Interviewing a Nobel laureate is always a media event, but this interview with the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, Svetlana Alexievich, is a special event for Den/The Day.
As the editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna said recently, this newspaper has been a “collective Alexievich” for 20 years. Not to leave the “Red Man” one-to-one with his tragedy, help him understand his hopes, fears, complexes, and wishes, is what Den’s journalists have been focusing on in the past two decades.
Speaking to us, Alexievich confessed that she had exhausted herself in the subject of “Red utopia.” But it seems to us that it is time to speak about how to heal its victims in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Our option is to search for the truth in history and excavate for identity. We presented the writer with two Den’s Library books – Ukraine Incognita. TOP 25 in Russian and The Power of the Soft Sign.
In principle, we know why we have fallen victim to Russia. It had been trying for many years to disguise its true identity with some pieces of Ukrainian history, which it tore from us with blood. You have spoken to a lot of Russians. Have you ever seen any of them show a twinge of remorse for robbing us unceremoniously of our past?
“No. The point is that they still view all this as common history. For example, if you talk to a Russian about the Holodomor, they will say: ‘We also had a famine in the Volga Region.’
“The mass-scale awareness of history by the Russians is not always associated with aggressiveness towards us, which Medvedev recently expressed, saying that there is no such a state as Ukraine at all.
“For the Russians, Kyivan Rus’ is the beginning of all things Slavic.
“Something of the kind is also occurring in Belarus. For example, both Belarusians and Lithuanians claim that the term ‘Litvin’ relates to them only.
“It is perhaps better not to stir up common roots. Naturally, when you are fighting a neighbor who has occupied your land, this is bound to call up historical associations. But I wouldn’t like this to torment society. It is the domain of historians.
“There was a woman in the village of my Ukrainian grandmother. Once, when I was a little girl and we were passing by her house, granny said: ‘Quiet! Here lives a very terrible and unhappy woman – she ate her children. Whenever I tried to say something of the kind to my Russian friends, I heard, of course, at once: ‘We also starved.’ Very few in Russia know about the Holodomor as a manmade tragedy.”
“MY NOBEL PRIZE WAS A DISCOVERY OF BELARUS FOR MANY IN THE WORLD”
You’ve lived in Europe for many years. Do you know why they still can’t understand what Russia and Putin are? Why didn’t they recognize Belarusians and Ukrainians as self-sufficient nations for a very long time, calling our states “Russia”?
“My Nobel prize was a discovery of Belarus for many in the world. The causes of what you are asking me are simple. Our territories were part of a huge empire for a very long time.”
But it is a quarter of a century since we parted…
“It’s too short a time for mass awareness to change. For it is only after the Maidan, the annexation of Crimea, and the Donbas war that Europeans began to perceive Ukraine as Ukraine. Ukraine itself, too, began to search for its identity, and Europe began to think of it differently.”
But why are they still unable to see through Russia? The Europeans seem to be thinking they can make peace with Russia by way of some concessions and live again the way they used to.
“I wouldn’t say so. I’ve dealt with people who are more vociferous than the ‘average’ European person and know that ‘this’ will take a long time.
“In general, people in the world feel very confused now. Ukraine has done what we, Russia and Belarus, failed to do. You tried to break away.”
And paid for this with blood…
“Undoubtedly. And what did you expect? What is Russia without Ukraine? The behavior of empires is absolutely predictable. It is only strange that you were not prepared for this. Where was your army? Earlier, in the 1990s, everybody was in a romantic mood, even in Europe.”
I think Europe had begun to face this kind of problems much before – after Yalta. It was naive to think that it was enough to de-Nazify Germany and “forget” to de-Stalinize Russia.
“It also took Germany a long time to part with Nazism. It is only 40 years later that the defeat of Nazism became embedded in German mass awareness. I lived in Germany for about three years and saw that it was a difficult and not always successful process. Whenever I won somebody’s confidence, the Germans would bring Hitler-era brochures, books, and postcards from the attic for me to see. They kept them for some reason. This means they had not yet parted with this, even though they were under US patronage. But Russia remained one-to-one with the problem and, of course, failed to say goodbye to its past.”
“WE THOUGHT THAT IF WE TOOK TO THE STREETS AND CRY OUT ‘FREEDOM,’ THE LATTER WOULD EMERGE FROM SOMEWHERE”
And now this neglected problem has been aggravated and is taking on a very dangerous form: Karabakh, Crimea, Syria, and Stalin as an “effective manager…” No one knows what this may result in. But how can they be healed if they themselves don’t want to be healed? And who can help them?
“I even titled a book as Second-Hand Time because time seems to be running backwards.
“I think you are right to be decommunizing streets and monuments quite rapidly. This must be done as fast as possible. Otherwise… We did not expect a rollback, either. The intellectuals who did perestroika didn’t expect this.
“For, in principle, it is not the whole nation that was doing perestroika. It was being done by Gorbachev and a small group of intellectuals. Putin has taken into account our mistakes and begun to do the brainwashing. But it seemed to us at the time that freedom was a thing that needed no persuasion or explanation. We thought if we took to the streets and cry out ‘freedom,’ the latter would emerge from somewhere and society would be better off. But it turned out that freedom means a great deal of work. And we blew the chance – both Belarus and Russia failed to decommunize human awareness. For if a monument is being torn down, this means that a certain mainstay of human awareness is being ruined.
“We were thoroughly convinced that it was a victory – communism is dead, that’s all. But it isn’t – it is still alive and kicking.”
How can we treat it if patients don’t want to be cured?
“Don’t they really? It is a difficult and tragic process. Some people are aware of this, while others are being carried by a totally different inertia of life. Of course, the authorities are busy keeping the empire intact.
“I can’t say the Russians are this kind of people just because they are bad. I don’t think so. There is a good Russian proverb: ‘You can make both a stick and an icon out of people.’ Everything depends on the pastor. For example, the Czechs had Vaclav Havel, and they parted with Slovakia without a war. But if they had had Lukashenko or Putin, there would have been bloodshed.”
So, you think that if Putin went now, Russia would be different?
“I don’t know. Putin would go, but where would these people go from themselves? For Putin is the tip of the iceberg. The problem is in the ‘collective Putin.’
“Putin himself accumulates millions of human desires. I’ve traveled a lot across Russia and must say that people there are humiliated and robbed. And it is very easy to put the blame on America, Europe, and Ukrainians who suddenly announced that they are a separate country… You can’t possibly walk out of the prison camp today and be free tomorrow. You, Ukrainians, can see this on your own example: there were two Maidans, and are you sure there will not be a third one? Nobody will give this kind of guarantee because there is no undivided Ukraine so far. There are two or three of them. One wants to go to Europe, while the other prefers to live the way it used to.
“Culture cannot catch up with revolutions. It is no accident that very intelligent cultural figures, such as Mayakovsky, welcomed the Russian Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Such thing as revolution and rebuilding the word sounds great. But an enormous Russia was unprepared for this, and the good intentions and hopes of nice intelligent people ended up with rivers of blood. Just read the letters of Inessa Armand and some young members of the now blood-stained Leninist guard – it is astonishing how they were going to rebuild the world. And what was the result?
“I don’t read the press, but I wish you wouldn’t simplify problems…
“Here is one more paradox: you – the people who were attacked and had a part of your territory occupied – are less aggressive than Russians, when one talks to you about the Donbas war. Everybody says it is a tragedy. But you just try to speak in Russia! I remember talking about this with a Moscow taxi driver – the car almost turned red hot because of his hatred. Why? I said to him: you came there, not the other way round…”
Is it the twinge of some remnants of remorse?
“No, imperial complexes. The Japanese and we were once making a film based on my book. We came to some place in the Russian boondocks, where the Baikal-Amur Railway was being built. It was about 10 years ago. People lived very poorly. There was no food. The man from whom the Japanese hired a bus was very happy to be able to earn money. Then the director said something like this at dinner: ‘And why on earth did you get into Chechnya?’ This driver stopped and dropped us off in the taiga. How dared we? It is Russia! And I was a greater traitor in his eyes than the Japanese, for I spoke Russian and, hence, was supposed to be a Russian woman. We had a narrow escape from there.”
And what can we offer these people?
“A dialog. Frankly speaking, I lean to Gandhism. I am a pacifist and oppose the use of weapons. I saw the Afghanistan war. Killed people were my greatest shock.
“I know it is difficult to speak about pacifism when your child was killed. But try to understand me: hatred will bear nothing but hatred.
“You should kill ideas, not people, in the 21st century. One must fight against malign ideas that settle in our brains. It is barbaric to kill people. But I am not saying that the Ukrainians are to blame. You have no choice. You are a victim and have to defend yourselves.”
It is against malign ideas that Den has prepared an arsenal of weapons – books that say the truth about our history.
“It is a longtime job. You know that this can’t be done in a year. You must really rise from your knees. Russia is, of course, an enemy, but your chief enemy is a domestic one – corruption.”
“GLORY IS RATHER AN UNCOMFORTABLE CONDITION”
The Book Arsenal, to be held in Kyiv on April 20-24, will present two of your novels in the Ukrainian translation: Zinky Boys and War’s Unwomanly Face. It was announced that you would attend the ceremony. Why do you think it is important that Ukrainians read these books now?
“The experience of war is, after all, one of dignity. This is particularly clear in War’s Unwomanly Face. It seemed to me that there would no longer be such people as my heroines in the world. And, suddenly, Nadia Savchenko… She will show everybody Ukrainian dignity. Many people all over the world already know her. I travel a lot and often hear about her from people.
“I think these books are about the strength of spirit. This is always important, especially during an ordeal.”
Do you wish sometimes to write about the current war in Ukraine, its victims and heroes?
“No, I am not a journalist. All I’ve been doing for 30 years is writing the history of a ‘red utopia.’
“For your book to be a piece of literature, it’s not enough just to gather a lot of horrors. You should gather philosophy and find a viewpoint. I have done my utmost in this case. I’ve written my history – five books. They comprise all this, including what is going to come back. So what if faces have changed? The philosophy is the same.”
You said you were working on a new novel about love. Is it not too pastoral a theme for our time? There are still too many passions running high, a lot of aggression, pain, and blood.
“It is never too late for Love. Each of us feels it. It is the main thing in life. So I don’t think Love is a pastoral theme. It is a very complex feeling, too.”
How did your life change after you were awarded the Nobel Prize in literature?
“Glory is rather an uncomfortable condition. You can’t be your own self. Whenever you go out on the street, people recognize and have pictures taken with you. Or you just talk to somebody and read about this tomorrow in a newspaper.”
“THE ‘RED MAN’ IS THE EMPIRE’S MOST TERRIBLE VESTIGE”
Preparing for our meeting, I read a lot of your interviews and wrote out dozens of quotations. But one of them stung me particularly. In the now distant 2001, when things were different, you said to Den’s journalist who asked you about your Ukrainian roots: “But, apparently, now that it is a time of historical insults, we should first run apart (like in Europe once), only to feel Slavic again two centuries later.” What did you mean? And in what way do you think we can still regain the feeling of community?
“No empire has ever disintegrated without bloodshed. And it is not difficult to guess that Kyiv is Russia’s main adversary in the post-Soviet space. Russia’s whole history rests on ‘its hills.’ If you take Kyivan Rus’ away from the Russians, they will be left with the Horde only. And who will accept this?
“That’s why a conflict between Russia and Ukraine was obvious to me at the time, although, I did not of course imagine that there would be a war and so much bloodshed.
“For there can be a different way. Look at Belarusians and Lithuanians. Academic disputes continue. But we do not shoot at Lithuanians or declare a war on them, nor do we form guerrilla units. Of course, I don’t know whether or not this may still happen because Lithuania is laying claim to all of our Belarusian symbols. I am not going to say who is right or wrong. Only historians can give the answer.”
And what was your vision of “regained unity” two centuries later?
“Two centuries is a metaphorical figure. Totally different people will live here. Maybe, they will position themselves as Earthmen rather than Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians. My book on the Chornobyl tragedy puts emphasis on the human shock. This is a disaster in which you no longer consider yourself Belarusian, Ukrainian, or French, for it makes no difference at all. You consider yourself representative of an endangered species.”
Why do you think the world is now “cheerless,” as you said in one of your interviews? What caused the revanche of totalitarianism on the territories that suffered from it the most?
“I think Shalamov said that a prison camp corrupts both the butcher and the victim. The stricter the totalitarian regime is, the more actively the butcher and the victim establish a certain relationship. It is a warped awareness of sorts.
“This is why the young Europe, which was admitted to the EU later, is the most aggressive. You can see this in their attitude to refugees. I think it is only the legacy of totalitarianism.
“The ‘Red Man’ is the empire’s most terrible vestige. For this shows a mutual penetration of the butcher and the victim.”
“THE PHILISTINE IS NOW THE MAIN HERO OF HISTORY. HE ORDERS NOT ONLY POP CULTURE, BUT ALSO POP POLITICS”
What can the civilized world do to help the “Red Man”?
“It’s a very long way to freedom.
“They are trying. They support civil society. But you can see how quickly the empire began to stand its ground. It has called active citizens agents of foreign special services. The empire has even learned to set democracy against democracy itself.”
Putin takes advantage of this, disuniting Europe.
“Putin is and thinks like a KGB man, not a politician. And he offered the world this political KGB-like style. The KGB suddenly became politics. This represents a grave danger to the civilized world which is in turmoil now. The world is helpless against Putin. The point is that politics have never used the ‘KGB special operations’ logic before. Even the old European culture turned out unprepared to oppose this.”
Is there not a single leader in the world, who can oppose “Putin’s logic”?
“Now the philistine is the main hero of history. He orders not only pop culture, but also pop politics. For this reason, even major countries’ leaders are taking a narrow-minded approach. You can see this only too well in their attitude to refugees and terrorism. For the world is now facing very difficult problems. Suppose, you are flying to the US – you are frisked very minutely, which is somewhat humiliating to you, but, at the same time, you don’t want to be blown up. We are in the hands of madmen who ‘act on their own’ and profess mad ideas. The entire world is no longer reliable. This prompts people to vote Right.”
You came back to Belarus from Western Europe in 2013. First of all, why?
“I had not gone to Europe for good. I lived for 10 years there. My parents died. My granddaughter is 8 now. So, I decided it was time to come back.
“And I left my country not because it was dangerous to me there. We have a strange totalitarian system. I left because I saw that I was falling hostage to ‘barricade culture.’ This is very dangerous to an artist. You can see a target, not a human being. But the artist is supposed to see a multicolor person. From the viewpoint of art, the butcher and the victim are the same. The artist is so interested in the world that he or she can listen with equal interest to both the wayward and the righteous. I felt at a certain moment that I was losing this ability. I went to Europe to regain eyesight.”
What is the life in Belarus now? What is the Belarusians’ attitude to the events in Ukraine?
“Lukashenko holds out thanks to Ukraine to a large extent. Belarusians are a small and patriarchal nation. History has steamrollered over them many times. They are very much afraid of upheavals. And when Belarusians saw the Maidan on fire and Ukraine in war, they were scared a lot and voted again for Lukashenko, that is, for no changes. For the masses are unable to think strategically.”
