وتدور حول ردة الفعل قبل، خلال وبعد الإنهيار. فهذا السقوط لم يكن سقوطاً سياسيًا فحسب وتقسيم الإتحاد لدول وأقاليم، بل كان أيضًا انهيار تجربة إجتماعية كبرى: محاولة خلق نوع جديد من الأشخاص (الهومو-سوفييت). وبذلك فإن اولئك الأشخاص الذين تم تشكيلهم او "خلقهم" لا يزالون متعلقين بتلك التجربة كشكل من أشكال الحنين إلى الماضي، حيث الإنتماء السياسي حلّ مكان الإيمان الديني. ومع انهيار النظام في التسعينيات، والإنتقال من الحرمان الكلي، من الشيوعية المنغلقة الى الرأسمالية، وجد الشيوعيون والمعارضون لهم انفسهم امام الفراغ بمشهد عبثي قاتم.
- القصص بغالبيتها موجعة ومؤلمة حيث يمكننا لمس تصاعد الكراهية العرقية بين مكونات الإتحاد سابقاً (بيلاروس، روس، شيشان، طاجاك، جورجين، ارمن، آذر...). وتأتي هذه القصص لتكون "واقعاً" بعد الوهم الكبير الذي سبق! لكن الكاتبة لا تتبنى وجهة نظر بل تعرض الوجهات جميعاً: فئة عاشت ايام ستالين (مع/ضد)، فئة عاشت بعد ستالين وعاصرت خروتشوف حتى غورباتشوف (مع/ضد) وفئة ولدت فيما بعد ولا يعرفون شيئاً عن ستالين (مع/ضد) وبذلك تظهر الكاتبة الصورة الكاملة من زوايا مختلفة زمنياً وفكرياً.
- الكتاب يمتلك ميزة خاصة الا وهي وضعنا في التصور الذاتي للروسي عن تاريخه، كيف ينظر للماضي، التجربة الشيوعية، ما رأيه بغورباتشوفوف ثم "يلسن"، كيف يقّيم هذه التحولات والتغيرات! وبذلك يمكننا اضافة هذا الكتاب الإنساني الى جانب الكتب والأبحاث التأريخية لنتمكن من فهم تلك المرحلة.
- كتاب مميّز انصح الأصدقاء به.
- سفيتلانا ألكسييفيتش تقوم بتسجيل ما يقوله الآخرون ويشعرون به. تترك ل��م الحرية بالكشف عن مشاعرهم العميقة، عن تلك الكلمات المختبأة في المناطق الداكنة من نفوسهم، عن تلك الغصات التي لا يجرؤن بالبوح بها الا لأقرب المقربين، تقوم باللعب بين الأدب والتاريخ لتسجل قصة البشر الذين سقطوا على هوامش التاريخ فيكون الأدب هنا انعكاساً للتجربة الإنسانية، واضاءة على القطع المكسورة المتناثرة وإظهار العديد من وجهات النظر.
- تأخذنا الكاتبة في هذا الكتاب الى لحظة سقوط الإتحاد السوفياتي، عشرون عامًا من المقابلات المعقدة والأصوات المتعددة التي تمثل الذاكرة الجماعية وتدور حول ردة الفعل قبل، خلال وبعد الإنهيار. فهذا السقوط لم يكن سقوطاً سياسيًا فحسب وتقسيم الإتحاد لدول وأقاليم، بل كان أيضًا انهيار تجربة إجتماعية كبرى: محاولة خلق نوع جديد من الأشخاص (الهومو-سوفييت). وبذلك فإن اولئك الأشخاص الذين تم تشكيلهم او "خلقهم" لا يزالون متعلقين بتلك التجربة كشكل من أشكال الحنين إلى الماضي، حيث الإنتماء السياسي حلّ مكان الإيمان الديني. ومع انهيار النظام في التسعينيات، والإنتقال من الحرمان الكلي، من الشيوعية المنغلقة الى الرأسمالية، وجد الشيوعيون والمعارضون لهم انفسهم امام الفراغ بمشهد عبثي قاتم.
- القصص بغالبيتها موجعة ومؤلمة حيث يمكننا لمس تصاعد الكراهية العرقية بين مكونات الإتحاد سابقاً (بيلاروس، روس، شيشان، طاجاك، جورجين، ارمن، آذر...). وتأتي هذه القصص لتكون "واقعاً" بعد الوهم الكبير الذي سبق! لكن الكاتبة لا تتبنى وجهة نظر بل تعرض الوجهات جميعاً: فئة عاشت ايام ستالين (مع/ضد)، فئة عاشت بعد ستالين وعاصرت خروتشوف حتى غورباتشوف (مع/ضد) وفئة ولدت فيما بعد ولا يعرفون شيئاً عن ستالين (مع/ضد) وبذلك تظهر الكاتبة الصورة الكاملة من زوايا مختلفة زمنياً وفكرياً.
- الكتاب يمتلك ميزة خاصة الا وهي وضعنا في التصور الذاتي للروسي عن تاريخه، كيف ينظر للماضي، التجربة الشيوعية، ما رأيه بغورباتشوفوف ثم "يلسن"، كيف يقّيم هذه التحولات والتغيرات! وبذلك يمكننا اضافة هذا الكتاب الإنساني الى جانب الكتب والأبحاث التأريخية لنتمكن من فهم تلك المرحلة.
- كتاب مميّز انصح الأصدقاء به.
August 26, 2022
بی گمان زندگی مردم روسیه در قرن بیستم ، یکی از سخت ترین و عجیب ترین داستانها بوده است : نزدیک به 3 میلیون تلفات در جنگ جهانی اول ، سپس لنین و دار ودسته کمونیست به روسیه حمله می کنند و انقلابی را به راه می اندازند که جهان را به لرزه در میاورد ، تلفات انقلاب : نامعلوم ، جنگ داخلی اولین عارضه انقلاب ، بعد از 4 سال نا امنی و کشتار روسیه تبدیل به شوروی سوسیالیستی می شود . تلفات جنگ داخلی : 10 میلیون نفر. در طی این دوران کمبود نان یک مساله عادی بود ، تلفات قحطی : نامعلوم . سپس رفیق استالین قدرت را در دست می گیرد و شروع به تصفیه حساب می کند . تلفات تصفیه حساب : 5 میلیون نفر. استالین به این نتیجه می رسد که دهقانان اوکراینی زیادی هستند و باید حذف شوند پس قحطی مصنوعی به وجود میارد . تلفات هولودومور : بین 5 تا 8 میلیون نفر . جنگ کبیر میهنی فاجعه بعدی ایست . تلفات : 27 میلیون نفر .
به این آمار باید تعداد اعدام شدگان و تلفات گولاک ها را هم اضافه کرد . در کل تلفات دوران استالین بدون احتساب کشته شدگان جنگ را 20 میلیون نفر به صورت تقریبی حدس می زنند . علاوه بر کشته شدگان باید به کیفیت پایین زندگی یا چیزی شبیه به آن هم پرداخت و این جاست که خانم آلکسیویج با این کتاب منحصر به فرد به گوشه هایی از زندگی مخوف دوران کمونیستی از زمان استالین تا تجزیه شوروی می پردازد و بازگو کننده صداهایی از ملت روس و جمهوری های تابعه آن می شود ، از کسانی که هر لحظه منتظر دستگیری و اعزام به گولاک بودند تا کسانی که از پدر بزرگ و مادر بزرگ تا نوه مثلا در دو اتاق زندگی می کردند ، کسانی که سالیان سال غذای آنها سیب زمینی کپک زده دولتی بود ، افرادی که با تمام وجود از این ایده کمونیست متنفر بودند و منتظر زمان و لحظه موعود آزادی توسط گورباچف بودند ، تا کسانی که عاشق استالین و نظام و مرام اشتراکی بودند و روز تجزیه شوروی روز مرگ آنها بود . اختلاف های قومیتی بین مثلا آذری ها و ارمنی ها ، بین روسها و گرجیها ، تاجیک ها و ازبک ها که به زور سرکوب شده بود حال پس از تجزیه شوروی سرباز می کند و نفرت در همه جا پخش می شود ، کسانی که به خاطر قومیت خود مجبور به کوچ از خانه و زندگی خود می شوند و دیگر جایی برای زندگی ندارند ، از سقوط روبل پس از تجزیه شوروی ( خاطرات سقوط روبل برای ما ایرانیها که شاهد افت بسیار شدید ریال بودیم بسیار جالب و خواندنی ایست ،مثلا یکی از افراد به خانم آلکسیویج می گوید که 35 سال در کارخانه تولید میخ کار می کرده و زمان بازنشستگی اش همزمان با تجزیه شوروی و سقوط روبل می شود . کارخانه به او به جای پاداش بازنشتگی چند کارتن میخ می دهد ! تا با فروش آن شاید پولی بدست آورد ) .
کتاب سرشار از این داستان های باور نکردنی و عجیب است که به آن دوران سیاه کمی نور می تاباند . صدها نوع مصیبتی که در این کتاب گفته می شود و ملت روس آنرا تجربه کردند به مانند مشت نمونه خروار است . اما سختی هایی که روسها کشیده اند در پایان این دوران سیاه به آنان نگاه دیگری از زندگی می دهد :
زندگی همین است دیگر! هیچ کس زیبا مردن را دوست ندارد، همه عاشق زیبا زیستن هستند و ما هم زیبا زیستن را انتخاب کردیم. حالا اگر همه پول نان شب شان را ندارند، مسئله دیگری است..
به این آمار باید تعداد اعدام شدگان و تلفات گولاک ها را هم اضافه کرد . در کل تلفات دوران استالین بدون احتساب کشته شدگان جنگ را 20 میلیون نفر به صورت تقریبی حدس می زنند . علاوه بر کشته شدگان باید به کیفیت پایین زندگی یا چیزی شبیه به آن هم پرداخت و این جاست که خانم آلکسیویج با این کتاب منحصر به فرد به گوشه هایی از زندگی مخوف دوران کمونیستی از زمان استالین تا تجزیه شوروی می پردازد و بازگو کننده صداهایی از ملت روس و جمهوری های تابعه آن می شود ، از کسانی که هر لحظه منتظر دستگیری و اعزام به گولاک بودند تا کسانی که از پدر بزرگ و مادر بزرگ تا نوه مثلا در دو اتاق زندگی می کردند ، کسانی که سالیان سال غذای آنها سیب زمینی کپک زده دولتی بود ، افرادی که با تمام وجود از این ایده کمونیست متنفر بودند و منتظر زمان و لحظه موعود آزادی توسط گورباچف بودند ، تا کسانی که عاشق استالین و نظام و مرام اشتراکی بودند و روز تجزیه شوروی روز مرگ آنها بود . اختلاف های قومیتی بین مثلا آذری ها و ارمنی ها ، بین روسها و گرجیها ، تاجیک ها و ازبک ها که به زور سرکوب شده بود حال پس از تجزیه شوروی سرباز می کند و نفرت در همه جا پخش می شود ، کسانی که به خاطر قومیت خود مجبور به کوچ از خانه و زندگی خود می شوند و دیگر جایی برای زندگی ندارند ، از سقوط روبل پس از تجزیه شوروی ( خاطرات سقوط روبل برای ما ایرانیها که شاهد افت بسیار شدید ریال بودیم بسیار جالب و خواندنی ایست ،مثلا یکی از افراد به خانم آلکسیویج می گوید که 35 سال در کارخانه تولید میخ کار می کرده و زمان بازنشستگی اش همزمان با تجزیه شوروی و سقوط روبل می شود . کارخانه به او به جای پاداش بازنشتگی چند کارتن میخ می دهد ! تا با فروش آن شاید پولی بدست آورد ) .
کتاب سرشار از این داستان های باور نکردنی و عجیب است که به آن دوران سیاه کمی نور می تاباند . صدها نوع مصیبتی که در این کتاب گفته می شود و ملت روس آنرا تجربه کردند به مانند مشت نمونه خروار است . اما سختی هایی که روسها کشیده اند در پایان این دوران سیاه به آنان نگاه دیگری از زندگی می دهد :
زندگی همین است دیگر! هیچ کس زیبا مردن را دوست ندارد، همه عاشق زیبا زیستن هستند و ما هم زیبا زیستن را انتخاب کردیم. حالا اگر همه پول نان شب شان را ندارند، مسئله دیگری است..
January 22, 2025
"فأنا أنظر إلى العالم بعيني العلوم الإنسانية وليس بعيني المؤرخ. فيذهلني الإنسان.."
رحلة ممتعة طالت لأكثر من شهر ونصف-وهنا أيضاً أشكر الحظر-وإن كان أصابني شىء من الكآبة لم أكن في حاجة إليها في ظل تلك الظروف العصيبة التي نعاصرها في الواقع.
من الصعب أن أعطي مراجعة وافية لهذا العمل الضخم. فقد عايشت في هذا الكتاب خبرة إنسانية فريدة لا أظن أنني قد عايشتها في كتاب أخر. وذلك بالطبع بجانب الكم الهائل من المعلومات التاريخية عن دولة لم أكن أعرف إلا أقل القليل عنها.
من الواضح أن حكايات الشعوب المقهورة تتشابه. ظلم، فقر، كذب، قمع، تضليل. ودائرة عبثية من الأمل لا تنتهي. الأمل العبثي في ثورة أو حزب أو شخص قد يملك مفاتيح الخروج من هذا الجحيم. ولكن لنحسٍ أصابنا، نتعلم أن نُصادق هذا القَدَر الذي لا يتغير إلا للأسوأ.
ملاحظتي الوحيدة هى شعوري أن لكل حكاية جانب أخر لم يُروى ولم نسمعه. وسط هذه العتمة ربما كان هناك نوراً أو أملاً لم تسعى المؤلفة لتُعرفنا عليه. وربما كنت مخطئة
شكرا سفيتلانا لهذه الرحلة المدهشة..
رحلة ممتعة طالت لأكثر من شهر ونصف-وهنا أيضاً أشكر الحظر-وإن كان أصابني شىء من الكآبة لم أكن في حاجة إليها في ظل تلك الظروف العصيبة التي نعاصرها في الواقع.
من الصعب أن أعطي مراجعة وافية لهذا العمل الضخم. فقد عايشت في هذا الكتاب خبرة إنسانية فريدة لا أظن أنني قد عايشتها في كتاب أخر. وذلك بالطبع بجانب الكم الهائل من المعلومات التاريخية عن دولة لم أكن أعرف إلا أقل القليل عنها.
من الواضح أن حكايات الشعوب المقهورة تتشابه. ظلم، فقر، كذب، قمع، تضليل. ودائرة عبثية من الأمل لا تنتهي. الأمل العبثي في ثورة أو حزب أو شخص قد يملك مفاتيح الخروج من هذا الجحيم. ولكن لنحسٍ أصابنا، نتعلم أن نُصادق هذا القَدَر الذي لا يتغير إلا للأسوأ.
ملاحظتي الوحيدة هى شعوري أن لكل حكاية جانب أخر لم يُروى ولم نسمعه. وسط هذه العتمة ربما كان هناك نوراً أو أملاً لم تسعى المؤلفة لتُعرفنا عليه. وربما كنت مخطئة
شكرا سفيتلانا لهذه الرحلة المدهشة..
March 7, 2017
This is a brilliant book about modern Russian history. The author interviewed dozens of Russian citizens and documented their stories about life in the Soviet Union, and how life has been since it fell. There is a helpful timeline at the front of the book, detailing events after Stalin's death in 1953, up to the rise of Putin and to armed conflicts in the Ukraine in 2014.
I started reading this late last summer, before we knew that Russia had interfered with America's presidential election. Even then, this book seemed so relevant to our times. I'm a big believer in context, and trying to understand how and why things got to their current state. If you want to try and understand Vladimir Putin, you should read Secondhand Time. Highly recommended.
Meaningful Passage
"Why does this book contain so many stories of suicides instead of more typical Soviets with typically Soviet life stories? When it comes down to it, people end their lives for love, from fear of old age, or just out of curiosity, from a desire to come face to face with the mystery of death. I sought out people who had been permanently bound to the Soviet idea, letting it penetrate them so deeply that there was no separating them: The state had become their entire cosmos, blocking out everything else, even their own lives. They couldn't just walk away from History, leaving it all behind and learning to live without it ... Today, people just want to live their lives, they don't need some great Idea. This is entirely new for Russia; it's unprecedented in Russian literature. At heart, we're built for war. We were always either fighting or preparing to fight. We've never known anything else -- hence our wartime psychology. Even in civilian life, everything was always militarized."
I started reading this late last summer, before we knew that Russia had interfered with America's presidential election. Even then, this book seemed so relevant to our times. I'm a big believer in context, and trying to understand how and why things got to their current state. If you want to try and understand Vladimir Putin, you should read Secondhand Time. Highly recommended.
Meaningful Passage
"Why does this book contain so many stories of suicides instead of more typical Soviets with typically Soviet life stories? When it comes down to it, people end their lives for love, from fear of old age, or just out of curiosity, from a desire to come face to face with the mystery of death. I sought out people who had been permanently bound to the Soviet idea, letting it penetrate them so deeply that there was no separating them: The state had become their entire cosmos, blocking out everything else, even their own lives. They couldn't just walk away from History, leaving it all behind and learning to live without it ... Today, people just want to live their lives, they don't need some great Idea. This is entirely new for Russia; it's unprecedented in Russian literature. At heart, we're built for war. We were always either fighting or preparing to fight. We've never known anything else -- hence our wartime psychology. Even in civilian life, everything was always militarized."
December 22, 2016
I was eleven or perhaps twelve years old when I learned that ignorance is no excuse for anything.
That revelation completely changed the way I viewed the world. I ran to my parents, separately, I remember, my eyes wide. I said to each of them, “Ignorance is no excuse!” It won’t save anyone from the repercussions of whatever they are ignorant of. You can die as a result of ignorance or you can participate in something evil as a result of ignorance.
As I remember it, my parents did not say anything. There is much I would think as a result of my eleven-year-old coming to me with such a revelation, and I am not sure I would know what to respond, either. But it was a big moment, and it came from reading a novel.
Now I wonder which novel gave me such an insight, but I cannot remember. I was an ordinary schoolgirl, with no special access to literature. I read too much, my sisters said, and most of them were bodice-rippers…
This book reminds me of that moment of realization. The insights into what man is and how he responds to national, political, and personal trauma come fast and hard in this work. Alexievich begins by recording voices from the Gorbachev years: “Those were wonderful, naïve years…” Both for and against Gorbachev, the voices record people’s naiveté. They had an excuse, the lack of reliable, comprehensive news coverage one of them, but it would not save them from their future nor their past.
There is simply nothing to compare with this fabulous reconstruction of the lives of people under communism and after. Alexievich records the stories of people under the dictatorship of the people, and there is so much nuance, so much pain, fear, crazy love, faith, and delusion tied in with people’s understanding of those years that it becomes as clear a record of what humanity is that we have.
“Changing the nature of man” was on the table. From the sounds of some voices, it succeeded on every measure. But if nature can be changed, we question again what "nature" is. Naomi Klein tells us man is not hopelessly greedy but it is hard to see that when greed is rewarded and protected. The Soviet Union, Russia, has gone through enormous social upheaval in the last one hundred years, and Alexievich manages to give us a window through which we can begin to see what happened to people.
Among the voices are ordinary folk, high Kremlin officials, members of the brigades who spent their days shooting “enemies of the people.” We see what they were thinking at the time and what they are thinking now. Because governance the world over has many similarities, constraints, and imperatives, everyone who can read should see how governance actually plays out, no matter what we believe.
These people are not so different from us. They are just people after all. All that they did, all they experienced, can happen to us. It is necessary to be vigilant, to be aware, so that we do not, inadvertently, give evil a chance to thrive. Alexievich has taken memory and made literature. For me, it will be one of the most meaningful books I have ever come across.
I want to point everyone to Ilse's review of this title. She does such a lovely job of articulating what Alexievich managed to accomplish.
That revelation completely changed the way I viewed the world. I ran to my parents, separately, I remember, my eyes wide. I said to each of them, “Ignorance is no excuse!” It won’t save anyone from the repercussions of whatever they are ignorant of. You can die as a result of ignorance or you can participate in something evil as a result of ignorance.
As I remember it, my parents did not say anything. There is much I would think as a result of my eleven-year-old coming to me with such a revelation, and I am not sure I would know what to respond, either. But it was a big moment, and it came from reading a novel.
Now I wonder which novel gave me such an insight, but I cannot remember. I was an ordinary schoolgirl, with no special access to literature. I read too much, my sisters said, and most of them were bodice-rippers…
This book reminds me of that moment of realization. The insights into what man is and how he responds to national, political, and personal trauma come fast and hard in this work. Alexievich begins by recording voices from the Gorbachev years: “Those were wonderful, naïve years…” Both for and against Gorbachev, the voices record people’s naiveté. They had an excuse, the lack of reliable, comprehensive news coverage one of them, but it would not save them from their future nor their past.
There is simply nothing to compare with this fabulous reconstruction of the lives of people under communism and after. Alexievich records the stories of people under the dictatorship of the people, and there is so much nuance, so much pain, fear, crazy love, faith, and delusion tied in with people’s understanding of those years that it becomes as clear a record of what humanity is that we have.
“Changing the nature of man” was on the table. From the sounds of some voices, it succeeded on every measure. But if nature can be changed, we question again what "nature" is. Naomi Klein tells us man is not hopelessly greedy but it is hard to see that when greed is rewarded and protected. The Soviet Union, Russia, has gone through enormous social upheaval in the last one hundred years, and Alexievich manages to give us a window through which we can begin to see what happened to people.
Among the voices are ordinary folk, high Kremlin officials, members of the brigades who spent their days shooting “enemies of the people.” We see what they were thinking at the time and what they are thinking now. Because governance the world over has many similarities, constraints, and imperatives, everyone who can read should see how governance actually plays out, no matter what we believe.
These people are not so different from us. They are just people after all. All that they did, all they experienced, can happen to us. It is necessary to be vigilant, to be aware, so that we do not, inadvertently, give evil a chance to thrive. Alexievich has taken memory and made literature. For me, it will be one of the most meaningful books I have ever come across.
I want to point everyone to Ilse's review of this title. She does such a lovely job of articulating what Alexievich managed to accomplish.
August 1, 2016
3.5 I spent the last month reading this, not because it didn't interest me, it did, but because of the format. Interviews with those who live in Russia from Stalin to I believe 2012. Was just too much for me to read in one sitting, so I read a few each night before bed. A very worthy book, important to hear from those who actually lived thought these times. Some of this was brutal, the gulags, Siberia, the fear but many also missed the days of Communism, missed life under Stalin, saw him as a hero. So, we get a mixed view of life under Communism and life after intended. Very interesting. Well presented, pertinent responses, the author did a good job assembling these pieces, interviews. Russia has such a long and complicated history, so much in their way of life not easy to understand but books like these open our eyes to the way ordinary Russians view their past and present as well as the turmoil, political and economical. Glad I read this.
May 9, 2017
“There were new rules: if you have money you count- no money you are nothing. Who cares if you have read all Hegel?”
I made a rule one day that every time, whenever I get time to visit any book fair, I’ll purchase at least one non-fiction and that non-fiction must fulfill three criteria. First, its cover should be extremely charming, second, it should be bulky, and third, it must be historical. A world book fair was organized in my city last month, I rigorously followed the rule and the book that got qualified for me this year was this one. :)
Last time my choice was Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and prior to that it was India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy by Ramchandra Guha. Coincidently I found a great amount of similarity in the writing of these three writers. All three have written their historical accounts in a very alluring and captivating manner, these writers are able to give you a sort of beguiling feel of reading a non-fiction, very much like a fiction, and at the same time they perfect your understanding of history.
Coming back to this book of Svetlana Alexivitch, This book unleashed the knots of my mind. My understanding about the real life of Soviet people increased multi-fold and I felt a peculiar sort of connectivity with the people there. We all are same in our desires and limitations; it does not matter which part of globe, we reside in, and which kind of political system we are inflicted upon, by the authorities.
Our country was suddenly covered in banks and billboards. A new breed of goods appeared. Instead of crummy boots and frumpy dresses, we finally got the stuff we’d always dreamed of: blue jeans, winter coats, lingerie, and descent crockery…everything bright and beautiful. Our old soviet stuff was grey, ascetic, and looked as if it had been manufactured in war time.
This book is written in hybrid style by the author; mixture of a kind of reportage and a kind of documentary on paper. She is a lifelong journalist and her writing has all those flavors of journalism. Reports.. Records …Interviews…Facts...Quest for truth!
She has recorded the voices of housewives, common men, Gulag survivors and ex- communist post holders. Though she has not put forward her own opinion for the sake of conveying a message of a writer in this book, still she has her writerly craft giving voice to the unknown and lost sentiments.
It is said that Alexivitch is anything but a simple recorder of found voices. She has a writerly voice of her own with great style and authority.
Alexievich strongly believes that people who were born in the USSR and those born after its fall in 1991 come “from different planets”. She has recorded some very agonizing and torturous accounts and stories of people in their own words from these periods.
Russian novels don’t teach you how to become successful. How to get rich…Oblomov lies on his couch, Chekov’s protagonists drink tea and complain about their lives… [She falls silent]. There is a famous Chinese curse: ‘May you live in interesting time’. Few of us remained unchanged. Descent people seem to have disappeared. Now its teeth and elbow everywhere….
I am very happy that I read this book. This is an awesome and phenomenal work by this Nobel Laureate!
I made a rule one day that every time, whenever I get time to visit any book fair, I’ll purchase at least one non-fiction and that non-fiction must fulfill three criteria. First, its cover should be extremely charming, second, it should be bulky, and third, it must be historical. A world book fair was organized in my city last month, I rigorously followed the rule and the book that got qualified for me this year was this one. :)
Last time my choice was Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and prior to that it was India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy by Ramchandra Guha. Coincidently I found a great amount of similarity in the writing of these three writers. All three have written their historical accounts in a very alluring and captivating manner, these writers are able to give you a sort of beguiling feel of reading a non-fiction, very much like a fiction, and at the same time they perfect your understanding of history.
Coming back to this book of Svetlana Alexivitch, This book unleashed the knots of my mind. My understanding about the real life of Soviet people increased multi-fold and I felt a peculiar sort of connectivity with the people there. We all are same in our desires and limitations; it does not matter which part of globe, we reside in, and which kind of political system we are inflicted upon, by the authorities.
Our country was suddenly covered in banks and billboards. A new breed of goods appeared. Instead of crummy boots and frumpy dresses, we finally got the stuff we’d always dreamed of: blue jeans, winter coats, lingerie, and descent crockery…everything bright and beautiful. Our old soviet stuff was grey, ascetic, and looked as if it had been manufactured in war time.
This book is written in hybrid style by the author; mixture of a kind of reportage and a kind of documentary on paper. She is a lifelong journalist and her writing has all those flavors of journalism. Reports.. Records …Interviews…Facts...Quest for truth!
She has recorded the voices of housewives, common men, Gulag survivors and ex- communist post holders. Though she has not put forward her own opinion for the sake of conveying a message of a writer in this book, still she has her writerly craft giving voice to the unknown and lost sentiments.
It is said that Alexivitch is anything but a simple recorder of found voices. She has a writerly voice of her own with great style and authority.
Alexievich strongly believes that people who were born in the USSR and those born after its fall in 1991 come “from different planets”. She has recorded some very agonizing and torturous accounts and stories of people in their own words from these periods.
Russian novels don’t teach you how to become successful. How to get rich…Oblomov lies on his couch, Chekov’s protagonists drink tea and complain about their lives… [She falls silent]. There is a famous Chinese curse: ‘May you live in interesting time’. Few of us remained unchanged. Descent people seem to have disappeared. Now its teeth and elbow everywhere….
I am very happy that I read this book. This is an awesome and phenomenal work by this Nobel Laureate!
August 2, 2022
This is such a quotable book. Not because of anti-communist rhetoric, or -propaganda, since the book was originally written in Russian for a widely diverse Russian population. Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets is an honest internal dialogue that is taking place, once again, in the kitchens where people gathered to eat, drink, talk, and sleep on the large masonry stoves. Their only little patch of freedom.
Through a journalist, touring the country for several years, conversations are brought together in one place where people can read the book and finally talk about their experiences again in the kitchens, the only place where souls could intimately communicate with each other, as always.
As the author said about the idea of this book: history is about facts, it never includes the emotions behind these events (don't we all know that). And this tale discusses the feelings of a nation who got ripped from their past and shoved into a future they simply did not understand and could not handle. Where capitalism developed over several centuries in other countries, Russia had to do it in three years.
The people are trying to make sense of their new freedom. For them the future was as terrifying as their lives under Stalin. The KGB were the iron fist, the red-hot iron, the iron rod...Those boys got everyone in line. How can anyone get by without a flogging by the whip? Everyone needed it.
What happened to a proud country that always regarded themselves as the best? We used to be a great nation! Now we're nothing but peddlers and looters...grain merchants and managers...
Some people condone, and others condemn the initial start of 70 years of darkness. For some it brought safety, for others sacrifices beyond imagining.
Communism had an insane plan: to remake the “old breed of man,” ancient Adam. And it really worked…Perhaps it was communism’s only achievement. Seventy-plus years in the Marxist-Leninist laboratory gave rise to a new man: Homo sovieticus. Some see him as a tragic figure, others call him a sovok.
True freedom hit the citizens like an atom bomb:
"This is entirely new for Russia; it’s unprecedented in Russian literature. At heart, we’re built for war. We were always either fighting or preparing to fight. We’ve never known anything else—hence our wartime psychology. Even in civilian life, everything was always militarized. The drums were beating, the banners flying, our hearts leaping out of our chests. People didn’t recognize their own slavery—they even liked being slaves."
The citizens were so scared of retribution for their actions that a common wish dictated their descendants's history. They hoped their lives died with them so that their families did not have to suffer the consequences. (How profound is that thought for all of us?! The actions of the fathers visited upon the children. How true!) How dire it turned out for many innocent Russian citizens.
After 1991,
"Pathos raged, but the knowledge that utopia should not be attempted in real life was already ingrained in us."
As on the eve of the Russian Revolution, 1917, which Alexander Grin described as the future stopped standing in its proper place, the new dispensation for Russia during perestroika, reaffirmed a horizon, promising time to be a secondhand gift.
New farmers quickly had to adapt to new disciplines. Suddenly time was money. Nobody dared to steal or nap! The workers were in the hands of new 'fascists'. The discovery of money was like a one night stand. The citizens quickly fell in, and then hastily, out of love with it.
Apart from being a collection of the real emotions behind a country's history, this book is also a showcase of the beautiful prose ingrained in the minds and souls of a people who suffered the ordeal of emotional and physical slavery for decades, but doing so with pride and conviction. In moments of hope, one father, who survived Siberian camps believed that all it would take to enjoy life in the new Russia, was to man up--the worst is yet to come. All you needed to survive in life was bread, unions and soap. That's it.
A Bolshevik motto on the gates of a prison camp stated: With An Iron Fist, We Will Chase Humanity Into Happiness.
There were those who wanted to forget the past. And those who couldn't. Horrific stories, heartbreaking memories came pouring out, crisscrossing the tale of new beginnings in the over-abundance of consumerism for the fortunate. Those who did not make it after the fall of Communism, were left to rot and kill themselves. Billionaire and millionaire Communists, with palaces in Moscow, France, and places like the Greek Islands, kept themselves drowned and locked up in their new utopia of wealth and extravagance, while the rest of the unfortunate population lost themselves in the forgotten greatness of intellect and equality for all. Stalin very soon became an icon of excellence again. A kind of God that should be resurrected to save the people from the hooligans and thieves who captured state assets, looting all available resources, leaving the once great nation's loyalist embittered and angry.
Between three generations, collective memories of each generation became three different countries. The one as foreign as the other in the divided families. The only element that remained, was fear. It was even described as a form of love everyone understood.
So yes, I was so embedded in this detailed, descriptive prose, I was unwilling to come up for air.
Svetlana Alexievich won several international awards, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, for the genre she created herself which is described as her polyphonic monument to suffering and courage. In this book's case, since I have not read this author before, it is a brutal voice in the gentle hands of a woman.
I RECOMMEND this book to everyone. It is an invitation to walk in the shoes of other people and read the alternative history that should be told and documented. Isn't that the reason why we also love historical fiction so much?
This book is the road less traveled into Russia, for most of us. It was a shocking, unsettling, sad read. Arduous, often repetitive. I did not read every single word, skip-read pages of horror, but read most of it. I simply could not stomach some of the revolting details. Yet, I caught the gist of the 612-page book which was profound, honest and hopeful. Not unique at all. There are many voices confirming this tale in different media forms. But this one is necessary for those who want to know it all bundled into one book. Just sit back and listen... hear their voices.
Read this most heartfelt, touching review of this unforgettable book.
Ioana's review
Through a journalist, touring the country for several years, conversations are brought together in one place where people can read the book and finally talk about their experiences again in the kitchens, the only place where souls could intimately communicate with each other, as always.
As the author said about the idea of this book: history is about facts, it never includes the emotions behind these events (don't we all know that). And this tale discusses the feelings of a nation who got ripped from their past and shoved into a future they simply did not understand and could not handle. Where capitalism developed over several centuries in other countries, Russia had to do it in three years.
The people are trying to make sense of their new freedom. For them the future was as terrifying as their lives under Stalin. The KGB were the iron fist, the red-hot iron, the iron rod...Those boys got everyone in line. How can anyone get by without a flogging by the whip? Everyone needed it.
What happened to a proud country that always regarded themselves as the best? We used to be a great nation! Now we're nothing but peddlers and looters...grain merchants and managers...
Some people condone, and others condemn the initial start of 70 years of darkness. For some it brought safety, for others sacrifices beyond imagining.
Communism had an insane plan: to remake the “old breed of man,” ancient Adam. And it really worked…Perhaps it was communism’s only achievement. Seventy-plus years in the Marxist-Leninist laboratory gave rise to a new man: Homo sovieticus. Some see him as a tragic figure, others call him a sovok.
True freedom hit the citizens like an atom bomb:
"This is entirely new for Russia; it’s unprecedented in Russian literature. At heart, we’re built for war. We were always either fighting or preparing to fight. We’ve never known anything else—hence our wartime psychology. Even in civilian life, everything was always militarized. The drums were beating, the banners flying, our hearts leaping out of our chests. People didn’t recognize their own slavery—they even liked being slaves."
The citizens were so scared of retribution for their actions that a common wish dictated their descendants's history. They hoped their lives died with them so that their families did not have to suffer the consequences. (How profound is that thought for all of us?! The actions of the fathers visited upon the children. How true!) How dire it turned out for many innocent Russian citizens.
After 1991,
"Pathos raged, but the knowledge that utopia should not be attempted in real life was already ingrained in us."
As on the eve of the Russian Revolution, 1917, which Alexander Grin described as the future stopped standing in its proper place, the new dispensation for Russia during perestroika, reaffirmed a horizon, promising time to be a secondhand gift.
New farmers quickly had to adapt to new disciplines. Suddenly time was money. Nobody dared to steal or nap! The workers were in the hands of new 'fascists'. The discovery of money was like a one night stand. The citizens quickly fell in, and then hastily, out of love with it.
Apart from being a collection of the real emotions behind a country's history, this book is also a showcase of the beautiful prose ingrained in the minds and souls of a people who suffered the ordeal of emotional and physical slavery for decades, but doing so with pride and conviction. In moments of hope, one father, who survived Siberian camps believed that all it would take to enjoy life in the new Russia, was to man up--the worst is yet to come. All you needed to survive in life was bread, unions and soap. That's it.
A Bolshevik motto on the gates of a prison camp stated: With An Iron Fist, We Will Chase Humanity Into Happiness.
There were those who wanted to forget the past. And those who couldn't. Horrific stories, heartbreaking memories came pouring out, crisscrossing the tale of new beginnings in the over-abundance of consumerism for the fortunate. Those who did not make it after the fall of Communism, were left to rot and kill themselves. Billionaire and millionaire Communists, with palaces in Moscow, France, and places like the Greek Islands, kept themselves drowned and locked up in their new utopia of wealth and extravagance, while the rest of the unfortunate population lost themselves in the forgotten greatness of intellect and equality for all. Stalin very soon became an icon of excellence again. A kind of God that should be resurrected to save the people from the hooligans and thieves who captured state assets, looting all available resources, leaving the once great nation's loyalist embittered and angry.
Between three generations, collective memories of each generation became three different countries. The one as foreign as the other in the divided families. The only element that remained, was fear. It was even described as a form of love everyone understood.
So yes, I was so embedded in this detailed, descriptive prose, I was unwilling to come up for air.
Svetlana Alexievich won several international awards, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, for the genre she created herself which is described as her polyphonic monument to suffering and courage. In this book's case, since I have not read this author before, it is a brutal voice in the gentle hands of a woman.
I RECOMMEND this book to everyone. It is an invitation to walk in the shoes of other people and read the alternative history that should be told and documented. Isn't that the reason why we also love historical fiction so much?
This book is the road less traveled into Russia, for most of us. It was a shocking, unsettling, sad read. Arduous, often repetitive. I did not read every single word, skip-read pages of horror, but read most of it. I simply could not stomach some of the revolting details. Yet, I caught the gist of the 612-page book which was profound, honest and hopeful. Not unique at all. There are many voices confirming this tale in different media forms. But this one is necessary for those who want to know it all bundled into one book. Just sit back and listen... hear their voices.
Read this most heartfelt, touching review of this unforgettable book.
Ioana's review
June 24, 2019
Way back in the early 90s, I remember my parents entertaining some young Russians, who were work colleagues of my maths professor father. I remember being quite struck by how little respect they had for Mikhail Gorbachev, who was still being hailed as a visionary leader in the West. This monumental book goes some way to explaining these feelings, along with many other aspects of life in the former Soviet Union, both before and in the 20 years after the fall of the Communist regime.
Alexievich is a Nobel prize winning oral historian from Belarus who collects the testimony of ordinary people throughout the former Union. One word which occurs with great frequency is sovok, a disparaging slang term used to describe those who retained nostalgic feelings about the Soviet regime. The book is full of heartbreaking personal stories, that demonstrate how little control many people had over their lives, as their savings became worthless and many of the country's assets were plundered by those who were stronger and more ruthless. There are also many harsh accounts of the barbarity with which nationalism and ethnic conflicts arose in many parts of the former union.
Alexievich largely keeps her own perspective silent - her mastery is in the way she weaves a complex tapestry of so many disparate individual voices.
Alexievich is a Nobel prize winning oral historian from Belarus who collects the testimony of ordinary people throughout the former Union. One word which occurs with great frequency is sovok, a disparaging slang term used to describe those who retained nostalgic feelings about the Soviet regime. The book is full of heartbreaking personal stories, that demonstrate how little control many people had over their lives, as their savings became worthless and many of the country's assets were plundered by those who were stronger and more ruthless. There are also many harsh accounts of the barbarity with which nationalism and ethnic conflicts arose in many parts of the former union.
Alexievich largely keeps her own perspective silent - her mastery is in the way she weaves a complex tapestry of so many disparate individual voices.
June 9, 2016
3.5 Stars,
Svetlána Alexándrovna Alexiévich is a Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose writer who writes in Russian. She was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature
Seconhand time: The Last of the Soviets traces the emotional history of the Soviet and post-Soviet individual through carefully constructed collages of interviews. Svetlana Alexievich weaves a rich catholog of Russian voices telling their stories of Worshipped Russian leaders, of love and death, hard and sad times, and how people try to embrace the challenges given to them in life.
The stories are woven from hundreds of interviews, an oral history that has the voices and passion of real people who have suffered at the hands of their leaders. There is raw emotion and sadness in the stories and yet because you lean very little about these people you form no connection which them which was fine for about the first 100 pages and then I became numb to the stories and I began to find the writing repetitive. While the stories appear to be real and simplistic I did find it quite depressing and its the sort of book better read as a side read.
The book is is a very interesting account of Russians coming to terms with the fall of the Soviet Union and how their lives are affected. This is not a light read and I did find it difficult to finish as it lost its initial appeal after the first 100 pages and I while I finished it I did struggle through the last few chapters.
Svetlána Alexándrovna Alexiévich is a Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose writer who writes in Russian. She was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature
Seconhand time: The Last of the Soviets traces the emotional history of the Soviet and post-Soviet individual through carefully constructed collages of interviews. Svetlana Alexievich weaves a rich catholog of Russian voices telling their stories of Worshipped Russian leaders, of love and death, hard and sad times, and how people try to embrace the challenges given to them in life.
The stories are woven from hundreds of interviews, an oral history that has the voices and passion of real people who have suffered at the hands of their leaders. There is raw emotion and sadness in the stories and yet because you lean very little about these people you form no connection which them which was fine for about the first 100 pages and then I became numb to the stories and I began to find the writing repetitive. While the stories appear to be real and simplistic I did find it quite depressing and its the sort of book better read as a side read.
The book is is a very interesting account of Russians coming to terms with the fall of the Soviet Union and how their lives are affected. This is not a light read and I did find it difficult to finish as it lost its initial appeal after the first 100 pages and I while I finished it I did struggle through the last few chapters.
May 5, 2022
Kitchen table ideology.
Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich’s 2013 book about the shared experiences of generations of former Soviet bloc people was compelling, thought provoking, maddening and enlightening, frequently all on the same page.
Providing voices to countless people from Russia, but also from other areas involved in the former Soviet Union, the Belorussian writer provides an illuminating gestalt of the shared Soviet experience, as Alexievich calls them the ‘homo sovieticus’.
To read that the Soviet Union ended and that the decades old experiment in communism had failed is a study in ambiguity and understatement. What Alexievich provides, by way of multiple interviews from various perspectives, is a human face to this paradigm shift: not from the historians, journalists and political scientists, but from the viewpoint of a kitchen table, where families eat, children do homework, housewives gather to discuss not just current events but the price of goods and where can be found needed supplies.
It was this perspective that will stay with me after reading this remarkable work, the voice of ordinary people, just trying to live their lives and being in the eye of a historical, political storm. Not about great and calamitous governmental upheavals, but how the price of food went up or down and how and where clothes and fabric could be bought and the sacrifice to clothe, feed and raise children.
And to be fair, Alexievich describes a multitude of former communists, many who did not welcome the reforms but instead found in the old revolution a comforting blanket to wrap about themselves – they admit to poverty and deprivation but miss the community and singleness of purpose. Others wanted reforms but did not want all out capitalism. Most wanted political change but were unsure what that would mean and were ill prepared for what the loud and gaudy West had to offer.
The word “freedom” is ubiquitous in this recitation of conversations and declarations, and the various and sundry definitions of what this means. For many it was freedom to live their lives as they saw fit, but for others it was the anxious freedom to want and the freedom to do without. Another recurrent theme was the old stolid communist who had been left behind with revolutionary dreams unfulfilled and with a pittance of a pension that could no longer support them.
“Most people were not anti-Soviet; they only wanted to live well. They really wanted blue jeans, VCRs, and most of all, cars. Nice clothes and good food.”
Blue jeans and stylish T-shirts brought down the old Soviet Union as much as the winds of change. The younger generation wanted more, and the hopes and promises of the long-ago revolution were not enough to satisfy the needs of people who had a glimpse of a better life.
Alexievich spends some time with the civil rights abuses and the suppression of free speech that went on in the authoritarian regimes but always at the forefront of her narrative was the economic and human costs of the failed ideology.
This was not a page turner, I had to take my time reading. It can be very difficult to grasp the perspectives that she shared; these were not Americans who just needed to wash off the red of communism, her voices were frequently damaged people who wanted change but who did not necessarily desire the change they got. This was also about a people who missed the shared communal spirit; they might have been poor, but everyone else was poor also and there was a sense of belonging, that the shared sacrifices were for a better country – and that loss, even considering social and political improvements in their lives, was still a haunting forfeiture whose absence resulted in grief and complicated feelings.
An important work and one that should be read and discussed.
Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich’s 2013 book about the shared experiences of generations of former Soviet bloc people was compelling, thought provoking, maddening and enlightening, frequently all on the same page.
Providing voices to countless people from Russia, but also from other areas involved in the former Soviet Union, the Belorussian writer provides an illuminating gestalt of the shared Soviet experience, as Alexievich calls them the ‘homo sovieticus’.
To read that the Soviet Union ended and that the decades old experiment in communism had failed is a study in ambiguity and understatement. What Alexievich provides, by way of multiple interviews from various perspectives, is a human face to this paradigm shift: not from the historians, journalists and political scientists, but from the viewpoint of a kitchen table, where families eat, children do homework, housewives gather to discuss not just current events but the price of goods and where can be found needed supplies.
It was this perspective that will stay with me after reading this remarkable work, the voice of ordinary people, just trying to live their lives and being in the eye of a historical, political storm. Not about great and calamitous governmental upheavals, but how the price of food went up or down and how and where clothes and fabric could be bought and the sacrifice to clothe, feed and raise children.
And to be fair, Alexievich describes a multitude of former communists, many who did not welcome the reforms but instead found in the old revolution a comforting blanket to wrap about themselves – they admit to poverty and deprivation but miss the community and singleness of purpose. Others wanted reforms but did not want all out capitalism. Most wanted political change but were unsure what that would mean and were ill prepared for what the loud and gaudy West had to offer.
The word “freedom” is ubiquitous in this recitation of conversations and declarations, and the various and sundry definitions of what this means. For many it was freedom to live their lives as they saw fit, but for others it was the anxious freedom to want and the freedom to do without. Another recurrent theme was the old stolid communist who had been left behind with revolutionary dreams unfulfilled and with a pittance of a pension that could no longer support them.
“Most people were not anti-Soviet; they only wanted to live well. They really wanted blue jeans, VCRs, and most of all, cars. Nice clothes and good food.”
Blue jeans and stylish T-shirts brought down the old Soviet Union as much as the winds of change. The younger generation wanted more, and the hopes and promises of the long-ago revolution were not enough to satisfy the needs of people who had a glimpse of a better life.
Alexievich spends some time with the civil rights abuses and the suppression of free speech that went on in the authoritarian regimes but always at the forefront of her narrative was the economic and human costs of the failed ideology.
This was not a page turner, I had to take my time reading. It can be very difficult to grasp the perspectives that she shared; these were not Americans who just needed to wash off the red of communism, her voices were frequently damaged people who wanted change but who did not necessarily desire the change they got. This was also about a people who missed the shared communal spirit; they might have been poor, but everyone else was poor also and there was a sense of belonging, that the shared sacrifices were for a better country – and that loss, even considering social and political improvements in their lives, was still a haunting forfeiture whose absence resulted in grief and complicated feelings.
An important work and one that should be read and discussed.
June 21, 2016
Wind of Change
"I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change."
Scorpions, Wind of Change, 1990.
Before giving my brief thoughts, a HUGE thanks to goodreads friend Ioana, a native Romanian now in the U.S., whose review is must read. She's a brilliant writer who lived under Communist rule and terror of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Her review is the best I've read on Goodreads for any book; a pure concerto of the personally poetic and the pellucidly profound [Ioana's review]. After reading it, I immediately got this.
I must add here a personal note that one of my first crushes and initial recognition of the dry mouth, flushness of my face and tingling near my stomach was at 11 years old watching Romanian gold-medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci, then 13, competing in the 1976 Summer Olympics. Excuse me, my 11 year old self needs a glass of water.
Okay, Thanks for your patience.
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets was a brass-knuckles punch to my arrogant American belief that all Russians and Eastern Europeans welcomed capitalism with open arms. This is the incinerating oral history of the the ursine Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc from 1991, the time of perestroika, until 2012. The author is Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 Nobel Laureate in Literature from Belarusia. It was published originally in 2013, but translated into English only this year.
The oral history is split into two different periods: first from 1991 to 2001 as the transition from Communism was occurring, and from 2002-2012, which shows, I think, the reverberations of the transformation and transition. This book hits full-throttle from page 1 and is unrelenting until the last page. I've never read anything like it. It's a raw raising of the Iron Curtain to stories of the violence, the attempt to overthrow Gorbachev by the old line communists, suicides and rapes. The first part was taken down while some of the old communists who lived under Stalin were still alive and includes a few jarring jeremiads to solidarity, Lenin, Stalin, and the communistic ideal of heaven on earth.
An example of one of the old Bolsheviks: "You have your own utopia. The market. Market heaven. The market will make everyone happy. Pure fantasy. The streets are filled with gangsters in magenta blazers, gold chains hanging down to their bellies. Caricatures of capitalism. A farce. Instead of the dictatorship or the proletariat, it's the law of the jungle. Devour the ones weaker than you and bow down to the ones who are stronger."
Both parts tell of all the problems in the transition without any planning. People starving. Former Communist apparatchiks who were esteemed scientists who now are unemployed and homeless. Complete overhauls to a way of living from the overnight move from communism to a capitalism-based economy. I plan to read this again because there was so much to digest; the author calls this form of oral history "snatches of street noise and kitchen conversations." I was shocked, for example, to learn of how much the ones interviewed hate Gorbachev now, though they supported him in the early 1990s.
This was like a Thunderbolt thrown into my routine reading. A stunning book that should probably be required reading in any history/civilization type of course. I saw people on Amazon from the U.S. giving this 2-stars on the assumption that they "thought" the author was biased and showing only the negatives. I posted a question asking for the basis for this assumption, given that he'd probably never been to Russia or talked to anyone from there or even studied Russian history or economics. Of course, no response was posted.
"I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change."
Scorpions, Wind of Change, 1990.
Before giving my brief thoughts, a HUGE thanks to goodreads friend Ioana, a native Romanian now in the U.S., whose review is must read. She's a brilliant writer who lived under Communist rule and terror of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Her review is the best I've read on Goodreads for any book; a pure concerto of the personally poetic and the pellucidly profound [Ioana's review]. After reading it, I immediately got this.
I must add here a personal note that one of my first crushes and initial recognition of the dry mouth, flushness of my face and tingling near my stomach was at 11 years old watching Romanian gold-medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci, then 13, competing in the 1976 Summer Olympics. Excuse me, my 11 year old self needs a glass of water.
Okay, Thanks for your patience.
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets was a brass-knuckles punch to my arrogant American belief that all Russians and Eastern Europeans welcomed capitalism with open arms. This is the incinerating oral history of the the ursine Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc from 1991, the time of perestroika, until 2012. The author is Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 Nobel Laureate in Literature from Belarusia. It was published originally in 2013, but translated into English only this year.
The oral history is split into two different periods: first from 1991 to 2001 as the transition from Communism was occurring, and from 2002-2012, which shows, I think, the reverberations of the transformation and transition. This book hits full-throttle from page 1 and is unrelenting until the last page. I've never read anything like it. It's a raw raising of the Iron Curtain to stories of the violence, the attempt to overthrow Gorbachev by the old line communists, suicides and rapes. The first part was taken down while some of the old communists who lived under Stalin were still alive and includes a few jarring jeremiads to solidarity, Lenin, Stalin, and the communistic ideal of heaven on earth.
An example of one of the old Bolsheviks: "You have your own utopia. The market. Market heaven. The market will make everyone happy. Pure fantasy. The streets are filled with gangsters in magenta blazers, gold chains hanging down to their bellies. Caricatures of capitalism. A farce. Instead of the dictatorship or the proletariat, it's the law of the jungle. Devour the ones weaker than you and bow down to the ones who are stronger."
Both parts tell of all the problems in the transition without any planning. People starving. Former Communist apparatchiks who were esteemed scientists who now are unemployed and homeless. Complete overhauls to a way of living from the overnight move from communism to a capitalism-based economy. I plan to read this again because there was so much to digest; the author calls this form of oral history "snatches of street noise and kitchen conversations." I was shocked, for example, to learn of how much the ones interviewed hate Gorbachev now, though they supported him in the early 1990s.
This was like a Thunderbolt thrown into my routine reading. A stunning book that should probably be required reading in any history/civilization type of course. I saw people on Amazon from the U.S. giving this 2-stars on the assumption that they "thought" the author was biased and showing only the negatives. I posted a question asking for the basis for this assumption, given that he'd probably never been to Russia or talked to anyone from there or even studied Russian history or economics. Of course, no response was posted.
March 9, 2018
(…)μου χρειάζεται μια χώρα όπου ο άνθρωπος θα είναι άνθρωπος.Παλιότερα έλεγαν «απλοί άνθρωποι»,τώρα λένε «λαουτζίκος».Την ακούτε τη διαφορά;
Η Αλεξίεβιτς έστησε ένα μωσαϊκό από φωνές καθημερινών ανθρώπων,αυτών των δευτεραγωνιστών (ή μήπως ήταν οι πρωταγωνιστές,τελικά;) που έζησαν το πριν και το μετά της πτώσης του σοσιαλισμού στην ΕΣΣΔ.
Δεν έχω να γράψω πολλά,ιδίως για μια περίοδο που δεν την έχω βιώσει άμεσα,παρά έμμεσα από ανθρώπους που έζησαν τα χρόνια των Μπρέζνιεφ (οι πιο μεγάλοι) έως και του Γκορμπατσόφ (οι πιο νέοι).
O «κόκκινος άνθρωπος» δεν ήταν καλός ή κακός. Άλλωστε,
Οι άνθρωποι δεν είναι ούτε κακοί ούτε καλοί.Είναι απλώς άνθρωποι-τίποτα παραπάνω.
Ο κόκκινος άνθρωπος ήταν,τελικά,αυτός που έβαζε τους άλλους πάνω από τον εαυτό του.Είχαμε και στην Ελλάδα τέτοιους ανθρώπους και πλήρωσαν αυτή την ανιδιοτέλεια.Είναι φοβερό που η γενιά μου,που έχει γεννηθεί και ζει στον πιο άγριο καπιταλισμό να μην ξέρει τι σημαίνει το «εμείς»,αλλά το «εγώ».
Ελπίζω πως θα προλάβω να ζήσω μια άλλη κοινωνία που ο άνθρωπος ήταν ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ.Και αν δεν την προλάβω εγώ,ας τη ζήσουν οι επόμενοι.Γιατί αν αυτό που ζούμε δεν αλλάξει,τότε δεν μιλάμε απλά για το «τέλος του κόκκινου ανθρώπου»,αλλά του ανθρώπου γενικά.Δεν μπορώ να συμβιβαστώ με την ιδέα ότι αυτό είναι το τέλος.
Υ.Γ.Στο ίδιο μοτίβο,στο πιο κωμικο-γλυκόπικρο και (ν)οσταλγικό,θα έλεγα ότι κινείται η ταινία "Good Bye,Lenin!" που αναφέρεται στην πτώση του τείχους του Βερολίνου και τις επιπτώσεις αυτού του γεγονότος.Αξίζει την προσοχή (σας).
Η Αλεξίεβιτς έστησε ένα μωσαϊκό από φωνές καθημερινών ανθρώπων,αυτών των δευτεραγωνιστών (ή μήπως ήταν οι πρωταγωνιστές,τελικά;) που έζησαν το πριν και το μετά της πτώσης του σοσιαλισμού στην ΕΣΣΔ.
Δεν έχω να γράψω πολλά,ιδίως για μια περίοδο που δεν την έχω βιώσει άμεσα,παρά έμμεσα από ανθρώπους που έζησαν τα χρόνια των Μπρέζνιεφ (οι πιο μεγάλοι) έως και του Γκορμπατσόφ (οι πιο νέοι).
O «κόκκινος άνθρωπος» δεν ήταν καλός ή κακός. Άλλωστε,
Οι άνθρωποι δεν είναι ούτε κακοί ούτε καλοί.Είναι απλώς άνθρωποι-τίποτα παραπάνω.
Ο κόκκινος άνθρωπος ήταν,τελικά,αυτός που έβαζε τους άλλους πάνω από τον εαυτό του.Είχαμε και στην Ελλάδα τέτοιους ανθρώπους και πλήρωσαν αυτή την ανιδιοτέλεια.Είναι φοβερό που η γενιά μου,που έχει γεννηθεί και ζει στον πιο άγριο καπιταλισμό να μην ξέρει τι σημαίνει το «εμείς»,αλλά το «εγώ».
Ελπίζω πως θα προλάβω να ζήσω μια άλλη κοινωνία που ο άνθρωπος ήταν ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ.Και αν δεν την προλάβω εγώ,ας τη ζήσουν οι επόμενοι.Γιατί αν αυτό που ζούμε δεν αλλάξει,τότε δεν μιλάμε απλά για το «τέλος του κόκκινου ανθρώπου»,αλλά του ανθρώπου γενικά.Δεν μπορώ να συμβιβαστώ με την ιδέα ότι αυτό είναι το τέλος.
Υ.Γ.Στο ίδιο μοτίβο,στο πιο κωμικο-γλυκόπικρο και (ν)οσταλγικό,θα έλεγα ότι κινείται η ταινία "Good Bye,Lenin!" που αναφέρεται στην πτώση του τείχους του Βερολίνου και τις επιπτώσεις αυτού του γεγονότος.Αξίζει την προσοχή (σας).
June 15, 2022
One of my favorite writers.
=========
Signs of the times in Russia...
This week, capitals around the world are marking the centennial of the birth of Andrei Sakharov, the renowned Russian scientist, humanist and human rights advocate, with commemorative events and exhibitions. The one exception is Sakharov’s native city, where the authorities have prohibited the planned photo exhibit on the Boulevard Ring. “The content was not authorized,” a Moscow City Hall official explained to the organizers.
Paradoxically, the decision was quite appropriate. It would have been the height of hypocrisy to hold an official Sakharov exhibit at a time when state-driven repression in Russia is fast approaching what it was in his own time — and when the number of recognized political prisoners is more than double the number he noted in his 1975 Nobel Prize lecture. Not to mention that Vladimir Putin, a former officer from the Soviet KGB — the very organization that persecuted Sakharov and his family — is occupying the Kremlin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...
===========
Svetlana Alexievich, a non-fiction author, is the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time." This is fitting, as her model is Dostoevsky, the creator of the polyphonic novel. "If I hadn’t read Dostoevsky, I would be in despair," she says.
About her approach to creating her books, she writes....
"It’s important to catch words in flight, as they’re born. It’s important not to miss the conversational part of life, which we often neglect, dismiss as unimportant, leaving it to disappear in the bustle of life, in the darkness of time. It seems surprising that this could be literature. But I want to make every bit of our life into literature. Including ordinary, everyday words....I am a historian of the soul. For me, feelings are also documents."
And what she gets from listening...
"In telling his own story, a person creates; he doesn’t copy reality, he creates. Memories are living creatures. People put their entire lives into their memories: what they read, what they thought about, whether they were happy or not. Documents evolve along with the human soul."
==================
There's so much in this book. The author worked on it for 20 years. Her writing covers different eras and so many different viewpoints, depending on the era and the generation she happens to be interviewing. I can already say that Democracy in the American sense never worked in post-Soviet Russia. But if we know history and see through the usual U.S. foreign policy propaganda, we should not be surprised.
The contrasts drawn by some of the interview subjects between the Communist era and rampant capitalism in Russia that came from perestroika are rather startling.
I recall, in 1982, my wife and I went to Berlin when the city was still divided into East and West. We went through Checkpoint Charlie where all non-Germans were allowed to cross into East Berlin. Armed snipers in the guard towers watched over the Spree River where many swam in an effort to get to the Berlin Wall to try to escape. Many were shot or otherwise drowned in their attempts.
Once on the other side in the East, we could see that materially it was old compared with the West. If you looked down side streets, you could still see rubble from bombed-out buildings during WW II. But the East also had Museum Island which included the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Returning to West Berlin, the gaudiness of its "wealth" was quite off-putting. Was this spiritually empty display supposed to make those in the East envy the West?
I am posting one sample, younger people in the age of Putin, that rather suggests today's emptiness. No sense of history at all.
"There’s a new demand for everything Soviet. For the cult of Stalin. Half of the people between the ages of nineteen and thirty consider Stalin an “unrivaled political figure.” A new cult of Stalin, in a country where he murdered at least as many people as Hitler?! Everything Soviet is back in style. “Soviet-style cafés” with Soviet names and Soviet dishes. “Soviet” candy and “Soviet” salami, their taste and smell all too familiar from childhood. And of course, “Soviet” vodka. There are dozens of Soviet-themed TV shows, scores of websites devoted to Soviet nostalgia. You can visit Stalin’s camps— Solovki, Magadan— as a tourist. The advertisements promise that for the full effect, they’ll give you a camp uniform and a pickaxe. They’ll show you the newly restored barracks. Afterward, there will be fishing…
Old-fashioned ideas are back in style: the Great Empire, the “iron hand,” the “special Russian path.” They brought back the Soviet national anthem; there’s a new Komsomol, there’s a ruling party, and it runs the country by the Communist Party playbook; the Russian president is just as powerful as the general secretary used to be, which is to say he has absolute power."
This being a Russian book there's plenty of suffering and tragedy, but I think the part that got to me most was under the innocuous title: "On People Who Instantly Transformed After the Fall of Communism" It should be titled "Those who suffered like Job after the fall of Communism."
It's the story of three generations of women relatives who suffer together: the Grandma, the mother and the daughter. One horrible thing after another happens to these poor women. The supposed magic of western capitalism turns our to be a nightmare of social darwinism. The gangsters take over and evict people from their homes and they are left to fend for themselves, usually homeless on the street. It reveals the lie that capitalism is somehow inherently virtuous. We have been taught that in the U.S. as if it were a religion we must believe. One critic has labeled this false religion economism.
I mean if this system is so inherently wonderful, then why are there so many homeless? And no good paying jobs for the working class? Self-interested economists like Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan have sold us a bill of goods on this. There must be a set of ethics, independent of money, that need to be applied for economic systems to function right and maintain a middle class and help the less fortunate. A society without that is unsustainable.
We know the end of the Russian story. It's like the late Roman Republic when the middle class disappeared and all that existed were the uber-wealthy and the plebeians. This led to the rise of Caesar. Russia has its own Caesar, his name is Putin, now President for Life of and dictator.
=============
From a recent interview of the author (2022)....
I often hear from journalists that I just showed up and recorded what I heard. That’s it. The book is ready. That’s nonsense, of course. To create these books, I have to weave together the world from a multitude of details. You have to seize the life of nature; you have to capture people in moments of upheaval.
People often ask me, “Why do people talk so beautifully in your books?” I answer that I capture moments of love, of the greatest upheavals, of death: war, Chornobyl. Such a person speaks beautifully. He pulls out of himself all the limits of what he’s able to do. Even my protagonists have sometimes told me, “I didn’t even know that I knew that.” It’s important for me to reach people in this way.
A lot of time is spent peeling off this veil of banality, because we exist in a world of banalities: newspapers, most books are like that. This banality must be peeled off a person to reach their own text, so that they say those things that other people have not said, others have not known. When they’re able to see it, I have to be prepared to grow antennas to see to hear it, because to hear something new, you have to ask something in a new way.
People will say, “You just show up and write things down—the existential dirt that is our life.” No, you have to remove all the excess from our life, all the superficial, the banal, then together with the person dive into this self-knowledge. This is immense, difficult work. That collection of stories must absolutely include men, women, old men, children. They should have different points of view, different professions, because your profession changes your perspective, every one of us. You’re used to seeing the world in a particular way. You have to gather all of it together, give it an architectural structure—that of real life in process.
The most difficult thing is everyone thinks that this is documentary fiction, as if I just took everything from the people I listened to. No, everything in my books is what people really said, but you have to give all that this form, you have to weave it together, so that it’s really a work of art.
====
And how "The Red Person" is not dead, as she thought....
What I’ve been writing for forty years is the story of the Red Person, of the Red Idea. I began with the very start of that idea. I met people who had seen Lenin and Stalin. The people who fought in Afghanistan. The people who died at Chornobyl. All those people. I eventually realized I was so careless to write my book Secondhand Time about the fall of the empire and to write about the end of the Red Person. As it turned out, it was very naïve of me.
Back then, in the 90s, we thought communism was dead, that this idea would never be recreated in any form, not imperial, not anything else. It turned out it was wrong. The communist is not dead. The Red Person is changing forms again, transforming.
I think about what must have happened to this person, so that he would just destroy Kharkiv, completely wipe it off the face of the earth. This beautiful city I loved to visit. I had a very personal relationship to this city. How could you destroy it, wipe it from the face of the earth? How could you try to demolish this other world, this civilization? All of Ukrainian civilization, the Ukrainian world. How can you deny its right to exist? Why?
If you could imagine aliens—I’m not even talking about real nations—if they said, “Well, the Russian people do not exist; the Russian world is just a myth.” What would happen to Russia? How would Russians feel? What happened to them? What humiliation did they endure to fall so low? And now I understand the strength, the dignity of Ukrainians who are dying but defend themselves, defend their world, defend the right of their children to be Ukrainian, to speak their own language.
Now, it’s turned out that I’m going further with this Red Person, and I see how they’re nearing something I’m even afraid to say out loud—fascism. We’re dealing with Russian fascism, and it’s being created in front of our eyes.
One aspect of this fascist problem that we’ve encountered a great deal recently is the fascination with the idea of “The Great:” all things great, Make America Great Again, the obsession with greatness in Russia that we’re seeing in the war and in propaganda, Russian velichie.
I’m afraid of the word “great,” especially now. I was once in the war in Serbia, and I heard about “Great Serbia.” We know how that ended. We all know how “Great Germany” ended. Now we have “Great Russia.” It always only ends in blood.
Can you imagine that if people lived in a prison camp their entire life, and then they were let out near the gates of the camp, that at this moment they become free? No, they have simply entered a different space. In fact, they have brought the camp into normal life, and they will rebuild the camp there. That’s what Russia is doing now. It’s building this camp. It’s building the Soviet Union even worse than it was before.
https://lithub.com/on-the-dangers-of-...
=========
Signs of the times in Russia...
This week, capitals around the world are marking the centennial of the birth of Andrei Sakharov, the renowned Russian scientist, humanist and human rights advocate, with commemorative events and exhibitions. The one exception is Sakharov’s native city, where the authorities have prohibited the planned photo exhibit on the Boulevard Ring. “The content was not authorized,” a Moscow City Hall official explained to the organizers.
Paradoxically, the decision was quite appropriate. It would have been the height of hypocrisy to hold an official Sakharov exhibit at a time when state-driven repression in Russia is fast approaching what it was in his own time — and when the number of recognized political prisoners is more than double the number he noted in his 1975 Nobel Prize lecture. Not to mention that Vladimir Putin, a former officer from the Soviet KGB — the very organization that persecuted Sakharov and his family — is occupying the Kremlin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...
===========
Svetlana Alexievich, a non-fiction author, is the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time." This is fitting, as her model is Dostoevsky, the creator of the polyphonic novel. "If I hadn’t read Dostoevsky, I would be in despair," she says.
About her approach to creating her books, she writes....
"It’s important to catch words in flight, as they’re born. It’s important not to miss the conversational part of life, which we often neglect, dismiss as unimportant, leaving it to disappear in the bustle of life, in the darkness of time. It seems surprising that this could be literature. But I want to make every bit of our life into literature. Including ordinary, everyday words....I am a historian of the soul. For me, feelings are also documents."
And what she gets from listening...
"In telling his own story, a person creates; he doesn’t copy reality, he creates. Memories are living creatures. People put their entire lives into their memories: what they read, what they thought about, whether they were happy or not. Documents evolve along with the human soul."
==================
There's so much in this book. The author worked on it for 20 years. Her writing covers different eras and so many different viewpoints, depending on the era and the generation she happens to be interviewing. I can already say that Democracy in the American sense never worked in post-Soviet Russia. But if we know history and see through the usual U.S. foreign policy propaganda, we should not be surprised.
The contrasts drawn by some of the interview subjects between the Communist era and rampant capitalism in Russia that came from perestroika are rather startling.
I recall, in 1982, my wife and I went to Berlin when the city was still divided into East and West. We went through Checkpoint Charlie where all non-Germans were allowed to cross into East Berlin. Armed snipers in the guard towers watched over the Spree River where many swam in an effort to get to the Berlin Wall to try to escape. Many were shot or otherwise drowned in their attempts.
Once on the other side in the East, we could see that materially it was old compared with the West. If you looked down side streets, you could still see rubble from bombed-out buildings during WW II. But the East also had Museum Island which included the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Returning to West Berlin, the gaudiness of its "wealth" was quite off-putting. Was this spiritually empty display supposed to make those in the East envy the West?
I am posting one sample, younger people in the age of Putin, that rather suggests today's emptiness. No sense of history at all.
"There’s a new demand for everything Soviet. For the cult of Stalin. Half of the people between the ages of nineteen and thirty consider Stalin an “unrivaled political figure.” A new cult of Stalin, in a country where he murdered at least as many people as Hitler?! Everything Soviet is back in style. “Soviet-style cafés” with Soviet names and Soviet dishes. “Soviet” candy and “Soviet” salami, their taste and smell all too familiar from childhood. And of course, “Soviet” vodka. There are dozens of Soviet-themed TV shows, scores of websites devoted to Soviet nostalgia. You can visit Stalin’s camps— Solovki, Magadan— as a tourist. The advertisements promise that for the full effect, they’ll give you a camp uniform and a pickaxe. They’ll show you the newly restored barracks. Afterward, there will be fishing…
Old-fashioned ideas are back in style: the Great Empire, the “iron hand,” the “special Russian path.” They brought back the Soviet national anthem; there’s a new Komsomol, there’s a ruling party, and it runs the country by the Communist Party playbook; the Russian president is just as powerful as the general secretary used to be, which is to say he has absolute power."
This being a Russian book there's plenty of suffering and tragedy, but I think the part that got to me most was under the innocuous title: "On People Who Instantly Transformed After the Fall of Communism" It should be titled "Those who suffered like Job after the fall of Communism."
It's the story of three generations of women relatives who suffer together: the Grandma, the mother and the daughter. One horrible thing after another happens to these poor women. The supposed magic of western capitalism turns our to be a nightmare of social darwinism. The gangsters take over and evict people from their homes and they are left to fend for themselves, usually homeless on the street. It reveals the lie that capitalism is somehow inherently virtuous. We have been taught that in the U.S. as if it were a religion we must believe. One critic has labeled this false religion economism.
I mean if this system is so inherently wonderful, then why are there so many homeless? And no good paying jobs for the working class? Self-interested economists like Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan have sold us a bill of goods on this. There must be a set of ethics, independent of money, that need to be applied for economic systems to function right and maintain a middle class and help the less fortunate. A society without that is unsustainable.
We know the end of the Russian story. It's like the late Roman Republic when the middle class disappeared and all that existed were the uber-wealthy and the plebeians. This led to the rise of Caesar. Russia has its own Caesar, his name is Putin, now President for Life of and dictator.
=============
From a recent interview of the author (2022)....
I often hear from journalists that I just showed up and recorded what I heard. That’s it. The book is ready. That’s nonsense, of course. To create these books, I have to weave together the world from a multitude of details. You have to seize the life of nature; you have to capture people in moments of upheaval.
People often ask me, “Why do people talk so beautifully in your books?” I answer that I capture moments of love, of the greatest upheavals, of death: war, Chornobyl. Such a person speaks beautifully. He pulls out of himself all the limits of what he’s able to do. Even my protagonists have sometimes told me, “I didn’t even know that I knew that.” It’s important for me to reach people in this way.
A lot of time is spent peeling off this veil of banality, because we exist in a world of banalities: newspapers, most books are like that. This banality must be peeled off a person to reach their own text, so that they say those things that other people have not said, others have not known. When they’re able to see it, I have to be prepared to grow antennas to see to hear it, because to hear something new, you have to ask something in a new way.
People will say, “You just show up and write things down—the existential dirt that is our life.” No, you have to remove all the excess from our life, all the superficial, the banal, then together with the person dive into this self-knowledge. This is immense, difficult work. That collection of stories must absolutely include men, women, old men, children. They should have different points of view, different professions, because your profession changes your perspective, every one of us. You’re used to seeing the world in a particular way. You have to gather all of it together, give it an architectural structure—that of real life in process.
The most difficult thing is everyone thinks that this is documentary fiction, as if I just took everything from the people I listened to. No, everything in my books is what people really said, but you have to give all that this form, you have to weave it together, so that it’s really a work of art.
====
And how "The Red Person" is not dead, as she thought....
What I’ve been writing for forty years is the story of the Red Person, of the Red Idea. I began with the very start of that idea. I met people who had seen Lenin and Stalin. The people who fought in Afghanistan. The people who died at Chornobyl. All those people. I eventually realized I was so careless to write my book Secondhand Time about the fall of the empire and to write about the end of the Red Person. As it turned out, it was very naïve of me.
Back then, in the 90s, we thought communism was dead, that this idea would never be recreated in any form, not imperial, not anything else. It turned out it was wrong. The communist is not dead. The Red Person is changing forms again, transforming.
I think about what must have happened to this person, so that he would just destroy Kharkiv, completely wipe it off the face of the earth. This beautiful city I loved to visit. I had a very personal relationship to this city. How could you destroy it, wipe it from the face of the earth? How could you try to demolish this other world, this civilization? All of Ukrainian civilization, the Ukrainian world. How can you deny its right to exist? Why?
If you could imagine aliens—I’m not even talking about real nations—if they said, “Well, the Russian people do not exist; the Russian world is just a myth.” What would happen to Russia? How would Russians feel? What happened to them? What humiliation did they endure to fall so low? And now I understand the strength, the dignity of Ukrainians who are dying but defend themselves, defend their world, defend the right of their children to be Ukrainian, to speak their own language.
Now, it’s turned out that I’m going further with this Red Person, and I see how they’re nearing something I’m even afraid to say out loud—fascism. We’re dealing with Russian fascism, and it’s being created in front of our eyes.
One aspect of this fascist problem that we’ve encountered a great deal recently is the fascination with the idea of “The Great:” all things great, Make America Great Again, the obsession with greatness in Russia that we’re seeing in the war and in propaganda, Russian velichie.
I’m afraid of the word “great,” especially now. I was once in the war in Serbia, and I heard about “Great Serbia.” We know how that ended. We all know how “Great Germany” ended. Now we have “Great Russia.” It always only ends in blood.
Can you imagine that if people lived in a prison camp their entire life, and then they were let out near the gates of the camp, that at this moment they become free? No, they have simply entered a different space. In fact, they have brought the camp into normal life, and they will rebuild the camp there. That’s what Russia is doing now. It’s building this camp. It’s building the Soviet Union even worse than it was before.
https://lithub.com/on-the-dangers-of-...
February 6, 2017
"I am where the clever guys are,
Where the posters say "Forward!"
Where the working country is singing
Its new workers' songs.
My heart is worried, my heart is troubled,
The postal cargo is being packed
My address is not a house or a street,
My address is the Soviet Union"
-Samotsvety, My address is the Soviet Union (1972)
In 2015, Svetlana Alexievich has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. This is remarkable for several reasons - Alexievich is not only one of the few women to ever win the award, but also a member of the even smaller circle of authors to be given the award for their non-fiction work, and the first author from Belarus to win the award in the country's history.
Born in the Ukrainian town of Stanislaviv (now renamed to Ivano-Frankivsk) to a Belarusian father and a Ukrainian mother, Alexievich grew up in Belarus. This kind of origin is not rare for inhabitants of the former Soviet Union, whose many nationalities moved freely between their respective national republics, intermarried and lived side by side for generations, until 1991 - when the country was dissolved into 15 new states, and millions of people suddenly found themselves living abroad.
Alexievich ended up living in freshly independent Belarus, which quickly came under the rule of its first - and so far only - president, Alexander Lukashenko. A former director of a collective farm, Lukashenko quickly overcame his political opponents who vastly underestimated his cunning and secured such power for himself that today his country is often dubbed to be the last dictatorship in Europe: a controversial referendum in 2004 passed a change to the country's constitution which abolished presidential term limits, effectively allowing Lukashenko to rule forever. Somehow, he always manages to win the elections - and not just because his political opponents end beaten up in hospitals, or disappear for years in prison. It'd be wrong to name Lukashenko as a dictator who has no real social approval and support - undoubtedly, many Belorussians genuinely vote for him. He is undoubtedly authoritarian, that is to be acknowledged, but he keeps the streets safe and clean and through his skillful waltzing between Russia and the western countries has largely managed to keep the country afloat. Even his grasp on the country's economy can be seen as positive by some - while it has kept the country from developing in the ways it otherwise could have, it has also kept it safe from careless free market reforms which have completely ravaged Russia and other post-Soviet countries in the 1990's.
Of all the countries which were once part of the Soviet Union, Belarus is the one with a regime which is most nostalgic for the past - even more so than in Russia itself, which is formally the USSR's successor state. In Alexievich's own words, Lukashenko's government has managed to stop time - it adopted only slightly changed Soviet national emblem, flag and anthem as official state symbols; statue of Lenin proudly stands before the parliament in Minsk, and Belarusian secret service is still called the KGB. Lukashenko's administration holds power over the country's economy, even retaining the traditionally Soviet state ownership of agricultural land and collective farms - the only country in the world to do so. The country has also pursued a close economic and political union with Russia, with whom it forms an union state. Russian has even been adopted as the country's second language, though more rightfully it should be considered the first - as only a minority of citizens actually communicates daily in Belarusian, and no Belarusian universities operate exclusively in this language. Even Alexievich herself writes in Russian - and predictably, being critical of the administration, has been repressed in her own country and had to leave it for more than a decade. To this day her books are not printed by state publishing houses, and instead of feeling national pride the country pretends that its Nobel winning author does not exist.
"Only a Soviet can understand another Soviet", writes Alexievich in her introduction to Secondhand Time . "We’ve lived side by side for a long time(...)Although we now live in separate countries and speak different languages, you couldn’t mistake us for anyone else. We’re easy to spot! People who’ve come out of socialism are both like and unlike the rest of humanity(...)we’re full of hatred and superstitions. All of us come from the land of the gulag and harrowing war."
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets is a record of Alexievich's travels through the former Soviet Union and the conversations that she had with its inhabitants: the last of a dying kind - the former Soviet People, the ones who were born and raised in the Soviet Union and whose lives were shaped and defined by it, and who had to suddenly adapt to life in capitalism, and those who were born afterwards. What is notable is the author's approach to her task - she is entirely absent from these conversations: she does not judge her subjects in any way, she is not even heard asking questions. All she gives us are the voices of the people she talked to, both young and old, unedited, which together form a remarkable mosaic of people who suddenly found themselves suspended between two worlds, even between two realities, the past and the future, unable to find peace. We share a communist collective memory, she writes; We’re neighbors in memory.
This collective memory is varied, as her interviews will reveal, but what is shared is a sense of incredible misery and unhappiness. There is a great sense of longing for the fraternity provided by the old regime, which emphasized the importance of friendship and peace between nations, all of which shattered like a mirror after the fall and was instantly replaced by absolute worship of capital and material goods, so derided in the Soviet era. Although it features many different voices and stories, there's no real overreaching theme - other than unhappiness. This is such a deeply unhappy book - full of broken hopes, failed dreams, and a sense of incredible failure. It's incredibly hard to read at times, and offers no hope or redemption or solution for the future, which looks as bloody and tragic as the past. What is notable is the fact that it features no success stories - no happy and successful Russians, Belorussians or Ukrainians, who managed to live well in the new world. The only notable story of a materially successful woman is told by a gold digger, unwilling to form any deep relationship with a man, caring only for riches. Though after reading stories of tragic love collected in this volume maybe not becoming attached is a success in its own right?
It's also a book full of death and murder, where sense of victimhood and guilt sometimes mix. Why didn’t we put Stalin on trial? asks one of the people whom Alexievich is talking to, and immediately answers: I’ll tell you why…In order to condemn Stalin, you’d have to condemn your friends and relatives along with him. The people closest to you.(...)After Stalin, we have a different relationship to murder. We remember how our people had killed their own…the mass murder of people who didn’t understand why they were being killed…It’s stayed with us, it’s part of our lives. We grew up among victims and executioners. For us, living together is normal. There’s no line between peacetime and wartime, we’re always at war.
Alexievich's book is not a definite case study of what makes a Soviet person, a Homo Sovieticus or Sovok for short. This is a collection of individual voices, every of which offers a glimpse of a very personal and subjective experience. It is important to note that Alexievich has been criticized by The New Republic for tampering with the statements of her witnesses and editing them to give them more literary power. I agree with the author of the article, who argues that it has backfired. As a result of Alexievich's editing, the testimonies of her interviewees often sound monotonous: characteristics of an individual giving it are lost, as we can't heard (or read) their regional accents, the pattern of their speech and even the false notes that you can often find in an actual interview.
This does not mean that Secondhand Time is a book unworthy of reading - it very much is; though perhaps it is best experienced in small doses.
Where the posters say "Forward!"
Where the working country is singing
Its new workers' songs.
My heart is worried, my heart is troubled,
The postal cargo is being packed
My address is not a house or a street,
My address is the Soviet Union"
-Samotsvety, My address is the Soviet Union (1972)
In 2015, Svetlana Alexievich has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. This is remarkable for several reasons - Alexievich is not only one of the few women to ever win the award, but also a member of the even smaller circle of authors to be given the award for their non-fiction work, and the first author from Belarus to win the award in the country's history.
Born in the Ukrainian town of Stanislaviv (now renamed to Ivano-Frankivsk) to a Belarusian father and a Ukrainian mother, Alexievich grew up in Belarus. This kind of origin is not rare for inhabitants of the former Soviet Union, whose many nationalities moved freely between their respective national republics, intermarried and lived side by side for generations, until 1991 - when the country was dissolved into 15 new states, and millions of people suddenly found themselves living abroad.
Alexievich ended up living in freshly independent Belarus, which quickly came under the rule of its first - and so far only - president, Alexander Lukashenko. A former director of a collective farm, Lukashenko quickly overcame his political opponents who vastly underestimated his cunning and secured such power for himself that today his country is often dubbed to be the last dictatorship in Europe: a controversial referendum in 2004 passed a change to the country's constitution which abolished presidential term limits, effectively allowing Lukashenko to rule forever. Somehow, he always manages to win the elections - and not just because his political opponents end beaten up in hospitals, or disappear for years in prison. It'd be wrong to name Lukashenko as a dictator who has no real social approval and support - undoubtedly, many Belorussians genuinely vote for him. He is undoubtedly authoritarian, that is to be acknowledged, but he keeps the streets safe and clean and through his skillful waltzing between Russia and the western countries has largely managed to keep the country afloat. Even his grasp on the country's economy can be seen as positive by some - while it has kept the country from developing in the ways it otherwise could have, it has also kept it safe from careless free market reforms which have completely ravaged Russia and other post-Soviet countries in the 1990's.
Of all the countries which were once part of the Soviet Union, Belarus is the one with a regime which is most nostalgic for the past - even more so than in Russia itself, which is formally the USSR's successor state. In Alexievich's own words, Lukashenko's government has managed to stop time - it adopted only slightly changed Soviet national emblem, flag and anthem as official state symbols; statue of Lenin proudly stands before the parliament in Minsk, and Belarusian secret service is still called the KGB. Lukashenko's administration holds power over the country's economy, even retaining the traditionally Soviet state ownership of agricultural land and collective farms - the only country in the world to do so. The country has also pursued a close economic and political union with Russia, with whom it forms an union state. Russian has even been adopted as the country's second language, though more rightfully it should be considered the first - as only a minority of citizens actually communicates daily in Belarusian, and no Belarusian universities operate exclusively in this language. Even Alexievich herself writes in Russian - and predictably, being critical of the administration, has been repressed in her own country and had to leave it for more than a decade. To this day her books are not printed by state publishing houses, and instead of feeling national pride the country pretends that its Nobel winning author does not exist.
"Only a Soviet can understand another Soviet", writes Alexievich in her introduction to Secondhand Time . "We’ve lived side by side for a long time(...)Although we now live in separate countries and speak different languages, you couldn’t mistake us for anyone else. We’re easy to spot! People who’ve come out of socialism are both like and unlike the rest of humanity(...)we’re full of hatred and superstitions. All of us come from the land of the gulag and harrowing war."
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets is a record of Alexievich's travels through the former Soviet Union and the conversations that she had with its inhabitants: the last of a dying kind - the former Soviet People, the ones who were born and raised in the Soviet Union and whose lives were shaped and defined by it, and who had to suddenly adapt to life in capitalism, and those who were born afterwards. What is notable is the author's approach to her task - she is entirely absent from these conversations: she does not judge her subjects in any way, she is not even heard asking questions. All she gives us are the voices of the people she talked to, both young and old, unedited, which together form a remarkable mosaic of people who suddenly found themselves suspended between two worlds, even between two realities, the past and the future, unable to find peace. We share a communist collective memory, she writes; We’re neighbors in memory.
This collective memory is varied, as her interviews will reveal, but what is shared is a sense of incredible misery and unhappiness. There is a great sense of longing for the fraternity provided by the old regime, which emphasized the importance of friendship and peace between nations, all of which shattered like a mirror after the fall and was instantly replaced by absolute worship of capital and material goods, so derided in the Soviet era. Although it features many different voices and stories, there's no real overreaching theme - other than unhappiness. This is such a deeply unhappy book - full of broken hopes, failed dreams, and a sense of incredible failure. It's incredibly hard to read at times, and offers no hope or redemption or solution for the future, which looks as bloody and tragic as the past. What is notable is the fact that it features no success stories - no happy and successful Russians, Belorussians or Ukrainians, who managed to live well in the new world. The only notable story of a materially successful woman is told by a gold digger, unwilling to form any deep relationship with a man, caring only for riches. Though after reading stories of tragic love collected in this volume maybe not becoming attached is a success in its own right?
It's also a book full of death and murder, where sense of victimhood and guilt sometimes mix. Why didn’t we put Stalin on trial? asks one of the people whom Alexievich is talking to, and immediately answers: I’ll tell you why…In order to condemn Stalin, you’d have to condemn your friends and relatives along with him. The people closest to you.(...)After Stalin, we have a different relationship to murder. We remember how our people had killed their own…the mass murder of people who didn’t understand why they were being killed…It’s stayed with us, it’s part of our lives. We grew up among victims and executioners. For us, living together is normal. There’s no line between peacetime and wartime, we’re always at war.
Alexievich's book is not a definite case study of what makes a Soviet person, a Homo Sovieticus or Sovok for short. This is a collection of individual voices, every of which offers a glimpse of a very personal and subjective experience. It is important to note that Alexievich has been criticized by The New Republic for tampering with the statements of her witnesses and editing them to give them more literary power. I agree with the author of the article, who argues that it has backfired. As a result of Alexievich's editing, the testimonies of her interviewees often sound monotonous: characteristics of an individual giving it are lost, as we can't heard (or read) their regional accents, the pattern of their speech and even the false notes that you can often find in an actual interview.
This does not mean that Secondhand Time is a book unworthy of reading - it very much is; though perhaps it is best experienced in small doses.
October 16, 2019
Υπάρχουν δυο οψεις μια ιστορικής στιγμής. Η μια όψη είναι αυτή που διατυπώνεται από τους ιστορικούς. Βγαλμένη μέσα από την απόσταση του γεγονότος, καταγράφεις κι ερμηνεύεις το γεγονός. Υπάρχει όμως και η άλλη όψη της ιστορίας. Αυτή από τους καθημερινούς ανθρώπους που βιώνεται η συγκεκριμένη στιγμή. Στιγμές ευτυχισμένες, συνήθως όμως θλιβερές. Το βιβλίο καταγράφει την ιστορία μέσα από τα μάτια των απλών ανθρώπων. Έτσι όπως έζησαν επί σοβιετικού καθεστώτος, έτσι όπως έζησαν την διάλυση της, έτσι όπως έζησαν την μετάβαση τους σε ένα νέο κράτος, σε ένα νέο καθεστώς. Οι αφηγήσεις δεν καταγράφουν. Οι αφηγήσεις δονούν κάθε ανθρώπινο συναίσθημα όταν εσύ διαβάζοντας αναπαυτικά τις σελίδες του βιβλίου, ξεπηδούν από μέσα δεκάδες μικρές προσωπικές στιγμές. Μανάδες, πατεράδες, παιδιά, παππούδες, γιαγιάδες, συγγενείς, φίλοι καταγράφονται σε μια πορεία θλιβερή πορεία προσωπικών, κοινωνικών, φυλετικών κλπ μ συγκρούσεων.
"Η Αυτοκρατορία (σ.σ. Σοβιετικη Ένωση) ήταν μεγάλη. Που χάθηκε; Νικήθηκε χωρίς ούτε μία βόμβα... χωρίς Χιροσίμα...Τη νίκησε η αυτού μεγαλειότης το σαλάμι! Η μάσα η καλή!" παρατηρεί εύστοχα κάποιος από τους δεκάδες πρωταγωνιστέες του πολυσέλιδου βιβλίου
Για την ελευθερία ""Δεν αγοράζεται η δημοκρατία με αέριο και πετρέλαιο, δεν την εισάγ��ις όπως τι; μπανάνες και την ελβετική σοκολάτα. Δεν την επιβάλεις με προεδρικό διάταγμα..Χρειάζονται ελεύθεροι άνθρωποι και αυτοί έλειπαν. Και λείπουν..." συμπληρώνει κάποιος άλλος.
Ο άλλος πάλι: "Ο καπιταλισμός σ΄ εμάς δε θα πιάσει ρίζες. Σ΄ εμάς πιο εύκολα βρίσκεις κάποιον άγιο, παρά κάποιο τίμιο και επιτυχημένο"
Για τον πρωταίτιο τι λένε; ""Η χώρα μας ήταν στρατιωτική, εβδομήντα τοις εκατό της οικονομίας είχε να κάνει με τον στρατό. Και τα καλύτερα μυαλά επίσης..Φυσικοί, μαθητικοί. Δούλευαν όλοι πάνω στον σχεδιασμό των τανκς και των βομβών. Ο Γκορμπατσώφ όμως ήταν βαθιά κοσμικός. Οι προηγούμενοι Γ.Γ. είχαν πίσω τους τον πόλεμο, αυτός τη Φιλοσοφική Σχολή"
Όμως οι περισσότεροι συμφωνούν για το παλαιότερο καθεστώς: "-Γενικά ζούσαμε μια κλειστή ζωή δεν ξέραμε τίποτα απ΄ όσα συνέβαιναν στον κόσμο. Ήμασταν "φυτά εσωτερικού χώρου"
Πολυσέλιδο το βιβλίο. Όμως κάθε του σελίδα αναβλύζει ο πόνος, η σκέψη, ο προβληματισμός, η ατυχία, η αγωνία του ανθρώπου που βρέθηκε στη δίνη μεγάλων ιστορικών γεγονότων.
Ένα βιβλίο που πρέπει να διαβαστεί, ένα βιβλίο για το οποίοπου δικαίως η συγγραφέας πήρε το Νόμπελ Λογοτεχνίας 2015
"Η Αυτοκρατορία (σ.σ. Σοβιετικη Ένωση) ήταν μεγάλη. Που χάθηκε; Νικήθηκε χωρίς ούτε μία βόμβα... χωρίς Χιροσίμα...Τη νίκησε η αυτού μεγαλειότης το σαλάμι! Η μάσα η καλή!" παρατηρεί εύστοχα κάποιος από τους δεκάδες πρωταγωνιστέες του πολυσέλιδου βιβλίου
Για την ελευθερία ""Δεν αγοράζεται η δημοκρατία με αέριο και πετρέλαιο, δεν την εισάγ��ις όπως τι; μπανάνες και την ελβετική σοκολάτα. Δεν την επιβάλεις με προεδρικό διάταγμα..Χρειάζονται ελεύθεροι άνθρωποι και αυτοί έλειπαν. Και λείπουν..." συμπληρώνει κάποιος άλλος.
Ο άλλος πάλι: "Ο καπιταλισμός σ΄ εμάς δε θα πιάσει ρίζες. Σ΄ εμάς πιο εύκολα βρίσκεις κάποιον άγιο, παρά κάποιο τίμιο και επιτυχημένο"
Για τον πρωταίτιο τι λένε; ""Η χώρα μας ήταν στρατιωτική, εβδομήντα τοις εκατό της οικονομίας είχε να κάνει με τον στρατό. Και τα καλύτερα μυαλά επίσης..Φυσικοί, μαθητικοί. Δούλευαν όλοι πάνω στον σχεδιασμό των τανκς και των βομβών. Ο Γκορμπατσώφ όμως ήταν βαθιά κοσμικός. Οι προηγούμενοι Γ.Γ. είχαν πίσω τους τον πόλεμο, αυτός τη Φιλοσοφική Σχολή"
Όμως οι περισσότεροι συμφωνούν για το παλαιότερο καθεστώς: "-Γενικά ζούσαμε μια κλειστή ζωή δεν ξέραμε τίποτα απ΄ όσα συνέβαιναν στον κόσμο. Ήμασταν "φυτά εσωτερικού χώρου"
Πολυσέλιδο το βιβλίο. Όμως κάθε του σελίδα αναβλύζει ο πόνος, η σκέψη, ο προβληματισμός, η ατυχία, η αγωνία του ανθρώπου που βρέθηκε στη δίνη μεγάλων ιστορικών γεγονότων.
Ένα βιβλίο που πρέπει να διαβαστεί, ένα βιβλίο για το οποίοπου δικαίως η συγγραφέας πήρε το Νόμπελ Λογοτεχνίας 2015
Read
August 29, 2019So yeah, this is as good as everyone says. If you're putting off reading it (because it's long/depressing/you're waiting for the perfect mood to magically descend on you), don't.
February 8, 2022
Orice adjective as folosi, nu ar putea sa ii faca dreptate acestei carti. Extraordinara? Magistrala? Zguduitoare? Toate astea s-au fumat. Dar e o carte unica si esentiala. Mai ales pentru noi, cei care traim in Est si nu o sa scapam niciodata (sau cel putin nu cei care suntem acum in viata) de spectrul marelui urs.
Ce te invata cartea asta e ca rusii si-au facut lor insile cel putin la fel de mult rau cat ne-au facut noua, celorlalti, invinsilor lor. Si nu stiu cum reuseste Aleksievici sa gaseasca martori care, pe langa evenimentele pe care le-au trait, mai sunt si la fel de expresivi ca marii scriitori rusi. Ea ii numeste “calauze”, cei care o ghideaza prin universurile umane. Dar n-ar trebui sa ma mir, cand indiferent de saracie, de foame, de mizerie, de razboaie, de crime, de violuri, de copii, parinti, frati ucisi, de insuportabilitatea vietii…toti vorbesc despre bibliotecile lor pline. Cel putin pana la “democratie”. Originala, si la ei. Mai salbatica decat la noi, asta e sigur.
De unde sa incep? De la saracia post-Perestroika, cand toata lumea se simtea pacalita si oamenii de stiinta lucrau ca instalatori? Daca aveau noroc. Anii ’90, cu bisnitari care umblau cu pistolele pe strada si se omorau in scari de bloc. Sau de la razboaiele inter-etnice, din anii 2000, cand toti se omorau in cele mai grotesti moduri, din Armenia in Tadjikistan? Oriunde m-as opri, fiecare marturie e taioasa ca o sabie. Fiecare citat e graitor. Dar cred ca ce le leaga pe toate e ideea ca, dincolo de tot ce au pierdut, rude, prieteni, iubiri, tara, bani – toti simt ca si-au pierdut identitatea. Identitatea de om sovietic. Chiar si cei care au urat comunismul si visau la libertate sunt dezradacinati, pierduti in haos, rataciti. Iar nostalgicii – ei au si mai mult de regretat: ei erau eroii sovietici si acum sunt niste muritori de foame, la propriu.
“Misteriosul suflet rusesc […] suflet ca toate sufletele […]. Profesiunea principala e cea de cititor. De spectator. Si astfel avem sentimentul ca suntem speciali, exceptionali, desi nu avem pentru asta niciun temei in afara de petrol si gaze.”
“Eram absolut sovietic: era rusine sa iti placa banii, trebuia sa-ti placa sa visezi.”
“Cei care citeau si visau razboaie, ca pescarusul lui Cehov, fusesera inlocuiti de cei care nu citeau, dar puteau sa zboare.”
Un tadjic: ”Spune, sora mea, de ce au invatat oamenii atat de repede sa se omoare unii pe altii? Toti l-am citit pe Khayyam in scoala. Si pe Puskin.”
“Astazi in muzee e pustiu. Dar Bisericile sunt pline, fiindca toti avem nevoie de psihoterapeut. […] Senzatia cumplita de singuratate, de abandonare. O au toti: de la taximetrist si functionarul din birou pana la artistul poporului si academician. Toti sunt teribil de singuri.”
“Oamenii au inceput iar sa creada in Dumnezeu, fiindca n-au alta speranta. Dar pe vremuri invatam la scoala ca Lenin e Dumnezeu si Karl Marx e Dumnezeu.”
Dupa Perestroika “umanist” suna ca un diagnostic. Era vremea baietilor “cu sacou zmeuriu si ghiuluri de aur.”
“Construim capitalismul sub conducerea KGB-ului.”
“Inca n-am inteles nimic despre lumea noastra recenta, dar traim intr-una noua. O intreaga civilizatie aruncata la gunoi.”
“Libertatea pentru omul nostru e cum sunt ochelarii pentru o maimuta. Nimeni nu stie ce sa faca cu ea.”
“Eram educati ca tinerii razboinici ai Spartei antice. Daca Patria o cere, te asezi si pe un arici.”
“Lacrimi in loc de pensie. La televizor vedem cum traiesc nemtii. Bine! Invinsii traiesc de o suta de ori mai bine decat invingatorii.”
“La noi mai degraba gasesti sfinti decat oameni cinstiti si de succes.”
“Acum noi suntem, pe scurt, sovieticus debilus.”
Cel mai infricosator mi se pare ultimul capitol, despre revolutia (incercarea de revolutie) din Bielorusia (2010). Aici se vede cel mai bine ca masina stalinista de arestari, torturi si crime e la fel de vie ca atunci cand a fost creata.
Este cu siguranta una dintre cele mai bune (si mai greu de dus, emotional) carti pe care le-am citit vreodata. Nu doar despre Homo Sovieticus, ci in general.
Ce te invata cartea asta e ca rusii si-au facut lor insile cel putin la fel de mult rau cat ne-au facut noua, celorlalti, invinsilor lor. Si nu stiu cum reuseste Aleksievici sa gaseasca martori care, pe langa evenimentele pe care le-au trait, mai sunt si la fel de expresivi ca marii scriitori rusi. Ea ii numeste “calauze”, cei care o ghideaza prin universurile umane. Dar n-ar trebui sa ma mir, cand indiferent de saracie, de foame, de mizerie, de razboaie, de crime, de violuri, de copii, parinti, frati ucisi, de insuportabilitatea vietii…toti vorbesc despre bibliotecile lor pline. Cel putin pana la “democratie”. Originala, si la ei. Mai salbatica decat la noi, asta e sigur.
De unde sa incep? De la saracia post-Perestroika, cand toata lumea se simtea pacalita si oamenii de stiinta lucrau ca instalatori? Daca aveau noroc. Anii ’90, cu bisnitari care umblau cu pistolele pe strada si se omorau in scari de bloc. Sau de la razboaiele inter-etnice, din anii 2000, cand toti se omorau in cele mai grotesti moduri, din Armenia in Tadjikistan? Oriunde m-as opri, fiecare marturie e taioasa ca o sabie. Fiecare citat e graitor. Dar cred ca ce le leaga pe toate e ideea ca, dincolo de tot ce au pierdut, rude, prieteni, iubiri, tara, bani – toti simt ca si-au pierdut identitatea. Identitatea de om sovietic. Chiar si cei care au urat comunismul si visau la libertate sunt dezradacinati, pierduti in haos, rataciti. Iar nostalgicii – ei au si mai mult de regretat: ei erau eroii sovietici si acum sunt niste muritori de foame, la propriu.
“Misteriosul suflet rusesc […] suflet ca toate sufletele […]. Profesiunea principala e cea de cititor. De spectator. Si astfel avem sentimentul ca suntem speciali, exceptionali, desi nu avem pentru asta niciun temei in afara de petrol si gaze.”
“Eram absolut sovietic: era rusine sa iti placa banii, trebuia sa-ti placa sa visezi.”
“Cei care citeau si visau razboaie, ca pescarusul lui Cehov, fusesera inlocuiti de cei care nu citeau, dar puteau sa zboare.”
Un tadjic: ”Spune, sora mea, de ce au invatat oamenii atat de repede sa se omoare unii pe altii? Toti l-am citit pe Khayyam in scoala. Si pe Puskin.”
“Astazi in muzee e pustiu. Dar Bisericile sunt pline, fiindca toti avem nevoie de psihoterapeut. […] Senzatia cumplita de singuratate, de abandonare. O au toti: de la taximetrist si functionarul din birou pana la artistul poporului si academician. Toti sunt teribil de singuri.”
“Oamenii au inceput iar sa creada in Dumnezeu, fiindca n-au alta speranta. Dar pe vremuri invatam la scoala ca Lenin e Dumnezeu si Karl Marx e Dumnezeu.”
Dupa Perestroika “umanist” suna ca un diagnostic. Era vremea baietilor “cu sacou zmeuriu si ghiuluri de aur.”
“Construim capitalismul sub conducerea KGB-ului.”
“Inca n-am inteles nimic despre lumea noastra recenta, dar traim intr-una noua. O intreaga civilizatie aruncata la gunoi.”
“Libertatea pentru omul nostru e cum sunt ochelarii pentru o maimuta. Nimeni nu stie ce sa faca cu ea.”
“Eram educati ca tinerii razboinici ai Spartei antice. Daca Patria o cere, te asezi si pe un arici.”
“Lacrimi in loc de pensie. La televizor vedem cum traiesc nemtii. Bine! Invinsii traiesc de o suta de ori mai bine decat invingatorii.”
“La noi mai degraba gasesti sfinti decat oameni cinstiti si de succes.”
“Acum noi suntem, pe scurt, sovieticus debilus.”
Cel mai infricosator mi se pare ultimul capitol, despre revolutia (incercarea de revolutie) din Bielorusia (2010). Aici se vede cel mai bine ca masina stalinista de arestari, torturi si crime e la fel de vie ca atunci cand a fost creata.
Este cu siguranta una dintre cele mai bune (si mai greu de dus, emotional) carti pe care le-am citit vreodata. Nu doar despre Homo Sovieticus, ci in general.
June 28, 2024
كتاب مهم.. ولا يعدم من قسوة، لأنها سفيتلانا يا سيدي.
September 19, 2016
If you are interested in modern day Russia & if you want to understand the country: read this book!
January 29, 2017
I’m reading this oral history of the Soviet era through the lens of the present moment. How could I not? The voices of Svetlana Alexievich’s subjects blend with the voices I hear on the news. You’ve got the revolutionaries, fierce believers in the rightness of their cause. Some are idealists, others admit to less pure motives.
Witnesses to the Bolshevik Revolution, ardent Communists and Stalin’s victims alike, look back on the years before the Soviet Union’s dissolution with nostalgia. They didn’t get what they’d fought for, or their suffering did not end with the fall of Communism. Salami in the stores, now that capitalism has arrived in Russia, but still no compassion. No hope.
The book opens with a pair of epigraphs. The first is from David Rousset, a French Communist—a Trotskyite—who fought in the Resistance and was interned in Buchenwald. He would go on to write a scathing comparison of the German lagers and the Soviet gulag—this before Solzhenitsyn revealed its horrors to the West—for which he was ostracized by his former comrades, including Sartre and his Left Bank coterie.
So, here’s the sentence that Alexievich quotes from his book, The Days of Our Death: “Victim and executioner are equally ignoble; the lesson of the camps is brotherhood in abjection.” Pretty apt, I’d say, after reading the narratives in Secondhand Time.
The second epigraph is from Fyodor Stepun, a Russian-born philosopher whose support for the revolution soured, leading to his deportation and permanent exile in Germany (where he was also an enemy of the Nazis): “In any event, we must remember that it’s not the blinded wrongdoers who are primarily responsible for the triumph of evil in the world, but the spiritually sighted servants of the good.”
Well, I'm not that cynical. Not yet.
Our era—my era—was a great era! It was a great time! We will never live in such a big and strong country again.
For us, mercy was a priest’s word. Kill the White vermin! Make way for the Revolution! A slogan from the first years of the Revolution: We’ll chase humanity into happiness with an iron fist . . .The future, it was supposed to be beautiful. It will be beautiful later. I believed that!
Witnesses to the Bolshevik Revolution, ardent Communists and Stalin’s victims alike, look back on the years before the Soviet Union’s dissolution with nostalgia. They didn’t get what they’d fought for, or their suffering did not end with the fall of Communism. Salami in the stores, now that capitalism has arrived in Russia, but still no compassion. No hope.
We [internal exiles] moved into the dirt. Into mud huts. I was born underground, and it’s where I grew up . . . I slept with two little goats on a warm spread of goat droppings. My first word was b-a-a-a. We shared a world, it seemed indivisible. I still don’t feel the difference between us, the distinction between man and animal. I always talk to them. They understand me, and the beetles and spiders do, too. They were all around me, such colorful beetles, it was as though they’d been painted. My toys. In spring, we’d go out into the sunshine together, crawling through the grass in search of food. Warming ourselves. In winter we’d of dormant like the trees, hibernating from hunger . . . It’s all very painful, but it’s mine.
The book opens with a pair of epigraphs. The first is from David Rousset, a French Communist—a Trotskyite—who fought in the Resistance and was interned in Buchenwald. He would go on to write a scathing comparison of the German lagers and the Soviet gulag—this before Solzhenitsyn revealed its horrors to the West—for which he was ostracized by his former comrades, including Sartre and his Left Bank coterie.
So, here’s the sentence that Alexievich quotes from his book, The Days of Our Death: “Victim and executioner are equally ignoble; the lesson of the camps is brotherhood in abjection.” Pretty apt, I’d say, after reading the narratives in Secondhand Time.
The second epigraph is from Fyodor Stepun, a Russian-born philosopher whose support for the revolution soured, leading to his deportation and permanent exile in Germany (where he was also an enemy of the Nazis): “In any event, we must remember that it’s not the blinded wrongdoers who are primarily responsible for the triumph of evil in the world, but the spiritually sighted servants of the good.”
Well, I'm not that cynical. Not yet.
August 25, 2022
4 ☆
According to the GR summary, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets is an "oral history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia." The main body of the book is divided into two parts labeled as "The Consolation of the Apocalypse" (which included testimonies collected from 1991 - 2001) and "The Charms of Emptiness" (gathered from 2002 - 2012). Each section included ten monologues centered around a theme. As oral history, these accounts were related essentially verbatim in a stream of consciousness style, not in an interview format which might have better guided the flow of information. Additional snippets from unnamed sources were also recorded.
Secondhand Time did not provide a comprehensive history of modern Russia. Intergenerational trauma was apparent and rendered these time-frame distinctions rather porous. Major issues that were covered included the gulag, WWII, glasnost and perestroika, and post-dissolution USSR. These stories were grim, bleak, brutal, and occasionally harrowing; many were powerful. The monologues in Part 1 tended to eulogize the demise of Communism, an ideal that had unified the Soviet peoples.
Vladimir Lenin had created the Gulag - the system of forced labor camps - but Josef Stalin had perfected it as a major tool for crushing political dissidents. The use of these camps peaked during the 1930s through 1950s. Not just neighbors and friends, but close relatives and even siblings would report people for their disloyalty to Communism and thus to the governing party. Most Russian men of a certain generation had likely served in the Soviet army or been sent to Stalin's labor camps (which were effectively prisons) or possibly both. Numbers remain contested today in terms of people who had been incarcerated (perhaps 18 million), of which possibly ten percent died during or shortly after their incarceration. (Read the definitive The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag for the short version). These accounts were inhumane and bleak.
During WWII, the Germans had invaded the USSR, opening the Eastern Front. The fighting was merciless and vicious. The Soviet army was not as well supplied as the German forces.
If a Soviet soldier refused, their leader would either shoot them or send them to the gulag for betraying the Motherland. Soviet schools taught students that the Eastern Front was a major victory and thus point of pride. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern...).
The advancing German army targeted Soviet Jews in their path. One person recounted how a pretty young Jewish woman had been raped and passed along within German army until she got pregnant and was then killed. Another person recalled that the people who had been compassionate and tried to shelter newly orphaned Jewish children were reported and killed by the German soldiers.
As the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev instituted reforms known as glasnost and perestroika from 1985 to 1991. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestr...). The law of unintended consequences kicked in because I doubt that Gorbachev had anticipated the demise of the USSR. Gorbachev survived the August 1991 coup d'état known as "the putsch." And the breakup of the USSR gained momentum culminating with the new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) replacing the Soviet Union by December 1991. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolu...)
After the dissolution of the USSR, Russian economist Yegor Gaidar's policies led to hyperinflation that peaked at 2,600 percent. So while rubles lost any claim to holding value, vodka always worked as de facto currency.
Capitalism in its rawest dog-eat-dog incarnation was unleashed in the former USSR. Social chaos ensued. Criminals defrauded people of their homes. Killings on the street became common and bodyguards were necessary accessories for the newly moneyed.
Within a few of the newly-formed republics, society fractured along ethnic lines. Russians were chased out of the former Soviet areas and other ethnic conflicts especially in Azerbaijan and in Tajikistan became bloody. Refugees flocked to Moscow because that had been their former capital. Post-USSR Moscow, however, had a very different mindset toward the people who were formerly comrades.
Former Soviets opined about the Russian character:
Svetlana Alexievich presented these testimonies with the presumption that the reader possessed knowledge about the Soviet Union and its major republics after the USSR's dissolution. A "Russia After Stalin" timeline from 1953 to 2014 was included. Given that many persons mentioned Stalin's policies, however, a complete chronology for the USSR (1922 - 1991) would have been more helpful.
In 2015, Alexievich received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Alexievich's approach differed from academic hisorians because she emphasized emotions. She wanted to piece together the history of "domestic," "interior" socialism. As it existed in a person's soul. It was that focus which infused many of these testimonies with power and made it sometimes difficult to stop listening to the audiobook (which was excellently performed). Of course, the sadistic and other accounts of raw pain also turned my stomach and ensured that I would not race through this listening experience. Secondhand Time left my own soul a bit bruised, but its testimonies must not be forgotten.
War and prision are the two most important words in the Russian language.
No one had taught us how to be free. We had only ever been taught how to die for freedom.
According to the GR summary, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets is an "oral history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia." The main body of the book is divided into two parts labeled as "The Consolation of the Apocalypse" (which included testimonies collected from 1991 - 2001) and "The Charms of Emptiness" (gathered from 2002 - 2012). Each section included ten monologues centered around a theme. As oral history, these accounts were related essentially verbatim in a stream of consciousness style, not in an interview format which might have better guided the flow of information. Additional snippets from unnamed sources were also recorded.
Secondhand Time did not provide a comprehensive history of modern Russia. Intergenerational trauma was apparent and rendered these time-frame distinctions rather porous. Major issues that were covered included the gulag, WWII, glasnost and perestroika, and post-dissolution USSR. These stories were grim, bleak, brutal, and occasionally harrowing; many were powerful. The monologues in Part 1 tended to eulogize the demise of Communism, an ideal that had unified the Soviet peoples.
We grew up among victims and executioners. For us, living together is normal. There's no line between peacetime and wartime, we're always at war.
Why didn't we put Stalin on trial? I'll tell you why...in order to condemn Stalin, you'd have to condemn your friends and relatives along with him.
Vladimir Lenin had created the Gulag - the system of forced labor camps - but Josef Stalin had perfected it as a major tool for crushing political dissidents. The use of these camps peaked during the 1930s through 1950s. Not just neighbors and friends, but close relatives and even siblings would report people for their disloyalty to Communism and thus to the governing party. Most Russian men of a certain generation had likely served in the Soviet army or been sent to Stalin's labor camps (which were effectively prisons) or possibly both. Numbers remain contested today in terms of people who had been incarcerated (perhaps 18 million), of which possibly ten percent died during or shortly after their incarceration. (Read the definitive The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag for the short version). These accounts were inhumane and bleak.
People always want to live, even during wartime. You'll learn a lot from living through a war...There is no beast worse than man.
During WWII, the Germans had invaded the USSR, opening the Eastern Front. The fighting was merciless and vicious. The Soviet army was not as well supplied as the German forces.
We'd go into battle with one rifle for every four men. When they kill the first one, the second one grabs the rifle, after the second one, the next one. Meanwhile, the Germans all had brand-new machine guns.
If a Soviet soldier refused, their leader would either shoot them or send them to the gulag for betraying the Motherland. Soviet schools taught students that the Eastern Front was a major victory and thus point of pride. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern...).
The advancing German army targeted Soviet Jews in their path. One person recounted how a pretty young Jewish woman had been raped and passed along within German army until she got pregnant and was then killed. Another person recalled that the people who had been compassionate and tried to shelter newly orphaned Jewish children were reported and killed by the German soldiers.
What would I have been if not for perestroika? An engineer with a pathetic salary.
As the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev instituted reforms known as glasnost and perestroika from 1985 to 1991. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestr...). The law of unintended consequences kicked in because I doubt that Gorbachev had anticipated the demise of the USSR. Gorbachev survived the August 1991 coup d'état known as "the putsch." And the breakup of the USSR gained momentum culminating with the new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) replacing the Soviet Union by December 1991. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolu...)
In the nineties…yes, we were ecstatic; there’s no way back to that naïveté. We thought that the choice had been made and that communism had been defeated forever. But it was only the beginning.
After the dissolution of the USSR, Russian economist Yegor Gaidar's policies led to hyperinflation that peaked at 2,600 percent. So while rubles lost any claim to holding value, vodka always worked as de facto currency.
A bottle of vodka costs as much as a coat used to. And something to snack on? Half a kilo of salami is half a month's pension.
Capitalism in its rawest dog-eat-dog incarnation was unleashed in the former USSR. Social chaos ensued. Criminals defrauded people of their homes. Killings on the street became common and bodyguards were necessary accessories for the newly moneyed.
How much can we value human life when we know that not long ago people had died by the millions? We’re full of hatred and superstitions. All of us come from the land of the gulag and harrowing war.
I asked everyone I met what 'freedom' meant. Fathers and children had very different answers. Those who were born in the USSR and those born after its collapse do not share a common experience - it's like they're from different planets. For the fathers, freedom is the absence of fear... For the children: freedom is love; inner freedom is an absolute value. Freedom is when you're not afraid of your own desires.
From a conversation with a university professor: “At the end of the nineties, my students would laugh when I told them stories about the Soviet Union. They were sure that a new future awaited them. Now it’s a different story…Today’s students have truly seen and felt capitalism: the inequality, the poverty, the shameless wealth. They’ve witnessed the lives of their parents, who never got anything out of the plundering of our country. "
Within a few of the newly-formed republics, society fractured along ethnic lines. Russians were chased out of the former Soviet areas and other ethnic conflicts especially in Azerbaijan and in Tajikistan became bloody. Refugees flocked to Moscow because that had been their former capital. Post-USSR Moscow, however, had a very different mindset toward the people who were formerly comrades.
Russians need “blacks” so they can feel “white.” So they have someone to look down on.
Former Soviets opined about the Russian character:
People in the West seem naive to us because they don't suffer like we do, they have a remedy for every little pimple. We're the ones who went to the camps, who piled up the corpses during the war, who dug through the nuclear waste in Chernobyl with our bare hands,. We sit atop the ruins of socialism like it's the aftermath of war. We're run down and defeated. Our language is the language of suffering.
Capitalism isn't taking root here. The spirit of capitalism is foreign to us. ... And we're not the right people. The Russian man isn't rational or mercantile, he'll give you the shirt off his back, but sometimes he'll steal. He's elemental, more of a watcher than a doer. He can get by on very little. Accumulating money isn't for him, saving bores him. He had a very acute sense of fairness. We're a Bolshevik people. And finally Russians don't want to just live, they want to live for something. They want to participate in some great undertaking.
Today, people just want to live their lives, they don’t need some great Idea. This is entirely new for Russia; it’s unprecedented in Russian literature. At heart, we’re built for war. We were always either fighting or preparing to fight. We’ve never known anything else—hence our wartime psychology. Even in civilian life, everything was always militarized. The drums were beating, the banners flying, our hearts leaping out of our chests. People didn’t recognize their own slavery—they even liked being slaves.
People are constantly forced to choose between having freedom and having success and stability; freedom with suffering or happiness without freedom. The majority choose the latter.
Svetlana Alexievich presented these testimonies with the presumption that the reader possessed knowledge about the Soviet Union and its major republics after the USSR's dissolution. A "Russia After Stalin" timeline from 1953 to 2014 was included. Given that many persons mentioned Stalin's policies, however, a complete chronology for the USSR (1922 - 1991) would have been more helpful.
In 2015, Alexievich received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Alexievich's approach differed from academic hisorians because she emphasized emotions. She wanted to piece together the history of "domestic," "interior" socialism. As it existed in a person's soul. It was that focus which infused many of these testimonies with power and made it sometimes difficult to stop listening to the audiobook (which was excellently performed). Of course, the sadistic and other accounts of raw pain also turned my stomach and ensured that I would not race through this listening experience. Secondhand Time left my own soul a bit bruised, but its testimonies must not be forgotten.
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