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Svetlana Alexievich Quotes

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Famous Svetlana Alexievich Quotes

“Somos guerreros. Mi padre, en todo el tiempo que recuerdo, llevó ropa militar, aunque no lo era. Pensar en el dinero era de burgueses; preocuparte por tu propia vida, no patriótico. El estado normal era el hambre. Ellos, nuestros padres, sobrevivieron al desastre, por tanto también nosotros debíamos superarlo. No había otra manera de convertirse en un hombre de verdad. Nos han enseñado a luchar y a sobrevivir bajo cualquier circunstancia. A mí mismo, después del servicio militar, la vida civil me resultaba insulsa. Salíamos en grupo por la noche a la ciudad en busca de emociones fuertes.”

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Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
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“Everything we know of horror and dread is connected primarily with war. Stalin's Gulags and Auschwitz were recent gains for evil. History has always been the story of wars and military commanders, and war was, we could say, the yardstick of horror. This is why people muddle the concepts of war and disaster. In Chernobyl, we see all the hallmarks of war: hordes of soldiers, evacuation, abandoned houses. The course of life disrupted. Reports on Chernobyl in the newspapers are thick with the language of war: 'nuclear', 'explosion', 'heroes'. And this makes it harder to appreciate that we now find ourselves on a new page of history. The history of disasters has begun. But people do not want to reflect on that, because they have never thought about it before, preferring to take refuge in the familiar. And in the past. Even the monuments to the Chernobyl heroes look like war memorials.”

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Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
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