Supplemental: The Highest Form
The Unwomanly Face of War, Svetlana Alexievich, 1983 (2017).
There are no charts or figures in The Unwomanly Face of War — it is a literary oral history, after all. However, the book is made from short (sometimes very short) vignettes. So I have instead included one such vignette, verbatim. This, I think, is the best way to communicate the power of Alexievich’s writing (and the deeply affecting power of the book). This particular vignette speaks to the themes I wrote about — hatred, killing, and suffering. It is also, in a quite dark way, Christmas-y. I hope you ‘enjoy’ it.
Zinaida Vasilyevna
I was leading a wounded man and suddenly saw two Germans coming from behind a tankette. The tankette had been hit, but they must have had time to get out. A split second! If I hadn’t managed to give them a burst, they would have shot me and the wounded man. It happened so unexpectedly. After the battle I went to them; they lay with their eyes open. I remember those eyes even now…One was such a handsome young German. It was a pity, even though he was a fascist, all the same…That feeling didn’t leave me for a long time. You see, I didn’t want to kill. There was such hatred in my soul: why had they come to our land? But when you yourself kill, it’s frightening…There’s no other word…Very frightening. When you yourself…
The battle was over. The Cossack hundreds were breaking camp, and Olya wasn’t there. I was the last one to leave, I rode at the end, I kept looking back. It was evening. Olya wasn’t there…I got word that she stayed to pick up the wounded. There was nothing I could do, I just waited for her. I’d lag behind my hundred, wait a little, then catch up with everybody. I wept: Can it be I lost my sister in the first battle? Where is she? What’s happened to her? Maybe she’s dying somewhere, calling me
Olya…Olya, too, was all in tears…She found me at night…All the Cossacks wept when they saw us meet. We hung on each other’s necks, unable to go. And then we realised that that it was impossible, it was unbearable for us to fight together. Better to seperate. Our hearts wouldn’t be able to stand it if one of us was killed before the other’s eyes. We decided that I should ask to be transferred to another squadron. But how to part? How?
Afterward we fought separately, first in different squadrons, later even in different divisions. We would just send greetings, if the chance came along, to find out whether the other was alive…Death watched our every step. Lay in wait…I remember it was near Ararat…We were camped in the sands. Ararat had been taken by the Germans. It was Christmas, and the Germans were celebrating. A squadron was chosen and a forty-milimeter battery. We set out at around five and kept moving all night. At dawn we met with our scouts, who had set out earlier.
The village lay at the foot of a hill…As if in a bowl…The Germans never thought we could get through such sand, and they set up very little defence. We passed through their rear very quietly. We descended the hill, captured the sentries, and burst into this village, flew into it. The Germans came running out completely naked, only with submachine guns in their hands. There were Christmas trees standing around…they were all drunk…And in every yard there were no less than two or three tanks. Tankettes stood there, armoured vehicles…All their machinery. We destroyed it on the spot, and there was such shooting, such noise, such panic…Everybody rushed about…The situation was such that each one was afraid of hitting his own men. Everything was on fire…The Christmas trees, too, were on fire…
I had eight wounded men…I helped them up the hill…But we committed one blunder: we didn’t cut the enemy’s communications. And the German artillery blanketed us with both mortar and long-range fire. I quickly put my wounded on an ambulance wagon, and they drove off…And before my eyes a shell landed on the wagon, and it was blown to pieces. When I looked, there was only one man left alive there. And the Germans were already going up the hill…The wounded man begged, “Leave me, nurse…Leave me, nurse… I’m dying…” His stomach was ripped open…His guts…All that…He gathered them himself and stuffed them back in…
I thought my horse was bloody because of this wounded man, but then I looked: he was also wounded in the side. I used up a whole individual kit on him. I had several pieces of sugar left; I gave him the sugar. There was shooting on all sides now; you couldn’t tell where the Germans were and where ours. You go ten yards and run into wounded men…I thought: I’ve got to find a wagon and pick them all up. So I rode on, and I saw the slope, and at the foot of it three roads: this way and that way and also straight. I was at a loss…Which way to go? I had been holding the bridle firmly; the horse went wherever I pointed him. Well, so here, I don’t know, some instinct told me, or I’d heard somewhere, that horses sense the road, so before that fork I let go of the bridle, and the horse went in a completely different direction from where I was going to go. He went on and on…
I sit there with no strength left; I no longer care where he goes. What will be will be. So he goes on and on, and then more and more briskly, he wags his head, I’ve picked up the bridle again, I’m holding it. I bend down and put my hand to his wound. He goes more and more cheerfully, then: whinny-whinny-whinny…As if he’s heard somebody. I was worried it might be the Germans. I decided to set the horse free first, but then I saw a fresh trail: hoof prints, the wheels of a machine-gun cart; no less than fifty people had passed this way. Another two or three hundred meters and my horse ran smack into a wagon. There were wounded men in the wagon, and here I saw the remainder of our squadron.
Aid was already arriving, wagons, machine-gun carts…The order was to pick up everybody. Under bullets, under artillery fire, we picked them all up to a man—the wounded and the dead. I also rode in the cart. Everybody was there, even the man wounded in the stomach. We took them all. Only the dead horses were left behind. It was already morning; we rode on and saw—a whole herd lying there. Beautiful, strong horses…The wind stirred in their manes…
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