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Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets QUOTES

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets QUOTES

1 " How were you taken prisoner?' The interrogator asked my father. 'The Finns pulled me out of a lake.' 'You traitor! You were saving your own skin instead of the Motherland.' My father also considered himself guilty. That's how they'd been trained. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

2 " I'm afraid of freedom, it feels like some drunk guy could show up and burn my dacha at any moment. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

3 " The mysterious Russian soul... Everyone wants to understand it. They read Dostoevsky: what's behind that soul of theirs? Well, behind our soul there's just more soul. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

4 " Pretty soon, I'll be decomposing into phosphorous, calcium, and so on. Who else will you find to tell you the truth? All that's left are the archives. Pieces of paper. And the truth is... I worked at an archive myself, I can tell you first hand: paper lies even more than people do. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

5 " Instead of lullabies, my mother would sing us songs of the Revolution. Now she sings them to her grandchildren. 'Are you nuts?' I ask her. She replies, 'I don't know any other songs. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

6 " 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. The people closest to you...our neighbor Yuri turned out to have been the one who informed on my father. For nothing, as my mother would say...When Yeltsin came to power, I got a copy of his file, which included several informants' reports. It turned out that one of them had been written by Aunt Olga...his niece...a beautiful woman, full of joy...It's not just Stalin and Beria, it's also our neighbor Yuri and beautiful Aunt Olga... "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

7 " Many greeted the truth as an enemy. And freedom as well. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

8 " I know full well what it means to dream. My whole childhood, I begged for a bicycle, and I never did get one. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

9 " Que la guerra l’havien guanyada els presoners obligats a lluitar i que ells eren els qui havien arribat fins a Berlín sota el foc de les metralladores. Una victòria, això? Vam omplir Europa de cadàvers. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

10 " Ha arribat la felicitat, eh? Llonganissa i plàtans. Ens rebolquem en la merda i mengem coses importades. En lloc de pàtria, un gran supermercat "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

11 " Els nous somnis eren fer-se construir una casa, comprar-se un cotxe bo, plantar un groseller. Es va constatar que la llibertat era la rehabilitació d’aquell esperit petitburgès que a Rússia es tenia el costum de denigrar. La llibertat de Sa Majestat el Consum. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

12 " Què volien, en definitiva? Un socialisme més suau. Més humà. I què tenim? Un capitalisme salvatge al carrer. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

13 " És com si el futur hagués deixat d’ocupar el lloc que li havia de pertocar”. Han passat cent anys i vet aquí que de nou el futur no és al seu lloc. Ens hem endinsat en una època de segona mà. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

14 " Πώς έμεινες ζωντανός εκεί πέρα;" - "Με αγάπησαν πολύ όσο ήμουν παιδί". Μας σώζει η ποσότητα της αγάπης που έχουμε πάρει, αυτή η δεξαμενή της δύναμής μας. Η αγάπη είναι μια βιταμίνη χωρίς την οποία δεν μπορεί να ζήσει ο άνθρωπος, χωρίς την οποία παγώνει το αίμα και σταματάει η καρδιά. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

15 " Quant pot valdre la vida humana si recordem que fa poc morien milions de persones per causes no naturals? Estem plens d’odi i de prejudicis. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

16 " Os intelectuais vendiam as suas bibliotecas ao desbarato. O público empobreceu, é claro, mas não era por isso que retiravam os livros de casa, não era apenas por dinheiro – os livros desiludiam. Uma desilusão completa. Já se tornava deselegante perguntar: “O que andas a ler agora?” Muita coisa mudou na vida e isso não estava nos livros. Os romances russos não ensinam a ter êxito na vida. A maneira de enriquecer… Oblomov está deitado no sofá, e os heróis de Tchékhov passam o tempo a beber chá e a queixar-se da vida… "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

17 " No one had taught us how to be free. We had only ever been taught how to die for freedom. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

18 " The most important thing is spiritual labor...Books...You can wear the same suit for twenty years, two coats are enough for a lifetime, but you can't live without Pushkin or the complete works of Gorky. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

19 " I don’t like the word “hero.” There are no heroes in war. As soon as someone picks up a weapon, they can no longer be good. They won’t be able to. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

20 " Let time be the judge. Time is just, but only in the long term—not in the short term. The time we won’t live to see, which will be free of our prejudices. "

― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets