Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

by Svetlana Alexievich

I was brought up on Soviet books, the things they taught us were totally different. Just an example, for comparison…In those books, the first Russian terrorists are depicted as heroes. Martyrs. Sophia Perovskaya, Kibalchich*1…They died for the people, they were on a holy mission. They threw a bomb at the Tsar. Those young people often came from the aristocracy, good families…Why are we surprised that people like them still exist today? [She falls silent.] In history classes, when they taught us about the Great Patriotic War, the teacher would tell us about the heroism of Belarusian partisan Yelena Mazanik, who killed the Nazi Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube by planting a bomb in the bed where he slept with his pregnant wife. While their children were sleeping in the next room, just on the other side of the wall…Stalin personally awarded her the Hero’s Star.