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THIS BOOK IS A FIRST HAND-ACCOUNT OF WORLD WAR II, told by Ukrainian and Russian women soldiers. The more I learn about wars, the more I am certain, one cannot recover from war for there is no sense to make of it.
War is surreal. It happens alongside the ordinary. You're running from shrapnel all while the birds relentssely continue their songs. And if you're like most soldiers, you're barely twenty — so of course you're going to stuff your suitcase with candy and look for ways to feel pretty (like using sugar to stiffen your bangs), all while being surrounded by death and being so tired you learn to sleep while marching.
And after the war, how do you leave it behind, when you can't even sit beneath a tree, because you buried the dead at its feet? How do you learn from it, when the world is in such a hurry to pave it over?
“Tell it the way I taught you. Without tears and women's trifles: how you wanted to be beautiful, how you wept when they cut off your braid." Later she whispered to me: "He studied 'The History of the Great Patriotic War' with me all last night. He was afraid for me. And now he's worried I won't remember right. Not the way I should.”
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From a conversation with the censor: Who will go to fight after such books? You humiliate women with a primitive naturalism. Heroic women. You dethrone them. You make them into ordinary women, females. But our women are saints. ... What is it your after?
- The truth.
- You think the truth is what's there in life. In the street. Under your feet. It's such a low thing for you. Earthly. No, the truth is what we dream about. It's how we want to be!
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“What is this, some sort of women's round dance?" he said. "Corps de ballet! It's war, not a dance. A terrible war...”
Colonel Borodkin
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“I also think this... Listen... How long was the war? Four years. Very long... I don't remember any birds or flowers. They were there, of course, but I don't remember them. Yes, yes... Strange, isn't it? Can they make a color film about war? Everything was black. Only the blood was another color, the blood was red...”
Klavdia Grigoryevna Krokhina, first sergeant, sniper
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“I didn't see the sun, it didn't shine on me. Everything was dark on my eyes.”
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“In war you have to remember something about yourself. Something... Remember something from when a man was not quite a man yet... I'm not very educated. I'm a simple accountant, but that I know.”
Liubov Ivanova Liubchik, commander of a machine-gun platoon
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“The dead were always nearby... We smoked near them, we ate. We talked. They were not somewhere out there, not in the ground, like in peacetime, but always right there. With us.”
Bella Isaackovna Epstein, sergent sniper
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Tamara Stepanovna Umnyagina, junior sergeant in the guards, medical assistant (on saving a German soldier)
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“An old person fears death, a young one laughs. He's immortal! I didn't believe I could die...”
Anna Semyonivna Dubrovina-Chekunova, first lieutenant of the guards, pilot
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I stuck my head up to see everything. There was some sort of curiosity, childish curiosity. Naïveté! The commander shouts: "Private Semyonova! Private Semyonova, you're out of your mind! Fuck it all... You'll be killed!" I couldn't understand that: how could I be killed, if I'd only just arrived at the front? I didn't know how ordinary and indiscriminate death is. You can't plead or argue with it. -- Nina Alexeevna Semyonova, private, radio operator
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“I remember how he gave me a German cholate bar for the New Year. I didn't eat it, I spent a month carrying it around in my pocket.”
Liubov Mikhailovna Grozd, medical assistant
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“I recall the war, and she thinks I'm telling her fairy tales. Children's fairy tales. Scary fairy tales...”
Klavdia S-va, sniper
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“It's my native soil... I dig up potatoes, beetroots... He's there somewhere, and I'll come to him soon... My sister tells me "Don't look in the ground, look at the sky. Upward. They're there."”
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“Now I dont like the spring. The war stands between us, between me and nature. When the cherry trees were in bloom, I saw fascists in my native Zhitomir.”
Sofya Mironovna Vereshchak, underground fighter
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“As soon as summer came, it felt as if war was about to start. When the sun heated everything around - trees, houses, asphalt - everything had that smell. It smelled like blood to me. ”
Tamara Stepanovna Umnyagina, junior sergeant in the guards, medical assistant
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“Mama, what's a papa?” •
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