Books by Svetlana Alexievich – a journey through the cellars of the Soviet Union, the Foundation of which she discovered a lot of secrets of the dead and, writes the correspondent of El Mundo Alberto Rojas, anticipating an interview with the writer, who last year received the Nobel prize.
“What price have you personally paid for your writing path?” – asked the reporter.
“I grew up, when he wrote these books, and they changed me completely. But it’s tragic knowledge. Any person would prefer not to know these things, but at the same time, we cannot escape from our reality”, – said the author. It was warn from the sacralization of the writer’s work: “the Oncologist in children’s hospital is much harder than me,” but noted that the horrors that she has seen in Afghanistan, had driven her to despair.
According to Aleksievich, mothers and children suffer even more than men involved in the war. “When war ends, women continue to suffer as they have to care for the wounded and even mentally ill. Important to me this thought: there is a cult of the God Mars. Those who go to war, we award medals. And I still think that any war is murder. This barbarism. We have to kill ideas, not people,” she said.
“In the USSR, you were opposed by powerful forces, and now you have to confront leaders like Vladimir Putin or the President of Belarus Lukashenko. Doesn’t it bother you that nothing has changed?” – asked the reporter.
“For the Russian writer, confrontation of power – a normal situation. From the XVI century. But what is more difficult is to confront your own people, who support the authoritarianism of Putin and Lukashenko. That’s hard. It’s hard to see that you’re involved in a war against your people, where are the words Democrats are not heard, and propaganda of dictators is heard,” – said the author.
“Don’t you feel any physical fear of confronting Putin?” – asked the reporter.
“I don’t even want to think. I hope the Nobel prize will protect me from him, though I’m absolutely not sure,” replied the writer.
“And revisionism regarding the history of the Soviet Union also has a place?” – asked the reporter.
“Many young people nostalgic about the Soviet Union. Because they believe that their parents are ruined by the system. In Russia, the country’s wealth concentrated in the hands of 7% of the population. Perhaps the parents were told these young people that earlier people were better. Communist equality gives them nostalgia about the past. In addition, in the 90s we were simple-minded romantics. Thought that came out of the Gulag, will become happy. Running through the squares and called for freedom, not knowing what it is. Money instantly gained great importance. For our society this has become something of an atomic bomb. In that age books were published, Solzhenitsyn’s, but people walked past them and went to buy new clothes, products, not previously tried, the tickets in an unfamiliar country… Material values prevailed,” said the author.
“Left the Soviet Union some kind of positive legacy?” – asked the reporter.
“Some people, although in the Soviet period they even spent time in prison, acknowledged that there was a certain idealism, a certain human brotherhood. They did not find the stratification into rich and poor,” said the author.
“Why have you switched from pain, the main topics of your five books to love – the clue of what you are writing now?” – asked the reporter.
“Because I need convincing that love for us is the only salvation,” replied the writer.
