Experimental Blog # 212

Quotations and notes from "Secondhand Time" - The Last of the Soviets - An Oral History by Svetlana Alexievich - Translated by Bela Shayevich

From the "Chronology: Russia After Stalin":
"OCTOBER 2003  ... The imprisonment of Khodorovsky and seizure of his assets marks the beginning of Vladimir Putin's efforts to transfer control of all major Russian industries to his political party, United Russia. This economic takeover, necessitating a great deal of corrupt maneuvering, also leads to the necessity of silencing criticism and dissent in the press."
"FEBRUARY - MAY 2014  ... After the flight from Ukraine of pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich, Russian forces take over Crimea, which then votes to join Russia in a referendum."

From the first chapter "Remarks From An Accomplice":
"We're paying our respects to the Soviet era."
   "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. < > I am this person. And so are my acquaintances, my closest friends, my parents. < > Homo sovieticus isn't just Russian, he's Belarussian, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Kazakh. < > 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, We have a special relationship with death."

" ... I sought out people who had been permanently bound to the Soviet idea < > The state had become their entire cosmos, blocking out everything else, even their own lives. < > Today, people just want to live their own 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. < > 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."

   "After perestroika < > We learned the history that they had been hiding from us ..."
   "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."

"Secondhand Time" was published in Russian in Moscow in 2013. This translation into English came out in 2016. Besides this, Svetlana Alexievich's book has been translated into Ukrainian, Chinese, French, Spanish, and other languages.