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Володимир Шабля Quotes

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Famous Володимир Шабля Quotes

“Boom!” The thunder of a massive explosion rolled across the settlement. Maria’s sobbing came from the bedroom. Irina ran to her daughter. “They’ve blown up the church! They destroyed it!” Maria cried again and again in hysteria. “Hush, hush,” Irina whispered, holding her daughter close as she tried to calm her. “Be strong. We will pray before the icons at home. God in heaven sees everything. No one can destroy Him—or our faith.” — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book Three Context note: Set in the 1930s during Stalin’s anti-religious campaign, this scene reflects the Soviet regime’s systematic destruction of churches and persecution of believers. Across the USSR, thousands of religious buildings were demolished as part of the state’s effort to eradicate faith—yet for many families, belief survived behind closed doors, becoming an act of quiet resistance.”

FaithChristianityAtheismCommunismHistorical FictionSoviet UnionTotalitarianismFreedom Of ReligionReligious PersecutionChurch Drama
Book:Камінь. Біографічний роман. Книга третя. Несправджені сподівання.: Все буде Голодомор.
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“– Independent farmers are arrested and deported somewhere to the Urals or Siberia. I fear we may be the next to be labeled ‘kulaks’. — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book Two Context note: During the forced collectivization in the USSR, millions of peasants were forcibly deported to remote regions such as Siberia and the Urals as part of state repression against on wealthy peasants (nicknamed "kulaks" by the Soviet authorities).”

Soviet UnionTotalitarianismPeasantsUkraineClass WarfarePolitical ViolenceCollectivization1930 SState TerrorismRepression Books
Book:Камень. Биографический роман. Книга вторая. Непростые дороги в ад: Выживание в условиях насилия
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“Our guest—Comrade Stebletsov—is not merely speaking about rooting out class enemies from Soviet society; he is doing so in practice!” the homeroom teacher declared grandly. “He is a member of a grain requisition squad and therefore a true executor of the Bolshevik Party’s line to eliminate the kulaks as a class! And today, the best among you, children, are given the opportunity to prove your loyalty to the cause of Lenin and Stalin. Peter! Marusya! Stand up!” The children rose from their desks in confusion. “As top students and Young Pioneers, you are entrusted by our school collective with participation in an important state mission!” The teacher’s chest seemed to swell with pride as her chin lifted higher. “You will represent our school as public members of the grain requisition squad. Together with your senior comrades, you are assigned to uncover grain hidden by kulaks and saboteurs. Our class enemy does not sleep—he seeks to sabotage the industrialization of the USSR. He hides grain from the Soviet state, condemning the proletariat to suffering. But we will not allow the vile accomplices of the rich to rob our people! We entrust you with a responsible mission: as part of the requisition squad, you will locate and pour into the granaries of the Motherland the grain illegally concealed by the kulaks!” — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book Three Context note: Set during the Holodomor of 1933, this scene illustrates how Soviet schools became instruments of communist propaganda. Children were mobilized as Young Pioneers and encouraged to participate in grain confiscation campaigns against peasants branded by the regime as “kulaks.” The language of class struggle and industrialization masked the immense human cost of forced collectivization and the state-imposed famine in Ukraine and across the USSR.”

CommunismHistorical FictionTotalitarianismIndoctrinationClass StruggleSoviet HistoryBrain WashingCollectivizationHolodomorPolitical Propaganda
Book:Камінь. Біографічний роман. Книга третя. Несправджені сподівання.: Все буде Голодомор.
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“– But keeping such large troop formations idle here, while the enemy can outflank us from the right, is extremely dangerous!” Context note: Rigid command structures in the Red Army and a fear of initiative often led to catastrophic delays and encirclements in the early years of the war. In this case, the military leader is frustrated by the impossibility of implementing an obvious solution.”

TotalitarianismSecond World WarUkraine WarMilitary HistoryMilitary Leadership1941Red ArmyUssr HistoryPolitical ControlEastern Front
Book:Камінь. Біографічний роман. Книга друга. Непрості дороги до пекла: Виживання в умовах насильства.
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“The prisoners, feral and maddened by thirst, tried to snatch discarded watermelon rinds lying along the road or to drink from muddy puddles nearby. At first, the NKVD guards simply shot those who dared rush toward the water. But soon the situation slipped out of control. When a small puddle flashed in the sun, all the prisoners surged toward this miserable source of water, ignoring fear of death, desperate shouts, and gunfire from the guards. They fought wildly, beating one another for the right to press their lips to the life-giving moisture. Peter reached the puddle among the first, but several men were already lying in it, gulping greedily and blocking others. In a fit of rage, Peter grabbed one of them by the clothes, flung him several meters aside, collapsed into his place — and fused his mouth to the water. He drank frantically. For the first few minutes, he felt nothing but a dizzying mix of rapture, pleasure, and joy as his thirst was quenched. Only when mud replaced water in his mouth did awareness of what was happening slowly begin to return. — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One Context note: During a prisoner transport in Stalin’s USSR in the early years of World War II, extreme thirst drove Gulag inmates to the edge of madness. Even filthy puddles became objects of violent struggle, exposing how wartime Soviet repression reduced human survival to pure instinct.”

Historical FictionWorld War IiTotalitarianismDehumanizationStalinismPolitical PrisonersGulagSoviet HistoryNkvdDeath Marchers
Book:Камінь. Біографічний роман. Книга перша. Перші кроки до світла та назад: Дитинство та занурення в ГУЛАГ.
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“Faith in God turned into the destruction of churches; collectivization into the Holodomor; hope for a better future into the loss of loved ones. People sought justice, but received unjust court verdicts; they defended their homeland, only to become prisoners or victims of occupation. — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book Three (book description) Context note: This quote reflects the tragic fate of ordinary people in Soviet Ukraine during the 1930s–1940s, when religious persecution, forced collectivization, the Holodomor, political repression, and war shattered personal lives and destroyed hopes for justice and freedom.”

Historical FictionTotalitarianismUkraineSoviet HistoryCollectivizationHolodomorPolitical RepressionHuman TragedyLoss And ResilienceFaith And Suffering
Book:Камінь. Біографічний роман. Книга третя. Несправджені сподівання.: Все буде Голодомор.
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“I have quite a few of ‘my own’ people now,” Stalin concluded, “but the very first day of the war revealed a lack of proper organization and coordination among them. Worse still, among these ‘my own’ there are plenty of fools — and traitors lying low. This filth must be eliminated as quickly as possible, because a new system of power can be built only if I do not fear for my rear.” He turned back to the sheet of paper and wrote decisively: “Immediately neutralize all spies and potential enemies.” The General Secretary of the Communist Party raised his eyes to the ceiling. Images of former comrades — now exposed as traitors — flashed before his mind’s eye. Blood rushed to his face; beneath his habitual vigilance, rage began to surface. Yes, I too had erred for too long, following the lead of Leninist–Trotskyist lackeys who believed the revolution could be exported by financing foreign anti-imperialist movements. Through these empty talkers, colossal resources had vanished abroad like water into sand — resources that should have gone into armaments. And time? Years lost. Years that were desperately needed now. These double-dealers should have been destroyed immediately after Trotsky’s defeat — a barren breed capable only of parroting outdated ideas of long-dead leaders. At least now they were no longer underfoot, no longer pulling in opposite directions and tearing the system apart. “Stop,” Stalin ordered himself. “I must not descend into emotion. That is unacceptable. What matters is drawing conclusions from my own miscalculations.” — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One Context note: An internal monologue of Joseph Stalin during the first days of the German–Soviet War, a later and decisive phase of World War II. The passage reveals the core logic of Stalinist power: paranoia, purges, and the conviction that absolute control — rather than human life — is the true foundation of victory. It exposes how fear, repression, and ideological obsession shaped decision-making at the highest levels of the Soviet state.”

TyrannyHistorical FictionWorld War IiTotalitarianismAbuse Of PowerPower And ControlStalinismStalinPolitical PsychologyUssr History
Book:Камінь. Біографічний роман. Книга перша. Перші кроки до світла та назад: Дитинство та занурення в ГУЛАГ.
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“Peter had only just graduated with honors from the Zaporizhzhia Pedagogical Institute and was supposed to leave for his first teaching job the very next day. Instead, he was arrested. For what sins was a student obsessed with honesty punished — a young man who had risen from the very bottom of society and sincerely believed in the socialist ideal? His parents did not know. Peter himself did not know either. He believed what had happened was a terrible mistake and hoped it would soon be corrected. — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book Two Context note: In the Stalinist USSR, arrests often struck young, loyal, and idealistic citizens. Many believed their detention was a bureaucratic error — until the machinery of repression proved otherwise.”

YouthInjusticeComing Of AgeIdealismTotalitarianismStalinismLoss Of InnocencePolitical HistorySoviet HistoryPolitical Repression
Book:Камінь. Біографічний роман. Книга друга. Непрості дороги до пекла: Виживання в умовах насильства.
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“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
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