Summary of Svetlana Alexievich's The Unwomanly Face of War

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The beginning of the 1900s was marked by a women’s phenomenon. Women served in all branches of the military in many countries of the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822505889

IRB Media

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Insights on Svetlana Alexievich's The Unwomanly Face of War

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The beginning of the 1900s was marked by a women’s phenomenon. Women served in all branches of the military in many countries of the world.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

I am writing a book about war. I never liked to read military books, but in my childhood and youth, that was the favorite reading of everybody. We were the children of Victory, and the war was remembered constantly.

#2

I wanted to write the history of the war that women had fought in, and the history of their lives after the war. I was shocked by how different their memories were from the memories of the men who had fought in the war.

#3

I have met some remarkable storytellers. People remember not the war, but their own suffering and experiences. They draw the words out of themselves and not from newspapers and books they have read.

#4

I have been given the gift of hearing the voices of the elderly. I have spent years listening to them, and I have learned so much about life and death. War is an all-too-intimate experience, and as boundless as human life.

#5

I want to write the truth about life and death in general, not just the truth about war. I want to get at the truth of those years, without sham feelings. I want to read how people talked at home and what they talked about.

#6

I am a historian of the soul. I examine specific human beings, living in a specific time and taking part in specific events, and I try to discern the eternally human in them. I build temples out of our feelings and desires, dreams, and that which was but might slip away.

#7

Women’s war is more powerful than men’s. Women are caught up with feelings, and they are capable of seeing what men cannot see. They are not prepared to do what men are prepared to do.

#8

I visited a family that had both husband and wife fought in the war. They met at the front and got married there. The husband immediately sent his wife to the kitchen to prepare something for us. The kettle was already boiling and the sandwiches were served, but the husband immediately got her to her feet again.

#9

I have realized that our memory is not an ideal instrument. It is not only arbitrary and capricious, but it is also chained to time like a dog. We cannot look at the past from anywhere else.

#10

I have been getting rejections from publishers for two years now. The verdict is always the same: war is too terrible. So much horror. Naturalism. No leading and guiding role of the Communist Party. In short, not