"Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets" by Svetlana Alexievich is a collection of monologues and interviews conducted by the author with ordinary citizens of the former Soviet Union. The interviews delve into the experiences and perspectives of individuals after the fall of the USSR, capturing their struggles, hopes, and reflections on the transition from Communism to Capitalism. Through these poignant narratives, the book explores themes of human suffering, societal upheaval, ethnic tensions, and the lasting impact of historical events on individuals' lives. Alexievich's writing style is described as sensitive, insightful, and compelling, offering a deep dive into the complexities of Russian history and society.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Triggers include themes of trauma, violence, poverty, domestic abuse, and severe mental health struggles.
From The Publisher:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia, from Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Boston Globe
The Wall Street Journal
NPR
Financial Times
Kirkus Reviews
When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing "a new kind of literary genre," describing her work as "a history of emotions-a history of the soul." Alexievich's distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.
In Secondhand Time, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past thirty years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it's like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia and Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, massacres-but also of pride in their country, hope for the future, and a belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful it once dominated a third of the world.
A magnificent tapestry of the sorrows and triumphs of the human spirit woven by a master, Secondhand Time tells the stories that together make up the true history of a nation. "Through the voices of those who confided in her," The Nation writes, "Alexievich tells us about human nature, about our dreams, our choices, about good and evil-in a word, about ourselves."
Praise for Svetlana Alexievich and Secondhand Time
"The nonfiction volume that has done the most to deepen the emotional understanding of Russia during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union of late is Svetlana Alexievich's oral history Secondhand Time."-David Remnick, The New Yorker
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1 comment(s)
This is a book I might not finish just because the loan isn't for long enough. But it doesn't matter. Such moving accounts. It feels like I'm sitting in a kitchen with a Russian grandmother hearing stories about the Soviet Union.
What I appreciate most about this method of history is that the emotions are so complex. You get to understand why some loved Stalin and hated Perestroika. Or the reverse. The conspiracy theories are great too. Each story holds so much weight. A book I would recommend to anyone. You don't even have to finish it. Just open it up or give it a listen and take in a story. Get sucked in for a little longer. No book has offered me so much perspective.
What can you read after
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets?
About the Author:
Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, in 1948 and has spent most of her life in the Soviet Union and present-day Belarus, with prolonged periods of exile in Western Europe. Starting out as a journalist, she developed her own…
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