Second-hand time

Время секонд хэнд

Alexievich, the 2015 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, has been awarded the German Book Trade Peace Prize (2013), the French Medici Essay Prize (2013), the Russian "Big Book Award" readers' choice for best literary work (2014), and the Polish Kapuściński Reportage Prize (2015).

This book, the latest work by renowned Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich, uses oral interviews to reveal the lives of ordinary people at a pivotal historical moment. It recounts the painful social transitions of the two decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, from 1991 to 2012, and the price paid for shattered dreams. From academics to cleaners, everyone rediscovers the meaning of life. Their candid accounts simultaneously capture the macro and micro perspectives of a momentous era and a social shift, lending a human face to this profound period of history. Over twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians have rediscovered the world, and the world has rediscovered Russia. A new generation has emerged, their dreams no longer focused on dreams, nor on faith, as their parents did in the 1990s. Over the past two decades, people have seen a new Russia, but it is no longer the Russia anyone once dreamed of. The author traces the historical process of the Soviet Union and the period after its collapse, letting ordinary people tell their own stories, thus showing the turning points in history and how people pursue their beliefs and dreams, and how they tell their secrets and fears, making people rethink what "Russia" and "Russians" are, why they cannot adapt to rapid modernization, and why, nearly two hundred years later, they are still separated from Europe. The book is divided into two parts, interviewing Russians who grew up under ideals and Russians today, as well as ordinary people in former Soviet countries such as Azerbaijan, to present their life details, feelings and thoughts. The German media praised the book for capturing the smallest mosaics, but piecing together a complete picture of the post-Soviet era. "A microscopic history of Russia in the second half of the 20th century, reaching the Putin era."

2016-01-01

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