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Reviews tagging 'Medical content'
Rapazes de Zinco: A Geração Soviética Caída na Guerra do Afeganistão by Svetlana Alexiévich
1 review
charleyroxy's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Zinky Boys (also published as Boys in Zinc) by Svetlana Alexievich was originally published in 1990 and translated from Russian in 1992 by Julia and Robin Whitby.
"I perceive the world through the medium of human voices." This book offers such a personal view of the Soviet Afghanistan War which lasted nine years from 1979 to 1989 and was kept secret from the public for a large portion of the time. It is about trauma and lasting effects on those who survived and those who were left behind by loved ones who died. There is little to no timeline of events just memories as memorials. Alexievich recorded the words of soldiers of all ranks, doctors, nurses, civilian employees, widows and mothers. "My aim is to describe feelings about the war, rather than the war itself." And so she does.
"I never did body-counts, I just ran; took aim, here, there ... I was a target too, a living target. No, you don't come back a hero from a war like that..." -a military advisor
"I gave my son to them and they didn't even bother to make a soldier of him... They were just raw boys, almost children, who were thrown into the fire and accepted it as a matter of honour." -a mother
"I wanted to smash the screen the first time I heard someone on television say that Afghanistan was our shame. That was the day I buried my husband a second time." -a widow
One of the things that stood out to me was how young many of the men were. Most were between the ages of 18-20 and some had as little as 3 weeks of training. One mother recounts how her son joined a paratroop battalion after one week and within a month he was dead. When the soldiers actually returned, they were just abandoned by the government with no help coming to terms with the things the had seen and done. This is a powerful piece of history and I am so glad I finally picked it up.
"I perceive the world through the medium of human voices." This book offers such a personal view of the Soviet Afghanistan War which lasted nine years from 1979 to 1989 and was kept secret from the public for a large portion of the time. It is about trauma and lasting effects on those who survived and those who were left behind by loved ones who died. There is little to no timeline of events just memories as memorials. Alexievich recorded the words of soldiers of all ranks, doctors, nurses, civilian employees, widows and mothers. "My aim is to describe feelings about the war, rather than the war itself." And so she does.
"I never did body-counts, I just ran; took aim, here, there ... I was a target too, a living target. No, you don't come back a hero from a war like that..." -a military advisor
"I gave my son to them and they didn't even bother to make a soldier of him... They were just raw boys, almost children, who were thrown into the fire and accepted it as a matter of honour." -a mother
"I wanted to smash the screen the first time I heard someone on television say that Afghanistan was our shame. That was the day I buried my husband a second time." -a widow
One of the things that stood out to me was how young many of the men were. Most were between the ages of 18-20 and some had as little as 3 weeks of training. One mother recounts how her son joined a paratroop battalion after one week and within a month he was dead. When the soldiers actually returned, they were just abandoned by the government with no help coming to terms with the things the had seen and done. This is a powerful piece of history and I am so glad I finally picked it up.
Content Warnings
Minor: Blood, Death, Grief, Medical content, Suicide, and Violence
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