Quotessence
Home / Books / Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно

Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно

Book by Володимир Шабля · 2 quotes · Historical Fiction, Gulag, Human Spirit

Filter quotes by topic

AllHistorical FictionGulagHuman SpiritPolitical RepressionSoviet UnionStalin EraAuthoritarianismAutobiographical FictionBirthChildhoodChildhood MemoriesDestinyDictatorshipEmotional FictionExecutionExistential CrisisFamilyFamily HistoryFateFear

Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно Quotes

“My blissful childhood was shattered without warning when I was about ten years old. One day, my father told me that he had spent seventeen years of his life in prisons, Gulag labor camps, and internal exile. At that moment, his confession became the greatest shock I had ever experienced. “My father — the kindest and wisest man on earth — and suddenly this?” I refused to believe my own ears. But my dad did not stop at the bare fact. He spoke of hunger, of cruelty, of utter powerlessness — and of his own horrific existence within a totalitarian, inhuman system. — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One. Author's Preface Context note: This passage comes from the author’s preface and reflects a real childhood revelation that became the moral and emotional foundation of the novel. Learning that his father had survived years of prisons, labor camps, and exile under the Soviet totalitarian system, the author transformed personal memory into a literary quest to understand repression, trauma, and human endurance.”

MemoirSoviet UnionChildhood MemoriesFamily HistoryGenerational TraumaGulagPolitical RepressionAutobiographical FictionHistorical TraumaMoralawakening
Book:Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно
Create image

“Stalin perceived the world in stark black and white. In the same way, he divided people, nations, actions, and ideas into only two absolute categories: “ours” and “theirs.” “Ours” were all those — and everything — that, at the moment of decision, fell under his control or contributed to strengthening it. “Theirs” were everyone else, and everything else. He saw his role as a strategist in constructing a system of power that would force each of the “ours,” individually and collectively, to work at the very limit of human endurance in order to fulfill his strategic design. That design was simple and ruthless: to endlessly increase the number and strength of the “ours” by coercing the “theirs” into becoming “ours,” while simultaneously destroying — or, as a last resort, neutralizing — all who refused to submit. — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One Context note: This passage reflects the ideological logic of Stalinist totalitarianism, where power was built on absolute division, forced loyalty, and systematic repression. In the Soviet worldview of the 1930s–1940s, survival depended on belonging to “ours” — or being destroyed as “theirs.”

PowerHistorical FictionDictatorshipSoviet UnionTotalitarianismAuthoritarianismStalinismStalinStalin EraPolitical Repression
Book:Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно
Create image