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
Stalin's machine can be started up again at only a moment's notice: the same informers, the same denunciations, the same tortures. The same universal, all-devouring terror.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the pervasive fear and control under Stalin's regime, emphasizing how the mechanisms of oppression are always ready to be activated.
Svetlana Alexievich captures the chilling reality of life under Stalin's rule, where the machinery of terror is permanently in place, ready to inflict suffering at any moment. The reference to informers, denunciations, and tortures underlines the oppressive atmosphere of mistrust and brutality that characterized this period in history, demonstrating how quickly and easily a regime can mobilize its repressive apparatus to instill fear among the populace.
Themes
StalinTerrorOppressionFearDenunciation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a historical lecture about totalitarian regimes.
More from Svetlana Alexievich
All quotes βThe subjects I wanted to write about - the mystery of the human soul, evil - didn't interest newspapers, and news reporting bored me.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
'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.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
There is no need to give in to the compromise that totalitarian regimes always count on.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
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.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
From the point of view of art, the butcher and the victim are equal as people. You need to see the people.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
Similar quotes
The Edmund Pettus Bridge - which in 2013 was declared a National Historic Landmark - isn't symbolic of the Civil War in a meaningful way. It is, however, the modern-day battlefield where the voting rights movement was born.
Douglas BrinkleyRead
The British are coming. One if by land, two if by sea.
Paul RevereRead
I went out to Charing Cross to see Major General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could in that condition.
Samuel PepysRead
If you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government.
George WillRead
The history of the world - by which, of course, we mean Europe - is a record of intertribal lacerations, of ethnic cleansings.
Derek WalcottRead
The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future.
B. H. Liddell HartRead