In apartments and cottages, on the street and in the train... I listen... More and more, I turn into one large ear, always turning to another person.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
What I'm concerned with is what I would call the missing history - the invisible imprint of our stay on Earth and in time.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the subtle influences and legacies we leave behind that often go unnoticed.
Svetlana Alexievich's quote prompts us to consider the intangible and often overlooked aspects of our existence that contribute to the broader narrative of humanity. It suggests that while physical achievements may be documented, the emotional and spiritual impacts we have on the world and each other form a 'missing history' that is equally significant, emphasizing our shared experiences and the nuanced traces we leave in time.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of acknowledging lesser-known historical figures.
In apartments and cottages, on the street and in the train... I listen... More and more, I turn into one large ear, always turning to another person.
The subjects I wanted to write about - the mystery of the human soul, evil - didn't interest newspapers, and news reporting bored me.
'Women's' war has its own colors, its own smells, its own lighting, and its own range of feelings. There are no heroes and incredible feats; there are simply people who are busy doing inhumanly human things.
There is no need to give in to the compromise that totalitarian regimes always count on.
I've been searching for a genre that would be most adequate to my vision of the world to convey how my ear hears and my eyes see life. I tried this and that, and finally, I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves. But I don't just record a dry history of events and facts; I'm writing a history of human feelings.
From the point of view of art, the butcher and the victim are equal as people. You need to see the people.
Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.
No matter what, people don't think of me for glamorous parts. I'll go to an audition or a meeting in a pretty dress, and they still think of me as depressed or embattled. Hopefully, that will change.
AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent. It seems the very model of all the catastrophes privileged populations feel await them.
I think that wealthy white people would like to have a country that resembles the Fifties, when all the minorities were tucked away in ghettos and paid in very low wages but on the surface it was very bright and shiny and free and the rest of the world would look on it longingly.
But her brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day.
My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.
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