She listens to the voices of her non-fictional characters and writes the story of their feelings. Reflects on what they believed and did not believe, what they hoped for and what they feared. Writer, author of tragic documentary prose Svetlana Aleksievich tells us about what gives strength to live on.
“Do you know what kind of hero I am looking for, love? I’m looking for a shocked person. In war, in Chernobyl near death and in love – near a miracle. There are not so many bright pages in our history, but apart from the fact that we often had to shoot and die, people still loved, made friends, smelled flowers, admired the sunset. A shocked person is the person who was not just carried by the flow of history, swept away like sand, no, this person found the strength to be surprised by life, to touch its secrets.
I still remember one of my heroines, she was a machine gunner in the war. A woman killed, a machine gun is a merciless iron, I think that not every technique can withstand what it does to a person – minced meat. This woman, fifty years after the war, could not forget the autumn field after the battle – “the dead lie scattered like potatoes. Russians and Germans. All are young and beautiful. I feel sorry for both of them.”
The person defended the Motherland, but was shocked by the madness of life, was able to rise to a height accessible to a few: her hatred died …
You can live life mechanically, or you can create it. Create. To save children’s surprise before life. This is not a monopoly of poets. People have always wanted to be happy… It seems to me that today is especially important.
All ideas have fallen, only life remains. And at the same time, it’s getting harder and harder to be happy. The world is changing very quickly and scares us. Terrorism, the rebellion of nature… In the XNUMXth century, people hoped for technological progress, for lofty ideas that promised to make a person happy. And now … What did we get?
We survived the time of romanticism, when the Berlin Wall fell, everyone believed in a new world – without violence. But very soon they saw on TV screens: in New York, the twin towers were collapsing, and people were flying to the ground like birds, and we were thrown back into the Middle Ages again. Again they shoot, they blow up. There is nowhere to hide anymore.
Read more:
- Andrei Sakharov: 10 thoughts on human rights, the world and yourself
Today they talk about fears more than about love. New fears. And the future is no longer predictable. The entire archive of mankind was helpless. New wars… new fears… And a little man who still wants to be happy. He wants to know how he lives, what keeps another person, as small as he. I was in America at the presentation of my Chernobyl book.
I went in, saw completely different faces of Americans and realized that now everyone needs the courage to live. And here we have an incomparable experience, we are a civilization of tears.
People want to live, live beautifully. Not many can, especially in the provinces, but everyone wants to. So far, Russia has entered the consumer society only at the level of desires. Most Russians cannot afford what they already allow themselves to desire. Those who can travel the world, build, make repairs, changing not only the Soviet worldview, but also all Soviet things in the house. Maybe this is our way of healing… We have to go through it.
“A MAN IS MOST LIKE A MAN WHEN HE LOVES. IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, THE AMOUNT OF LOVE SAVE US”
At the same time, I understand people diving into privacy. This is both protection from the void, and a world that we have not known.
The big life ended, the small one began. With the joys of home. How long can you live in a war or on the roof of a nuclear reactor?
Happiness is a world unknown to us. There are so many corners, windows, doors, different keys. This is an amazing world that we all have a very vague idea of. A guy who returned from Afghanistan told me: “When my child was born, I smelled these diapers so much. So ran home to hear that smell. It was the smell of happiness.”
Life is very hard work. We need to increase the human being. Divine. There will be as many people in you as you collect on the way.
What unites people today? What words do they believe? What are they saving? All the same: your own circle. Today we have separated from the state and live our separate lives. Of course, we won’t win the war and we won’t fly into space, but maybe we’ll learn to live like a human being. Once I asked a man who ended up in a Stalinist camp at the age of 14 what saved him there. “I was very loved as a child,” he replied.
What saves us is the amount of love we receive. Rescues in human and inhuman circumstances. I collect love in my books, human spirit.
Chekhov has the words that every contented and happy person should have someone standing behind his back and knocking on the hammer, reminding that there are unfortunate, weak, those who feel bad. We used to be proud of pain, but now we despise it. We are ashamed.
Someday I will write a book about love. A man is most like a man when he loves. Even if love goes away or fails, this is the best time for each of us.”