Saturday, February 18, 2023

"Courage in war and courage of thought are two different courages"

"I touch upon this subject carefully and rarely.  They are still paralyzed not only by Stalin’s hypnosis and fear, but also by their former faith.  They cannot stop loving what they used to love.  Courage in war and courage of thought are two different courages.  I used to think they were the same."

     Svetlana Alexievich, The unwomanly face of war [У вайны не жаночы твар]:  an oral history of women in World War II, trans. Richard Pevear and Laurissa Volokhonsky (New York:  Random House, 2018 [1988]), xxvii.  "their former faith" was in | "what they used to love" was Communism and Stalin and the nobility of The Great Patriotic War, in which they displayed great martial courage.  The "courage of thought" to question all or parts of that was what, I gather (for I haven’t yet read more than this paragraph and the pages preceding it), they were still struggling to muster.


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