The Swedish Academy has announced the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The award and a cash prize of 8 million kroons (about $950,000) will be given to a Belarusian writer and author of documentary studies about wars.
The choice of academicians was announced by the new permanent secretary of the academy, the first woman in this position, who replaced the historian Peter Englund on June 1. She also explained why the academicians chose this candidate: Aleksievich was chosen by the Nobel Committee "for her many-voiced work - a monument to suffering and courage in our time."
Svetlana Aleksievich was born in 1948. She is a journalist by education, worked for many years in newspapers and magazines of the Byelorussian SSR.
In 1985, she published the book "War Does Not Have a Woman's Face" - a collection of monologues of women who survived the war.
For her, she became a laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize, she was accepted into the Writers' Union of the USSR. In the 80s and 90s, Aleksievich wrote documentary studies Zinc Boys (1989), Chernobyl Prayer (1997). In the early 2000s, the writer left Belarus and lives in Western Europe.
Svetlana Aleksievich first became the favorite for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Then her new book “Second Hand Time” was published in Sweden, and bookmakers put the writer in third place in their rating - ahead of Canadian Alice Monroe, who received the award that year. In 2014, she again entered the top three, but the Frenchman Patrick Modiani became the winner.
“Svetlana Aleksievich is the best student of the major Belarusian publicist Ales Adamovich,” the writer told Gazeta.Ru. --
Adamovich, as you know, was convinced that writing about the tragedies of the 20th century in the language of fiction means insulting people's feelings. Where we are talking about catastrophes, wars, personal tragedies, there is no place for belles-lettres. So Adamovich thought. And apparently Svetlana Aleksievich thinks the same way.”
The award of the Aleksievich Prize, according to Bykov, means that he is primarily interested in the social significance of the text, and only then in its artistic quality.
“Aleksievich, of course, masterfully speaks the language of journalism, but looking for aesthetic revelations in her writings is a strange occupation,” he noted. - The second thing I would pay attention to is the new narrative techniques, which the Nobel Committee welcomes with its decision. Now, as the Swedish academicians seem to believe, you will not surprise anyone with a plot narrative. New techniques and new literary means are needed. Svetlana Aleksievich is the embodiment of these innovations.”
Bykov noted that Aleksievich became the fifth Soviet writer to receive the Nobel.
“Of course, Belarus is an independent state, etc., but Aleksievich was formed as an author and became known precisely in the Soviet years, so we can talk about her as a compatriot,” he concluded.
The Nobel Prize in Literature received, and.
Aleksievich became the 14th woman and the 108th laureate of the world's main literary award.
On Friday, October 9, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced, and on Monday it will be known who will receive the award for economics.
The official reception with the awarding of medals and speeches by Nobel Prize winners will take place in early December.
Nobel laureate in literature Svetlana Aleksievich continues to accuse Russia of occupying Crimea and justify the Kyiv authorities. She expressed her position on June 19 in an interview with a correspondent IA REGNUM.
Regarding the events that led to the change of power in Ukraine, Aleksievich stated:“No, it was not a coup d'état. This is nonsense. You watch a lot of TV."
About the pro-fascist orientation of the supporters of the Maidan and the repressions by the authorities, Aleksievich stated the following: “Poroshenko and others are not fascists. You understand, they want to separate from Russia, go to Europe. It is also in the Baltics. Resistance takes violent forms. Then, when they really become an independent and strong state, this will not happen. And now they are knocking down communist monuments, which we should have knocked down as well.”
Olesya Buzina Aleksievich commented on the murder of the Ukrainian writer as follows:“But what he said was also embittered.”
True, Aleksievich recovered in time: “These are not excuses. I just imagine that Ukraine wants to build its own state.”
During the interview, the correspondent pointed to a study by the Gallup agency, during which it turned out that 83% of Ukrainians think in Russian. To the question whether it is possible to cancel the Russian language in view of this, Aleksievich answered:"No. But maybe for a while and yes, to cement the nation.”
At the end of the interview, commenting on the right of the residents of Donbass to protest against the abolition of the Russian language and their unwillingness to praise Bandera, the writer “reminded” of Russian tanks, Russian weapons, Russian contract soldiers and a downed Boeing:“If it were not for your weapons, there would be no war. So do not fool me with this nonsense that your head is filled with.
You so easily succumb to any propaganda. Yes, there is pain, there is fear. But this is on your conscience, on the conscience of Putin. You invaded a foreign country, on what basis? There are a million pictures on the Internet of how Russian equipment goes there. Everyone knows who shot down [the Boeing] and everything else. Let's end your idiotic interview. I no longer have the strength for it. You are just a bunch of propaganda, not a reasonable person."
Recall that Svetlana Aleksievich won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015 with the wording "for her many-voiced work - a monument to suffering and courage in our time."
The REGNUM correspondent asked questions that Aleksievich herself was uncomfortable talking about, because she still had the remnants of the Soviet conscience, and this irritated her.
It is clear that she was given a prize for anti-communist views. Monuments of suffering instead of communist ones - is this her ideal? You repent, suffer, but at the same time do not be indignant, it turns out that this is the essence of Aleksievich's worldview.
Of course, the West will applaud such a position.
Excuse me, but in their ideas of communism they were advanced, the natural development of philosophical thought. Everything that is best in a person was put at the forefront and it was proclaimed. What can Aleksievich or anyone else offer now - pity for himself and for others, or the freedom to worship the whims of his body.
Of course, this direction can be endlessly procrastinated and shown that this is the knowledge of the truth. But practice, as a criterion of truth, shows that the world is slipping into global aggression under the slogan of everything, against everyone. Her ideological position, in fact, not resistance to the growing evil, leads to a world catastrophe, and this “chicken” Aleksievich sees nothing beyond his literary views and Russophobia.
Original taken from vlad1_74
No comments: Interview with Noviop Nobel Laureate Aleksievich
No comments: interview with Noviop Nobel Laureate Aleksievich to IA Regnum. It turned out so colorful that the laureate forbade it to be published
Interview: Sergey Gurkin, columnist for IA Regnum
For some reason, it turns out that usually interviews are done with people with whom they generally agree. Relatively speaking, you will not be called to the First Channel, because they do not agree with you ...
... and they will call on "Rain" ...
... and they will call you to Dozhd, but they will not argue with you. I want to tell you honestly that on the vast majority of issues I completely disagree with your position.
Come on, I think this should be interesting.
That's it. Because this is the dialogue.
Yes, it is interesting to know the image of a person who is on the other side, to find out what is in his head.
Fine. Some time ago, you gave a sensational interview that a religious war between Orthodox and Catholics could start in Belarus, because “everything can be put into a person’s head.” Can you invest too?
My profession is to make sure that they do not invest. Some part of people lives consciously, is able to protect themselves, is able to understand what is happening around. And most people just go with the flow, and they live in banality.
Do you think there are more such people in our part of the world?
I think we are like everywhere else. And in America it's the same, otherwise where would Trump come from. When you are dealing with an average person, listen to what he has to say. It doesn't always make people love. So, it's like that everywhere, it's not just a Russian trait.
It's just that we are now in a state where society has lost its bearings. And since we are a country of wars and revolutions, and, most importantly, we have a culture of war and revolutions, then any historical failure (such as perestroika, when we rushed, we wanted to be like everyone else) - as soon as a failure happened, because society was not ready for this where are we back? We are back to what we know. In a military, militaristic state. This is our normal state.
To be honest, I don't notice it. Neither in acquaintances, nor in strangers, I do not see any aggression or militancy. What is meant by militarism?
If people were different, they would all take to the streets, and there would be no war in Ukraine. And on Politkovskaya's memorial day there would be as many people as I saw on the streets of Paris on her memorial day. There were 50, 70 thousand people there. But we don't. And you say that we have a normal society. We have a normal society due to the fact that we live in our circle. Militarism is not when everyone is ready to kill. But nevertheless it turned out that they were ready.
My father is Belarusian and my mother is Ukrainian. I spent part of my childhood with my grandmother in Ukraine and I love Ukrainians very much, I have Ukrainian blood in me. And in a nightmare it was impossible to imagine that the Russians would shoot at the Ukrainians.
First there was a coup d'état.
No, it was not a coup d'état. This is nonsense. You watch a lot of TV.
I was born there.
This was not a coup d'état. This works well Russian television. The Democrats should have used television so much, they underestimated it. Today's government puts into consciousness what it needs. This was not a coup. You have no idea what poverty was around ...
I represent.
... how they stole. The change of power was the desire of the people. I was in Ukraine, I went to the “Heavenly Hundred” museum, and ordinary people told me about what was there. They have two enemies - Putin and their own oligarchy, a culture of bribery.
In Kharkov, three hundred people took part in a rally in support of the Maidan, and one hundred thousand against the Maidan. Then fifteen prisons were opened in Ukraine, in which several thousand people are imprisoned. And supporters of the Maidan walk around with portraits of obvious fascists.
And in Russia there are no people who walk around with portraits of the Nazis?
They are not in power.
In Ukraine, they are also not in power. Poroshenko and others are not fascists. You understand, they want to separate from Russia, go to Europe. It is also in the Baltics. Resistance takes violent forms. Then, when they really become an independent and strong state, this will not happen. And now they are knocking down communist monuments that we should have knocked down, they are banishing television programs. And what, they will watch Solovyov and Kiselyov?
They look on the Internet. And the traffic has not decreased at all.
No, it is watched by some part of the people, but not the people.
But how can I tell you: the traffic of Russian channels exceeds the traffic of Ukrainian ones.
So what are they watching? Not political programs.
Life in Ukraine has become poorer - that's a fact. And freedom of speech has become much less there - this is also a fact.
Don't think.
Do you know who Oles Buzina is?
Who was killed?
And there are hundreds of such examples.
But what he said also angered me. 
sputnikipogrom.com/russia/ua/34738/buzina/
Does that mean they should be killed?
I don't say that. But I understand the motives of the people who did it. Just as I absolutely do not like that they killed Pavel Sheremet, who loved Ukraine. Apparently, there were some sort of disassembly or something.
You find a lot of excuses for them.
These are not excuses. I just imagine that Ukraine wants to build its own state. By what right does Russia want to restore order there?
Have you been to Donbass after the war started there?
No. I have not been there. When the war began, do not look for justice. In my opinion, Strelkov said that in the first week it was very difficult for people to shoot at each other, that it was almost impossible to get people to shoot. And then the blood started. The same can be said about Chechnya.
Even if we agree with the position (although I completely disagree with it) that people in Kiev "came out on their own": after that, people in Donetsk also came out on their own, without weapons, they did not listen to them, they tried to disperse them, and then they left with weapons. Both those and others came out to defend their ideas about what is right. Why are the actions of the former possible and the latter not?
I am not a politician. But when the integrity of the state is called into question, it is a political problem. When foreign troops are introduced there and they begin to restore order on foreign territory. By what right did Russia enter the Donbass?
You weren't there.
I also, like you, watch TV and read those who write about it. Honest people. When Russia entered there, what did you want - to be met there with bouquets of flowers? To make you happy there? When you entered Chechnya, where Dudayev wanted to make his own rules, his country - what did Russia do? I ironed it out.
You said that you are not a politician. You are a writer. It seems self-evident to me that the current struggle of the Ukrainian state with the Russian language is the main claim that will be made against them. Ten years ago, the Gallup agency conducted a study on how many percent of the population of Ukraine think in Russian ...
I know all this. But now they are learning Ukrainian and English.
... They did it very simply: they handed out questionnaires in two languages, Ukrainian and Russian. Who in what language took - that on such and thinks. 83% of Ukrainians think in Russian.
What are you trying to say? They were Russified for seventy years, just like Belarusians.
Do you mean to say that people who lived in Odessa or Kharkov ever thought in Ukrainian?
I don’t know about you, but in Belarus out of ten million people after the war, six and a half million remained. And about three million Russians moved in. They are still there. And there was such an idea that there is no Belarus, that all this is great Russia. The same is true in Ukraine. I know that people then learned the Ukrainian language. Just like now they are learning Belarusian with us, believing that new times will come someday.
Well, you banned speaking Belarusian in Russia.
Who banned?
Well, how! You only know your top slice. Beginning in 1922, the intelligentsia was constantly annihilated in Belarus.
What does 1922 have to do with it? We live today, in 2017.
Where does everything come from? Where did Russification come from? No one spoke Russian in Belarus. They spoke either Polish or Belarusian. When Russia entered and appropriated these lands, Western Belarus, the first rule was - the Russian language. And not a single university, not a single school, not a single institute speaks the Belarusian language.
That is, in your understanding, is this revenge for the events of a hundred years ago?
No. It was an attempt to Russify, to make Belarus a part of Russia. And in the same way to make Ukraine a part of Russia.
Half of the territory that is now part of Ukraine has never been any "Ukraine". It was the Russian Empire. And after the revolution of 1917, on the contrary, Ukrainian culture was planted there.
Well, you don’t know anything, except for your little piece of time that you caught and in which you live. Half of Belarus has never been Russia, it was Poland.
But the other half was?
The other half was, but never wanted to be there, you forcibly kept. I don't want to talk about it, it's such a collection of militaristic platitudes that I don't want to listen to it.
You say that when Russian culture was implanted a hundred years ago (in your opinion), it was bad, but when Ukrainian culture is implanted today, it's good.
She doesn't push. This state wants to enter Europe. It doesn't want to live with you.
To do this, you need to cancel the Russian language?
No. But maybe for a while and yes, to cement the nation. Please speak Russian, but all educational institutions will, of course, be in Ukrainian.
That is, it is possible to forbid people to speak the language in which they think?
Yes. It's always like that. That's what you were doing.
I didn't do it.
Russia. She did just that in the occupied territories, even in Tajikistan she forced people to speak Russian. You will learn more about what Russia has been doing for the last two hundred years.
I'm not asking you about two hundred years. I'm asking you about today. We live today.
There is no other way to make a nation.
It's clear. You said in many interviews that your acquaintances looked and look with fear at what is happening on the Maidan and that the evolutionary path of development is certainly better. You probably had in mind first of all Belarus, but, probably, Russia too? How do you imagine how this evolutionary path should look like, what is required here?
The movement of time itself is required. Looking at the generations that came after the generation that was waiting for democracy, I see that a very servile generation has come, completely unfree people. There are a lot of fans of Putin and the military way. So it is difficult to say how many years Belarus and Russia will turn into free countries.
But I do not accept revolution as a way. It is always blood, and the same people will come to power. There are no other people yet. What is the problem of the nineties? There were no free people. These were the same communists, only with a different sign.
What are free people?
Well, let's say, people with a European outlook on things. More humanitarian. Who did not believe that it was possible to tear the country apart, and leave the people with nothing. Do you want to say that Russia is free?
I'm asking you.
How free is she? A few percent of the population own all the wealth, the rest are left with nothing. Free countries are, for example, Sweden, France, Germany. Ukraine wants to be free, but Belarus and Russia do not. How many people go to Navalny's actions?
That is, people who adhere to the European view of things are free?
Yes. Freedom has come a long way there.
And if a person adheres to a non-European picture of the world? For example, it contains the concept of tolerance, and can an orthodox Orthodox who does not think that tolerance is right be free?
No need to be so primitive. A man's faith is his problem. When I went to see a Russian church in France, there were many Orthodox people there. No one touches them, but they do not impose their view of life on others, as is the case here. There are completely different priests, the church does not try to become a power and does not serve the power. Talk to any European intellectual and you will see that you are a chest full of superstitions.
I lived for a year in Italy, and ninety percent of the intellectuals I met have great sympathy for leftist ideas and for the President of Russia.
There are such people, but not in such numbers. This is how they reacted to you, because they saw a Russian with radical views. Putin doesn't have as much support there as you think. It's just the problem of the left. This does not mean that Le Pen is what France wanted and wants. Thank God France won.
Why did France win? And if Le Pen had won, would France have lost?
Certainly. It would be another Trump.
But why did "France lose" if the majority of the French voted for it?
Read her program.
I have read them both. There is nothing in Macron's program other than general words that "we must live better."
No. Macron is truly a free France. And Le Pen is a nationalist France. Thank God that France did not want to be like that.
Nationalist cannot be free?
She just offered a last resort.
In one of the interviews, you said: “Yesterday I was walking along Broadway - and you can see that everyone is a person. And when you walk around Minsk, Moscow, you see that the body of the people is walking. General. Yes, they changed into other clothes, they drive new cars, but as soon as they heard the battle cry from Putin, “Great Russia,” and again this people’s body.” Did you really say so?
I will not discard anything.
But there, indeed, you go and see that free people are coming. And here, even here in Moscow, it is clear that it is very hard for people to live.
So do you agree with this quote as of today?
Absolutely. This can be seen even in plastic.
This girl, the bartender in the cafe where we sit - is she not free?
Stop what you're talking about.
Here's a real person for you.
No, she's not free, I think. She cannot, for example, tell you to your face what she thinks of you. Or about this state.
Why do you think so?
No, she won't say. And there - any person will tell. Let's take my case. When I was given the Nobel Prize, then (such is the etiquette in all countries), I received congratulations from the presidents of many countries. Including from Gorbachev, from the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany. Then I was told that Medvedev's telegram was being prepared.
But at the first press conference, when I was asked about Ukraine, I said that Crimea was occupied, and in the Donbas Russia unleashed a war with Ukraine. And that such a war can be unleashed everywhere, because there are a lot of hot coals everywhere. And they told me that there would be no telegram, because this quote of mine was played by Ekho Moskvy.
Before Trump, this was not possible in America. You could be against the Vietnam War, against anything, but when you receive the Nobel Prize, the president congratulates you, because this is the pride of this culture. And they ask us whether you are in this camp or in that camp.
You sometimes say about Russia “we”, and sometimes “they”. So is it “we” or “they”?
Still, "they". Already "they", unfortunately.
But then this is not the prime minister of your state, why should he certainly congratulate you?
But we are considered the Union State. We are still very closely connected. We have not come off yet, and who will let us go. Even though we wanted to get away.
So you mean "they"?
For now, "we". I'm still a man of Russian culture. I wrote about this time, about all this in Russian, and I, of course, would have been glad to receive his telegram. According to my understanding, he should have sent it.
You were awarded the Nobel Prize almost two years ago. What do you think now - for what exactly did you get it?
You need to ask them. If you fell in love with some woman, and she fell in love with you, the question of “why she fell in love with you” would sound ridiculous. It would be a stupid question.
But here, after all, the decision was made not at the level of feelings, but rationally.
They told me: “Well, you must have been waiting for the Nobel Prize for a long time.” But I wasn't such an idiot to sit and wait for her.
And if the Nobel Committee once asked you which of the authors who write in Russian should be awarded the prize, who would you name?
Olga Sedakova. This is a person who corresponds to my understanding of what a writer is. Today he is a very important figure in Russian literature. Her views, her poetry, her essays - everything she writes suggests that she is a very great writer.
In connection with your books, I want to return to the Donbass theme, but not in a political sense. Many of your books are about the war and about people in the war. But you are not going to this war.
I haven't and won't go. And I did not go to Chechnya. Once we talked about this with Politkovskaya. I told her: Anya, I won't go to war anymore. Firstly, I no longer have the physical strength to see a murdered person, to see human madness. Besides, everything that I understood about this human madness, I have already said. I don't have any other ideas. And to write again the same thing that I already wrote - what's the point?
Don't you think that your view of this war might change if you go there?
No. There are Ukrainian, Russian writers who write about it.
But you answer questions, talk about these events.
This is happening in another country. And I can answer these questions as an artist, not as a participant. In order to write such books as I write, one must live in the country in question. This must be your country. The Soviet Union was my country. And there are a lot of things I don't know.
I don't mean writing books so much as understanding what's going on there.
Are you trying to tell me how scary it is? It's the same as in Chechnya.
You weren't there.
Then, thank God, they showed the whole truth on TV. No one doubts that there is blood and that there is crying.
I'm talking about something else. People who live in the Donbass are sure that they are right. These are ordinary people, and they support the power of the militias. Maybe if you saw them, you would understand them somehow differently? They are people too.
The Russians might as well send their troops into the Baltics, since there are many disgruntled Russians there. Do you think it is right that you took and entered a foreign country?
I think it is right that for 23 years the unwritten law in the state of Ukraine was the recognition that there is both Russian and Ukrainian culture. And this balance was more or less observed under all presidents ...
That's how it was until you got there.
It is not true. In the winter of 2013-2014, before the Crimea, we heard where to send the "moskalyaku". And in February 2014, immediately after the coup d'etat, before any Crimeas, we saw draft laws against the use of the Russian language. People who live in [the southeastern part of the country] consider themselves Russian and do not consider Bandera a hero. They came out to protest. And for some reason you think that people who live in Kyiv have the right to protest, while those who live to the east do not have such a right.
Were there not Russian tanks, not Russian weapons, not Russian contractors? All this bullshit. If it were not for your weapons, there would be no war. So do not fool me with this nonsense that your head is filled with. You so easily succumb to any propaganda. Yes, there is pain, there is fear. But this is on your conscience, on the conscience of Putin. You invaded a foreign country, on what basis? There are a million pictures on the Internet of how Russian equipment goes there. Everyone knows who shot down [the Boeing] and everything else. Let's end your idiotic interview. I no longer have the strength for it. You are just a set of propaganda, not a reasonable person.
Fine. In an interview with the newspaper El Pais, you said that even Soviet propaganda was not as aggressive as it is now.
Absolutely. Listen to this idiocy of Solovyov and Kiselyov. I don't know how this is possible. They themselves know that they are not telling the truth.
In the same interview, you said that the church is not limited to banning theatrical works and books.
Yes, she climbs where she has nothing to do. It's not her problem, what performances to stage, what to shoot. Soon we will ban children's fairy tales, because they allegedly contain sexual moments. It is very funny from the outside to see how crazy you are.
You hear about State Duma deputies who are fighting against feature films, but what kind of bans from the church do you mean?
Yes, as much as you want. All these Orthodox, who think that Serebrennikov is putting something wrong, Tabakov is doing something wrong. Don't pretend you don't know. The performance was banned in Novosibirsk.
Do you think this is a general church position?
I think it even comes from below. From this darkness, from this foam that has risen today. You know, I don't like our interview, and I forbid you to publish it.
Farewell, unwashed Russia, hello, blissful Europe, which, after receiving the Nobel Prize, has become even more blissful.
I am not a professional philologist, and I evaluate books solely in terms of likes or dislikes. In addition, after the Peace Prize was awarded to Barack Obama, my confidence in the Nobel Prize was, to put it mildly, undermined. Aleksievich's personality only confirmed these doubts.
So, the prize was awarded with the wording "for many-voiced creativity - a monument to suffering and courage in our time." The last phrase - "in our time" - in my opinion, the most relevant. The fact is that Aleksievich, the author of "Chernobyl Prayer" and the famous book "War has no woman's face", in recent years has become the source of many controversial statements about Russia, its history, people and political development.
A small selection of quotes:
About Victory and Emptiness
Millions burned in the fire of the war, but millions also lie in the permafrost of the Gulag, and in the land of our city parks and forests. Great, undoubtedly, the Great Victory was immediately betrayed. It shielded us from Stalin's crimes. And now they are taking advantage of the victory so that no one will guess what a void we are in.
About joy after the return of Crimea
The rally for the victory in Crimea brought together 20,000 people with posters: "The Russian spirit is invincible!", "We will not give Ukraine to America!", "Ukraine, freedom, Putin." Prayers, priests, banners, pathetic speeches - some kind of archaic. A flurry of applause stood after the speech of one speaker: "Russian troops in the Crimea have captured all the key strategic objects ..." I looked around: rage and hatred on their faces.
About the Ukrainian conflict
How is it possible to flood the country with blood, carry out the criminal annexation of Crimea and generally destroy this entire fragile post-war world? No excuse can be found for this. I have just come from Kyiv and I am shocked by those faces and those people whom I saw. People want a new life, and they are tuned in to a new life. And they will fight for it.
Impressive? But these are still flowers. Let's look at the attitude of the writer towards the Russians:
About the president's supporters
It's scary to even talk to people. All they keep saying is “our Crimean”, “Donbassash”, and “Odessa was unfairly presented”. And these are all different people. 86% of Putin's supporters is a real figure. After all, many Russian people simply fell silent. They are scared, just like us, those who are around this vast Russia.
About the feeling of life
One Italian restaurateur put up an ad "We do not serve Russians." This is a good metaphor. Today the world is again beginning to be afraid: what is there in this hole, in this abyss that has nuclear weapons, crazy geopolitical ideas and does not know the concepts of international law. I live with the feeling of defeat.
About Russian people
We are dealing with a Russian man who has fought for almost 150 years over the past 200 years. And never lived well. Human life is worth nothing to him, and the concept of greatness is not that a person should live well, but that the state should be large and stuffed with missiles. In this vast post-Soviet space, especially in Russia and Belarus, where people were deceived for 70 years at first, then robbed for another 20 years, very aggressive and dangerous people have grown up.
About a free life
Take a look at the Baltic States - there is a completely different life there today. It was necessary to consistently build that same new life that we talked about so much in the 1990s. We really wanted a truly free life, to enter this common world. Now what? Second hand full.
On new points of support for Russia
Well, certainly not Orthodoxy, autocracy, and what is there ... nationality? This is also second hand. We need to look for these points together, and for this we need to talk. How the Polish elite spoke to their people, how the German elite spoke to their people after fascism. We have been silent for these 20 years.
Naturally, she could not ignore the personality of Vladimir Putin.
About Putin and the Church
And Putin seems to have come for a long time. He plunged people into such barbarism, such archaism, the Middle Ages. You know it's for a long time. And the church is also involved in this ... This is not our church. There is no church.
In society, it is believed that the Nobel Prize is the main prize of the world, given out for the highest achievements. But isn't this a delusion? Why was Alexievich awarded? Without a doubt, she is very talented, but, you see, if she had not spoken out against Russia, nothing of the sort would have happened.
And how can you expect anything objective from a prize founded with money from the sale of explosives? Weapons only value other weapons. Alexievich's prose is just as much a weapon against Russia as Obama, a "fighter for peace," is against the whole world.
Saved
22:41 - REGNUM
It is believed that the political position of the Nobel Committee, independent of the West, is beyond suspicion, as is Caesar's wife. Those who doubt this believe that the reason the West awarded Svetlana Aleksievich- anti-Soviet orientation and its deceit like a documentary works. In lies, in blasphemy, the writer was accused by participants in the Great Patriotic War, veterans of the war in Afghanistan and their relatives. Lies in everything - even in the formulation of the Nobel Committee "for the many-voiced sound of her prose and the perpetuation of suffering and courage."
Svetlana Aleksievich, among other "perestroika whistleblowers", bears her share of the blame for discrediting the Soviet state, for the destruction of the USSR and for the bloody events that accompanied or followed the collapse. Isn't the wording of the award talking about the “courage” with which Aleksievich and her ilk doomed millions of our compatriots to eternal (here it is “perpetuation”) suffering in a country defeated by perestroika?
I agree, Aleksievich deserved a reward from the West - it happens, it's an everyday thing, in a war as in a war. Once upon a time, it was under such pretexts that Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
And the Western media themselves did not hide the political reason for this award. At the first meeting with foreign journalists on October 10 this year. in Berlin, most of Alexievich's questions were overtly political. For example, why do people in Russia think that she was given the award for her position against Putin…
I had to re-read her book "The Zinc Boys" again. The first, long-standing impressions and assessments only intensified. Ideological sabotage against the state and one of its institutions - the army, carried out by literary means, an anti-Soviet special project like the Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn has a lie according to Goebbels' recipe - the more implausible, the stronger it works. To this end, Solzhenitsyn sent almost the entire USSR to the Gulag. It’s not so easy to accuse Aleksievich of lying - she has real interviews, but selected and presented in such a way as to arouse anger and indignation at the criminal policy of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan on an emotional level.
First snippet. Recorded from the words of a nurse.
"The chief doctor called:
Are you going to Afghanistan?
- I'll go ...
I needed to see that others are worse off than me. And I saw it.
The war, we were told, is just, we are helping the Afghan people to put an end to feudalism and build a bright socialist society. The fact that our guys were dying was somehow hushed up, we understood that there are a lot of infectious diseases there - malaria, typhoid fever, hepatitis. The eightieth year… Beginning… We flew to Kabul… English stables were given to the hospital. There is nothing ... One syringe for all ... The officers will drink alcohol, we treat wounds with gasoline. Wounds do not heal well - there is little oxygen. The sun helped. The bright sun kills germs. I saw the first wounded in their underwear and boots. No pajamas. Pajamas did not appear soon. Slippers too. And blankets...
Throughout March, right there, near the tents, cut off arms, legs, the remnants of our soldiers and officers were dumped. The corpses lay half-naked, with gouged out eyes, with carved stars on their backs and stomachs... I had seen this before in movies about the Civil War. There were no zinc coffins yet. Not prepared yet.
Then we began to think a little: who are we? Our doubts did not please. There were no slippers, pajamas, and already brought slogans, appeals, posters were hung up. Against the background of the slogans - the thin, sad faces of our guys. They stayed in my mind forever...
Twice a week - political study. We were taught all the time: a sacred duty, the border must be locked. The most unpleasant thing in the army is informing: the boss ordered to inform. For every little thing. For every wounded and sick person. This is called: know the mood ... The army must be healthy ... It was supposed to "knock" on everyone. It was impossible to regret. But we regretted it, everything rested on pity ...
Save, help, love. This is what we were after. Some time passes, and I catch myself thinking that I hate it. I hate this soft and light sand, burning like fire. I hate these mountains. I hate these undersized villages, from which they can shoot at any moment. I hate the occasional Afghan carrying a basket of melons or standing outside his house. It is still unknown where they were that night. They killed an officer I knew, who had recently been treated in the hospital… They massacred two soldiers’ tents… In another place, the water was poisoned… Someone picked up a beautiful lighter, it exploded in their hands… It was all our boys who died… Our boys… We must understand this… You didn’t see a burnt person… There is no face… There is no body… Something wrinkled, covered with a yellow crust – lymphatic fluid… Not a cry, but a roar from under this crust…
They lived by hatred, survived by hatred. And the feeling of guilt? It came not there, but here, when I already looked at it from the side. For one of our dead, we sometimes killed a whole village. There it seemed to me justice, here I was horrified, remembering a little girl lying in the dust without arms, without legs ... Like a broken doll ... And we were also surprised that they did not love us. They were in our hospital ... You give a woman medicine, but she does not raise her eyes to you. She will never smile at you. It even offended. There offended, here - no. Here you are already a normal person, all feelings returned to you.
My profession is good - to save, it saved me. Justified. We were needed there. Not everyone was saved, who could be saved - that's the worst thing. Could save - there was no necessary medicine. She could have saved - they brought her late (who was in the medical unit? - poorly trained soldiers who only learned how to bandage). Could save - did not get a drunken surgeon. Could have saved... We couldn't even write the truth in funerals. They were blown up by mines... A man often left half a bucket of meat... And we wrote: he died in a car accident, fell into an abyss, food poisoning. When there were already thousands of them, then we were allowed to tell the truth to our relatives. I'm used to dead bodies. But the fact that this is a person, ours, dear, small, it was impossible to come to terms with this.
They bring the boy. He opened his eyes, looked at me:
- Well, that's all ... - And he died.
For three days they searched for him in the mountains. Found. They brought it. He raved: “Doctor! Doctor! I saw a white coat, thought - saved! And the wound was incompatible with life. It was only there that I found out what it is: a wound in the skull ... Each of us has his own cemetery in his memory ...
Even in death they were not equal. For some reason, those who died in battle were more pitied. There are fewer deaths in the hospital. And they screamed like that, dying ... I remember how the major died in intensive care. Military advisor. His wife came to him. He died before her eyes... And she began to scream terribly... Like an animal... I wanted to close all the doors so that no one could hear... Because soldiers were dying nearby... Boys... And there was no one to mourn for them... They were dying alone. She was one of us...
- Mother! Mother!
- I'm here, son, - you say, you deceive. We became their mothers, sisters. And I always wanted to justify this trust.
Soldiers will bring the wounded. Give up and don't go away
Girls, we don't need anything. Can you just sit?
And here, at home, they have their mothers and sisters. Wives. They don't need us here. There they trusted us with something about themselves that in this life you will not tell anyone. You stole candy from a friend and ate it. Here it is nonsense. And there is a terrible disappointment in yourself. The person in those circumstances was translucent. If you were a coward, it soon became clear that you were a coward. If this is a snitch, then it was immediately obvious - a snitch. If a womanizer, everyone knew - a womanizer. I'm not sure if anyone here confesses, but there I heard more than one: killing can be pleasant, killing is pleasure. A familiar warrant officer was leaving for the Union and did not hide: “How will I live now, do I want to kill?” We talked about it calmly. The boys are delighted! - how they burned the village, trampled everything. They weren't all crazy, were they? Once an officer came to visit us, he came from near Kandahar. In the evening we had to say goodbye, but he locked himself in an empty room and shot himself. They said he was drunk, I don't know. Hard. It's hard to live every day. The boy shot himself at the post. Three hours in the sun. The boy is at home, he could not stand it. There were a lot of crazy people. At first they were in common wards, then they were placed separately. They began to run away, they were frightened by the bars. Together with all of them it was easier. I remember one very well:
- Sit down ... I'll sing a demobilization song for you ... - Sings, sings and falls asleep.
Will wake up:
- Home ... Home ... To my mother ... It's hot here ...
All the time he asked to go home.
Many smoked. Anasha, marijuana... Who gets what... You become strong, free from everything. First of all, from your body. It's like you're walking on tiptoe. You hear the lightness in every cell. You feel every muscle. I want to fly. It's like you're flying! Joy is unstoppable. All good. Laugh at all kinds of nonsense. Hear better, see better. You can distinguish more smells, more sounds… The country loves its heroes!.. It is easy to kill in this state. You got sick. There is no pity. It's easy to die. Fear goes away. It feels like you're wearing a bulletproof vest, that you're armored...
They smoked and went into the raid ... I tried twice. In both cases - when my own, human strength was not enough ... I worked in the infectious diseases department. There should be thirty beds, but there are three hundred people. Typhoid fever, malaria… They were given beds, blankets, and they were lying on their bare overcoats, on the bare ground, in shorts. Shaved, and lice are pouring from them... Clothes... Head lice... I will never see such a number of lice... Nearby in the village, Afghans walked in our hospital pajamas, with our blankets on their heads instead of turbans. Yes, our boys sold everything. I don't blame them, most of the time I don't. They died for three rubles a month - our soldier received eight checks a month ... Three rubles ... They were fed meat with worms, rusty fish ... We all had scurvy, all my front teeth fell out. They sold blankets and bought marijuana. Something sweet. Trinkets ... There are such bright shops, there are so many attractive things in these shops. We don't have any of that. And they were selling weapons, cartridges... To kill themselves...
After everything there, I saw my country with different eyes.
It was scary to come back here. Kind of weird. It's like your skin has been ripped off. I cried all the time. I couldn't see anyone but those who were there. I would spend day and night with them. The conversations of others seemed like vanity, some kind of nonsense. It went on like this for six months. And now I myself swear in the queue for meat. You try to live a normal life, as you lived "before". But it doesn't work. I became indifferent to myself, to my life. Life is over, nothing more will happen. And for men, this survival is even more painful. A woman can cling to life, to a feeling, but they return, fall in love, have children, but still, Afghanistan is above all for them. I myself want to understand: why is this so? What was it? Why was it all? Why does it move me so? There it was driven in, then it came out.
They should be pitied, pitied everyone who was there. I am an adult, I was thirty years old, and what a breakdown. And they are small, they do not understand anything. They were taken from home, given weapons and taught to kill. They were told, they were promised: go to a holy cause. The motherland will not forget you. Now they are looking away from them: they are trying to forget this war. All! And those who sent us there. Even when we meet, we talk less and less about the war. Nobody likes this war. Although I still cry when the Afghan anthem is played. Loved all Afghan music. I hear her in my dreams. It's like a drug.
I recently met a soldier on the bus. We treated him. He was left without his right hand. I remembered him well, he was also from Leningrad.
- Maybe you, Seryozha, need some help?
And he is evil:
- Come on, all of you!
I know he will find me, ask for forgiveness. And who will ask him? Everyone who was there? Who broke? I'm not talking about cripples. How one must not love the rotten people in order to send them to such a thing. I now not only any war, I hate boyish fights. And don't tell me that this war is over. In the summer it dies with hot dust, a ring of stagnant water flashes, a pungent smell of dried flowers ... Like a blow to the temple ... And this will haunt us all our lives ... "
Second passage. Recorded from the words of an ordinary grenade launcher.
“For people in war, there is no mystery in death. Killing is just pulling a trigger. We were taught: the one who shoots first remains alive. Such is the law of war. “Here you have to be able to do two things - walk fast and shoot accurately. I will think,” said the commander. We fired where we were ordered. I was trained to shoot where I was ordered. He shot, spared no one. Could have killed a child. After all, everyone fought with us there: men, women, old people, children. There is a column through the village. In the first car, the engine stalls. The driver gets out, lifts the hood... A boy, about ten years old, he was stabbed in the back... Where the heart is. The soldier lay down on the engine... They made a sieve out of the boy... Give a command at that moment, they would turn the kishlak into dust... Everyone tried to survive. There was no time to think. We are eighteen or twenty years old. I was used to someone else's death, but I was afraid of my own. I saw how nothing remains of a person in one second, as if he did not exist at all. And in an empty coffin they sent their full dress uniform to their homeland. Alien land will be poured so that the required weight is ...
I wanted to live ... I never wanted to live as much as there. Let's get back from the fight, laughing. I've never laughed as much as there. Old jokes were first class with us. At least this one.
A farmer went to war. First of all, I found out how many checks one captive "spirit" costs. Eight checks valued. Two days later there is dust near the garrison: he is leading two hundred prisoners. A friend asks: "Sell one ... Seven checks ladies." “What are you, dear. I bought it myself for nine.
Someone will tell a hundred times, we will laugh a hundred times. Laughed to the pain in their stomachs because of any trifle.
Lies "spirit" with a dictionary. Sniper. I saw three small stars - senior lieutenant - fifty thousand Afghani. Click! One big star - major - two hundred thousand Afghani. Click! Two small stars - ensign. Click. At night, the ringleader pays: for the senior lieutenant - give afghani, for the major - give afghani. For what? Ensign? You killed our breadwinner. Who gives condensed milk, who gives blankets? Hang up!
We talked a lot about money. More than about death. I didn't bring anything. The shard that was pulled out of me. And that's all. They took porcelain, precious stones, jewelry, carpets… Some were on the battlefield, when they went to the villages… Some bought, changed… A horn of cartridges for a cosmetic set - mascara, powder, shadows for a beloved girl. They sold boiled cartridges ... A boiled bullet does not fly out, but spits out of the barrel. You can't kill her. They put buckets or basins, threw cartridges and boiled for two hours. Ready! In the evening they carried it for sale. Business was run by commanders and soldiers, heroes and cowards. Knives, bowls, spoons, forks disappeared from the canteens. There were not enough mugs, stools, hammers in the barracks. Bayonets from machine guns, mirrors from cars, spare parts, medals disappeared ... Everything was taken in dukans, even the garbage that was taken out of the garrison town: tin cans, old newspapers, rusty nails, pieces of plywood, plastic bags ... Garbage was sold by cars. This is how the war was...
We are called "Afghans". Someone else's name. Like a sign. Label. We are not like everyone else. Other. Which? I do not know who I am? A hero or a fool to point the finger at. Or maybe a criminal? They already say that it was a political mistake. Today they speak softly, tomorrow louder. And I left blood there... My own... And someone else's... We were given orders that we don't wear... We will still return them... Orders received honestly in a dishonest war... They invite us to speak at school. What to tell? You won't talk about the fighting. About how I'm still afraid of the dark, something will fall - shudder? How did they take prisoners, but did not bring them to the regiment? They were trampled. For the entire year and a half, I have not seen a single living spook, only the dead. About collections of dried human ears? Battle trophies… About the villages after artillery treatment, which no longer look like housing, but like an open field? Is this what they want to hear in our schools? No, we need heroes. And I remember how we destroyed, killed and - built, handed out gifts. All this existed so close that I still cannot separate it. I'm afraid of these memories... I'm leaving, I'm running away from them... I don't know a single person who would return from there and wouldn't drink or smoke. Weak cigarettes do not save me, I am looking for the "Hunter" ones that we smoked there. We called them "Death in the swamp."
Do not write only about our Afghan brotherhood. He is not. I don't believe in him. In the war we were united by fear. We were equally deceived, we equally wanted to live and equally wanted to go home. Here we are united by the fact that we have nothing. We have one problem: pensions, apartments, good medicines, artificial limbs, furniture sets… We will solve them and our clubs will disintegrate. So I'll get it, push it through, push it through, gnaw out my apartment, furniture, refrigerator, washing machine, Japanese video camera - and that's it! It will immediately become clear that I have nothing more to do in this club. The youth did not reach out to us. We are incomprehensible to her. It seems that they are equated with the participants of the Great Patriotic War, but those defended their Motherland, and we? We, perhaps, in the role of the Germans - so one guy told me. And we are mad at them. They listened to music here, danced with the girls, read books, while we ate raw porridge there and were blown up by mines. Whoever was not there with me, did not see, did not experience, did not experience - that is nobody to me.
In ten years, when our hepatitis, concussion, malaria will come out of us, they will get rid of us ... At work, at home ... They will no longer put us in presidiums. We will all be a burden... What is your book for? For whom? We, who returned from there, will still not like it. Will you tell everything how it was? Like dead camels and dead people lie in the same pool of blood, their blood is mixed, And who needs it more? We are all strangers. All I have left is my house, my wife, the child she will soon give birth to. Several friends from there. I won't trust anyone else..."
Third passage. Recorded from the words of an ordinary driver.
“I’ve already rested from the war, I’ve moved away - I won’t convey everything as it was. This trembling all over my body, this rage... Before the army, I graduated from a motor transport technical school, and I was assigned to carry the battalion commander. He did not complain about the service. But we began to persistently talk about the limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, not a single political hour could do without this information: our troops reliably guard the borders of the Motherland, provide assistance to friendly people. We began to worry: they might be sent to war. In order to get around the soldiers' fear, they decided, as I now understand, to deceive us. They called to the commander of the unit and asked:
- Guys, do you want to work on brand new cars?
- Yes! We dream.
“But first you must go to the virgin lands and help harvest the grain.
Everyone agreed.
On the plane, we accidentally heard from the pilots that we were flying to Tashkent. I involuntarily had doubts: are we flying to virgin lands? Sat really in Tashkent. We were taken in formation to a place fenced with wire not far from the airfield. We are sitting. The commanders are walking about excitedly, whispering among themselves. Dinner time arrived, boxes of vodka were being dragged one by one to our parking lot.
- In a column of two hundreds!
They built it and immediately announced that, they say, in a few hours a plane would fly for us - we were heading to the Republic of Afghanistan to fulfill our military duty, our oath.
What started here! Fear, panic turned people into animals - some quiet, others furious. Someone wept from resentment, someone fell into a stupor, into a trance from the incredible, heinous deception committed over us. That's what, it turns out, prepared vodka. To make it easier and easier to get along with us. After vodka, when hops also hit the head, some soldiers tried to escape, rushed to fight to the officers. But the camp was cordoned off by soldiers of other units, they began to push everyone to the plane. We were loaded onto the plane like boxes, thrown into an empty iron belly.
So we ended up in Afghanistan. A day later, we already saw the wounded, the dead. We heard the words: "reconnaissance", "battle", "operation". It seems to me that a shock happened to me from everything that happened, I began to come to my senses, to clearly realize my surroundings only after a few months.
When my wife asked, "How did my husband get to Afghanistan?" - she was answered: "He expressed a voluntary desire." All our mothers and wives received such answers. If my life, my blood were needed for a big cause, I myself would say: “Register me as a volunteer!”. But they deceived me twice: they still didn’t tell me the truth, what kind of war it was - I found out the truth eight years later. My friends lie in their graves and do not know that they were deceived with this vile war. Sometimes I even envy them: they will never know about it. And they will no longer be deceived ... "
Foreign support as an aggravating circumstance. Isn't the numerous foreign awards of Aleksievich not foreign support?
Kurt Tucholsky Prize of the Swedish PEN Club (1996) - "For Courage and Dignity in Literature".
Leipzig Book Prize for Contribution to European Understanding (1998).
Herder Prize (1999).
Remarque Prize (2001).
National Critics Award (USA, 2006).
Angelus Central European Literary Prize (2011) for the book "War has no woman's face".
Ryszard Kapuschinsky Prize for the book Second Hand Time (Poland, 2011).
German Booksellers Peace Prize (2013).
Medici Prize for Essays (2013, France) - for the book Second Hand Time.
Officer's Cross of the Order of Arts and Letters (France, 2014).
The accusatory anti-Soviet literary genre is not an invention of Aleksievich, she is not a pioneer in this matter. There were teachers (she calls Adamovich and Bykov her mentors), but there were also high patrons.
The appeal to the creative intelligentsia to begin work to denigrate Soviet power was made even in the time of Khrushchev. It was, in a certain sense, the order of those clan forces in the leadership of the CPSU, which, on a tip from the West, were preparing the death of the USSR. A whole column of creative intelligentsia responded to this call, and one of the participants in this column of destroyers is Svetlana Aleksievich. It must be admitted that Svetlana Alexandrovna made her creative contribution to the destruction of the USSR.
The population drugged by the anti-Soviet did not come to the defense of the state, and in 1991 the West celebrated its victory over the USSR.
Swedish academicians believe that Aleksievich's anti-Soviet, Russophobic literature deserved a Nobel for this contribution to the destruction of the USSR - that's why they gave him a prize.
Why was the award not given earlier, even under the USSR? Because in those years Solzhenitsyn (and, of course, a victim of the regime) was out of competition. And after the death of the USSR, during the years of Yeltsin's rule, Aleksievich's work lost its acute political demand in the West. So Aleksievich would have remained without a prize, if not for Putin.
Noticing signs of the revival of the Russian Federation under President Putin, the West again began a cold war against Russia, already post-Soviet. There was no doubt about the success. Where could doubts come from when there was a victorious experience in the fight against the USSR? The world superpower of the USSR, led by the multimillion-strong CPSU, was defeated, and even the Russian Federation, with its, as they believe, barely viable economy and a collapsed army, where everything is supposedly based on Putin alone, will certainly be overcome.
According to the experience of the fight against the USSR, oil prices collapsed even now, sanctions were introduced then (and how, remember COCOM) - and now these sanctions cannot be counted, and even new ones are constantly threatened. Boycott of the Olympics in Moscow was - was, now they are going to boycott the 2018 World Cup in Russia on football. There was also Afghanistan, they really wanted to repeat it in Ukraine - it failed.
What remains unclaimed from past experience is the Nobel Prize in Literature. Solzhenitsyn's "Nobel Prize" helped a lot then in the efforts of the creative intelligentsia to bring confusion to the people inside the country and to rally the anti-Soviet in the West. Now it's time to use this "Nobel trick" against Putin, otherwise his popular support rating in Russia is going through the roof.
This is where Aleksievich came in handy. Probably, the veterans of the Cold War in the West decided that if Aleksievich’s “Nobel” was added to the anti-Russian sanctions and the information war, then the chances of the success of the special operation to destroy the Russian Federation should increase. But she needs to strengthen the already mastered anti-Sovietism and Russophobia with “anti-Putinism”. Aleksievich and strengthened "". Having strengthened her activities with “anti-Putinism”, Aleksievich began to appear among the contenders for the 2015 Nobel Prize.
The intrigue with the prize was spun back in 2013, but they didn’t give it - they probably thought it was too early. However, after the Crimea and Donbass, even Merkel could not stop the Swedes. Of course, they understand that Aleksievich is not Solzhenitsyn, but they have no other writers in this category. So they gave the Aleksievich Nobel Prize in Literature in the nomination for anti-Sovietism and Russophobia.
Ruposters introduces Aleksievich's most striking quotes of recent years. They are worthy of attention. It is possible that they will be cited by students of Belarusian schools and universities, who, as part of the compulsory curriculum, study the work of the “Belarusian writer”.
About Moscow and North Korea
“I recently returned from Moscow, I found the May holidays there. I heard how orchestras and tanks thundered on the pavements at night for a week. The feeling that I was not in Moscow, but in North Korea”
About Victory and Emptiness
“Millions were burned in the fire of war, but millions lie in the permafrost of the Gulag and in the land of our city parks and forests. Great, undoubtedly, the Great Victory was immediately betrayed. It shielded us from Stalin's crimes. And now they are taking advantage of the victory so that no one will guess what a void we are in ”
About joy after the return of Crimea
“The rally for the victory in Crimea brought together 20,000 people with posters: “The Russian spirit is invincible!”, “We will not give Ukraine to America!”, “Ukraine, freedom, Putin.” Prayers, priests, banners, pathetic speeches - some kind of archaic. A flurry of applause stood after the speech of one speaker: “Russian troops in the Crimea captured all the key strategic objects ...” I looked around: rage and hatred on their faces”
About the Ukrainian conflict
“How is it possible to flood the country with blood, carry out the criminal annexation of Crimea and generally destroy this whole fragile post-war world? No excuse can be found for this. I have just come from Kyiv and I am shocked by those faces and those people whom I saw. People want a new life, and they are tuned in to a new life. And they will fight for her."
About the president's supporters
“It’s scary to even talk to people. All they keep saying is “our Crimean”, “Donbassash”, and “Odessa was unfairly presented”. And these are all different people. 86% of Putin's supporters is a real figure. After all, many Russian people simply fell silent. They are scared, just like us, those who are around this huge Russia.
About the feeling of life
“One Italian restaurateur put up an ad “We don’t serve Russians.” This is a good metaphor. Today the world is again beginning to be afraid: what is there in this hole, in this abyss that has nuclear weapons, crazy geopolitical ideas and does not know the concepts of international law. I live with the feeling of defeat"
About Russian people
“We are dealing with a Russian man who has fought for almost 150 years over the past 200 years. And never lived well. Human life is worth nothing to him, and the concept of greatness is not that a person should live well, but that the state should be large and stuffed with missiles. In this vast post-Soviet space, especially in Russia and Belarus, where the people were deceived for 70 years at first, then robbed for another 20 years, very aggressive and dangerous people for the world have grown up.”
About a free life
“Look at the Baltics – there is a completely different life there today. It was necessary to consistently build that same new life that we talked about so much in the 1990s. We really wanted a truly free life, to enter this common world. Now what? Second hand full»
On new points of support for Russia
“Well, certainly not Orthodoxy, autocracy, and what is there ... nationality? This is also second hand. We need to look for these points together, and for this we need to talk. How the Polish elite spoke to their people, how the German elite spoke to their people after fascism. We have been silent for these 20 years.”
About Putin and the Church
“And Putin, it seems, has come for a long time. He plunged people into such barbarism, such archaism, the Middle Ages. You know it's for a long time. And the church is also involved in this... This is not our church. There is no church"
About Maidan
“They, in the Kremlin, cannot believe that there was not a Nazi coup in Ukraine, but a people's revolution. Fair... The first Maidan raised the second Maidan. People have made a second revolution, now it is important that politicians do not lose it again"
I. N. Potapov, Member of the Coordinating Council of Heads of Public Organizations of Russian Compatriots in Belarus
