The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II
By: Svetlana Alexievich, Translated By: Richard Pevear Larissa Volokhonsky / Narrated By: Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson
Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
Emotions so raw, so fierce, so devastating… A MUST-Listen
I haaaaate it when I see someone touting ANYthing as A MUST as I do NOT like being told what to do. Further, it makes the person doing the declaring look like a pious all-knowing prig, the arbiter of all things worthwhile. Still, as I listened to The Unwomanly Face of War, oh how I wished all could listen to it, the feelings of war, horror turned into brutal words, words that bite and tear (I must commend the translation).
I find it interesting that when Svetlana Alexievich sat down to interview these many, many women who fought in WWII, if they were with other people, their words changed as tho’ to be directed to an audience, and if they were with only their husbands, their words became flat and muted, keeping only to facts. But one husband (Only one) encouraged his wife to tell her tales completely. He tells Alexievich that Feelings are much heavier than Facts, and his wife’s stories have the feelings of war, of horrific loss.
And ooooh, such feelings these women have when they’re alone, all by themselves and sitting with what they did and saw during the war in Russia/the Soviet Union. They’re of seeing death for the first time, of how clothing soaked with blood and now-dried can cut the skin, of finding the scorched remains of men, POWs, who were trapped and set ablaze by Nazi troops and of how this fostered a murderous rage, a desire to destroy anything German, a lack of pity when German girls were raped and sodomized by Russian soldiers, of watching it all happen.
Yes, some felt only a few women should’ve been focused on instead of Alexievich’s gathering of as many women as possible, that maybe one would feel their experiences more, would feel an empathy for them instead of this scattering, this cataloguing of events: How they came to be part of the armed efforts, first run-ins with death and dead bodies, first shelling or firefight, how men treated them, falling in love in a time of war and fighting, experiences of torture, experiences of famine during the struggle. Yes, I can see how there’s an awful LOT to hear about, and p’raps some did find it repetitive, each woman telling their own stories that fit into such categories.
But me? Oh noooo, to me each story built upon the next, one horror added to another to another to yet another horror, until what we have is the heaviest of burdens possible, the burden of women who’ve seen too much, done too much, and were forgotten if not out and out shamed after the war for being war-whores. I was left with such intimate knowledge, such a profane look at death, there’s absolutely no glory or peace to be had in these stories, there’s just the vision of older and physically and mentally and emotionally crippled women living each of their days with their memories, the terrors, the sorrows. Even the ones who went on to have families and who cherish their grandchildren are visited each day by visions, smells, the colors of war. And if they experienced torture? So much worse, nightmares without ceasing, even as the people they depend on age and die, leaving them to deal with their terrors alone.
At first I had some trouble with the main narrator sounding like an American putting on a Russian accent, but soon I appreciated her kind of voice as the “detached” recorder of memories who can ask just the right, the most pointed question at the right time, in just the proper manner to direct conversation (Altho’ “detached” is in quotes because even she will dissolve into tears hearing of a partisan woman drowning her own baby to keep it from crying, to save the group, and even she will dissolve into tears hearing of a woman spending just one more night holding onto what is now the corpse of a much-loved husband). The other narrator has a much heavier accent, more in keeping with the women who have a more emotional manner of speaking, or who are coarser, what with their keen knowledge of well-rounded and proper Russian cursing. I soon came to appreciate the alternating narrators, the interjections of “Alexievich” as she interrupted or as she responded to queries, the back and forth.
Before I wrap this up, I read one reviewer who felt all ticked off, as a man, to have to listen to women, as tho’ they’d no place in war. More than a million women fought to save their country from German/Nazi forces, and they were NOT just labor. These women were machine gunners, sappers, tank crews, snipers, partisans, the Underground. They left their young children behind, leaving them, knowing they themselves would probably be dead soon. Or they joined as mere girls, only to grow into traumatized but unbelievably resilient women, having sacrificed dreams and futures, lives where sitting in a classroom and studying made sense (Where now? After seeing so much death, after living each day knowing that tomorrow was never guaranteed?).
Yessss, these are the women I want to hear; these are the women whose stories need to be told. And Alexievich has compiled it all so well, asking questions to get at the soul of the woman in front of her, to transcribe what is in that woman’s thousand-yard stare, to collect each tear that falls and to shape it into words for the uninitiated.
Brilliant… oh such bloody, bloody brilliance.
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