"..#Chekhov is the bearer of the greatest banner that has been raised in the thousand years of #Russian history – the banner of a true, humane, Russian democracy, of Russian freedom, of the dignity of the Russian man..Let's begin with respect, compassion and love for the individual…The Russians have seen everything during the last thousand years – but what they have never seen is democracy..
#RussianLiterature #books #bookstodon #Russia
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/88432.Life_and_Fate Life and Fate by #VasilyGrossman

" #Human #history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil, struggling to crush a small kernel of human #kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer. "
#VasilyGrossman
12.12.1905
14.09.1964

#writer #journalist #ukraine #wwii #otd

" #Human #history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil, struggling to crush a small kernel of human #kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer. "
#VasilyGrossman
12.12.1905
14.09.1964

#writer #journalist #ukraine #wwii #otd

Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman is one of my favourite books. A Kiev born Jewish Soviet writer he documented the epic struggle on the Eastern front as a Soviet journalist. Unsurprisingly he also fell foul of Stalinism.

The image below shows a wonderful quote from the book. The photograph is one I took at the Soviet war memorial in Sofia, Bulgaria in the early 90s.

#VasilyGrossman #LifeAndFate #SovietUnion #Sofia #Bulgaria #quote #Ukraine

"Life only becomes happiness, is only endowed with freedom and meaning when someone exists as a whole world that has never been repeated in all eternity. Only then can they experience the joy of freedom and kindness, finding in others what they have already found in themselves."
— #VasilyGrossman, Life and Fate