War's Unwomanly Face Quotes

“There can't be one heart for hatred and another for love. We only have one, and I always thought about how to save my heart.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“I write not about war, but about human beings in war. I write not the history of a war, but the history of feelings. I am a historian of the soul.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“Women’s” war has its own colors, its own smells, its own lighting, and its own range of feelings. Its own words. There are no heroes and incredible feats, there are simply people who are busy doing inhumanly human things.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“I believe that in each of us there is a small piece of history. In one half a page, in another two or three. Together we write the book of time. We each call out our own truth. The nightmare of nuances.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“Se dice que en la guerra te conviertes en mitad humano, mitad animal. Totalmente cierto... No hay otra forma de sobrevivir. Si te limitas a ser humano, no hay salvación. ¡Perderás la cabeza! En la guerra uno debe recordar algo perdido dentro de sí. Algo arcano... Algo que procede de los tiempos en que el hombre no era del todo humano...”
― Svetlana Alexievich, La guerra no tiene rostro de mujer

“Solo recuerdo lo que me ocurrió a mí. Recuerdo mi guerra. En la guerra hay mucha gente a tu alrededor, pero siempre estás sola, porque ante la muerte el ser humano siempre está solo. Recuerdo esa terrible soledad.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, La guerra no tiene rostro de mujer

“Happiness is beyond the mountains, but grief is just over the shoulder”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“Courage in war and courage of thought are two different courages. I used to think they were the same.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“Somebody betrayed us... The Germans learned the location of our partisan troop. They surrounded the forest from all sides. We were hiding in the deep woods, hiding in the swamps where the torturers did not go [...] A radio operator was with us. She gave birth recently. The baby was hungry... Wanting the breast... But the mother is starving, she has no milk, and the baby is crying. The Germans are nearby... With dogs... If the dogs hear the baby, we're all dead. All of us - thirty people... Do you understand? We make a decision... Nobody dares to tell her the commader's order, but the mother guesses it herself. She puts the bundle with the baby into the water and holds it there for a long time... The baby does not cry... Not a sound... And we cannot lift our eyes. We cannot look at the mother or at each other”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“In the center there is always this: how unbearable and unthinkable it is to die. And how much more unbearable and unthinkable it is to kill, because a woman gives life. Gives it. Bears it in herself for a long time, nurses it. I understood that it is more difficult for women to kill.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“Transcurrieron unos treinta años hasta que empezaron a rendirnos honores... A invitarnos a dar ponencias... Al principio nos escondíamos, ni siquiera enseñábamos nuestras condecoraciones. Los hombres se las ponían, las mujeres no. Los hombres eran los vencedores, los héroes; los novios habían hecho la guerra, pero a nosotros nos miraban con otros ojos. De un modo muy diferente... Nos arrebataron la Victoria, ¿sabes?”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“Today many people, especially the young, think it was only America that defeated Hitler. Little is known about the price the Soviet people paid for the victory—twenty million human lives in four years.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“A bullet is alone, and man is alone; a bullet flies wherever it likes, and fate twists a man however it likes.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“I'll explain it to you: it's terrible to remember, but it's far more terrible not to remember.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“Es imposible tener un corazón para el odio y otro para el amor. El ser humano tiene un solo corazón, y yo siempre pensaba en cómo salvar el mío.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“Recordar es, sobre todo, un acto creativo. Al relatar, la gente crea, redacta, su vida.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, La guerra no tiene rostro de mujer

“The battle ended during the night. In the morning fresh snow fell. Under it the dead…Many had their arms raised up…toward the sky…You ask me: what is happiness? I answer…To suddenly find a living man among the dead…”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“But… it was men writing about men—that much was clear at once. Everything we know about war we know with “a man’s voice.” We are all captives of “men’s” notions and “men’s” sense of war. “Men’s” words. Women are silent. No one but me ever questioned my grandmother. My mother. Even those who were at the front say nothing. If they suddenly begin to remember, they don’t talk about the “women’s” war but about the “men’s.” They tune in to the canon. And only at home or waxing tearful among their combat girlfriends do they begin to talk about their war, the war unknown to me. Not only to me, to all of us.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“Los tiempos cambian, pero ¿y los humanos?”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“Whatever women talk about, the thought is constantly present in them: war is first of all murder, and then hard work. And then simply ordinary life: singing, falling in love, putting your hair in curlers… In the center there is always this: how unbearable and unthinkable it is to die. And how much more unbearable and unthinkable it is to kill, because a woman gives life. Gives it. Bears it in herself for a long time, nurses it. I understood that it is more difficult for women to kill.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“Con los años, el ser humano comprende que la vida se ha quedado atrás y que ha llegado el momento de resignarse y de prepararse para marchar. Es una pena desaparecer sin más. De cualquier manera. Sobre la marcha. Al mirar atrás, uno siente el deseo de no solo contar lo suyo, sino de llegar al misterio de la vida. De responder a la pregunta: ¿para qué ha sido todo esto? Observar el mundo con una mirada un poco de despedida, un poco triste… Casi desde otro lado… Ya no necesita engañar ni engañarse. Y comprende que la visión del ser humano es imposible sin la noción de la muerte. Que el misterio de la muerte está por encima de todo.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“At the Minsk tractor factory I was looking for a woman who had served in the army as a sniper. She had been a famous sniper. The newspapers from the front had written about her more than once. Her Moscow girlfriends gave me her home phone number, but it was old. And the last name I had noted down was her maiden name. I went to the factory where I knew she worked in the personnel department, and I heard from the men (the director of the factory and the head of the personnel department): “Aren’t there enough men? What do you need these women’s stories for? Women’s fantasies…” The men were afraid that women would tell about some wrong sort of war. I visited a family…Both husband and wife had fought. They met at the front and got married there: “We celebrated our wedding in the trench. Before the battle. I made a white dress for myself out of a German parachute.” He had been a machine gunner, she a radio operator. The man immediately sent his wife to the kitchen: “Prepare something for us.” The kettle was already boiling, and the sandwiches were served, she sat down with us, but the husband immediately got her to her feet again: “Where are the strawberries? Where are our treats from the country?” After my repeated requests, he reluctantly relinquished his place, saying: “Tell it the way I taught you. Without tears and women’s trifles: how you wanted to be beautiful, how you wept when they cut off your braid.” Later she whispered to me: “He studied The History of the Great Patriotic War with me all last night. He was afraid for me. And now he’s worried I won’t remember right. Not the way I should.” That happened more than once, in more than one house.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“لم نعرف العالم بدون حرب ، و كان عالم الحرب هو العالم الوحيد المعروف لنا ،اما اناس الحرب فهم الوحيدون الذين نعرفهم .و أنا حتى الآن لا اعرف عالماً آخر و لا ناساً آخرين .و هل كانوا يوماً ما ؟”
― سفيتلانا ألكسييفيتش, War's Unwomanly Face

“¿Qué diferencia hay entre la muerte y el asesinato, dónde está la frontera entre lo humano y lo inhumano?”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“I'm a history teacher...within my memory the history textbook has been rewritten three times. I taught children with three different textbooks...Ask us while we're alive. Don't rewrite afterward without us. Ask...”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“What helps me? That we are used to living together. Communally. We are communal people. With us everything is in common - both happiness and tears. We know how to suffer and how to tell people about our suffering. Suffering justifies our hard and ungainly life. For us pain is art. I must admit, women boldly set out this path.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“Do you know how beautiful a morning at war can be? Before combat...You look and you know: this may be your last. The earth is so beautiful...And the air...And the dear sun...”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“Why, having stood up for and held their own place in a once absolutely male world, have women not stood up for their history? Their words and feelings? They did not believe themselves. A whole world is hidden from us. Their war remains unknown… I want to write the history of that war. A women’s history.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“No conocíamos el mundo sin guerra, el mundo de la guerra era el único cercano, y la gente de la guerra era la única gente que conocíamos. Hasta ahora no conozco otro mundo, ni a otra gente. ¿Acaso existieron alguna vez?”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face

“Pero en nuestra familia la heroína era mi madre. Ella los había salvado a todos. Salvó a la familia y salvó la casa. Su guerra había sido la más terrible. Papá nunca se ponía sus órdenes, consideraba que era vergonzoso pavonearse delante de mamá. Le resultaba embarazoso. Porque a mi madre no le habían concedido medallas...”
― Svetlana Alexievich, War's Unwomanly Face