Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

Author/Guide: Svetlana Alexievich

Why a Booktrail?

1991 to 2012: Through interviews we see a changing Russia

ISBN: 978-0399588822
Translator: Bela Shayevich
Genre: Guide book, Non-Fiction, Translated Fictioin

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What you need to know before your trail

In Secondhand Time, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past thirty years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it’s like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia and Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, massacres–but also of pride in their country, hope for the future, and a belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful it once dominated a third of the world.

Travel Guide

A tour of a country, countries, an ideal and a community

“Communism had an insane plan: to remake the “old breed of man,” ancient Adam. And it really worked … Perhaps it was communism’s only achievement. Seventy-plus years in the Marxist-Leninist laboratory gave rise to a new man: Homo sovieticus. Although we now live in separate countries and speak different languages, you couldn’t mistake us for anyone else. We’re easy to spot! People who’ve come out of socialism… We have a special relationship with death. How much can we value human life when we know that not long ago people had died by the millions? We’re full of hatred and superstitions. All of us come from the land of the gulag and harrowing war. Collectivization, dekulakization, mass deportations … This was socialism, but it was also just everyday life.”

“No one had taught us how to be free. We had only ever been taught how to die for freedom.”

“The most important thing is spiritual labor…Books…You can wear the same suit for twenty years, two coats are enough for a lifetime, but you can’t live without Pushkin or the complete works of Gorky.”