Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

by Svetlana Alexievich

I promise her that there will be two stories. I want to be a cold-blooded historian, not one who is holding a blazing torch. 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.

It’s always the same scenario…Things keep going in circles. The people are a herd. A herd of antelopes. And the government is a lioness. The lioness picks out a victim from the herd and kills it. The rest keep chewing their cud, watching the lioness out of the corner of their eyes as she’s picking out her next victim. Once she’s bagged her prey, they all sigh in relief: ‘It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me! I can keep living…’ ”