Come la madre che accoglie felice e gioiosa il figlio reduce dal fronte, per poi accorgersi che è sempre più silenzioso, sempre più legato ai suoi commilitoni, sempre più portato alla violenza, come se la guerra non fosse rimasta laggiù, ma lo avesse seguito a casa. Then they took him off to army. I prayed he wouldn’t be killed. I prayed he wouldn’t be beaten up and humiliated by the bigger, senior ones-he was so small. He told us how they could force you to clean out the toilets with a toothbrush and wash out other people’s underpants. That’s what I was afraid of. He wrote and told us when he was being posted and to send him photos of his mum and sister….* My son was in the Vitebsk parachute division. When I went to see him take his oath of allegiance, I didn’t recognize him; he stood so tall.

I can’t remember who was there with us. Some official. He shook his head. ‘We are not permitted to bury them together. They have to be dispersed throughout the cemetery.’ I said I wanted to choose the place in the cemetery for him myself. They gave me two injections, and I went there with my brother. There were ‘Afghan’ graves on the main avenue. When he went to school, we couldn’t find a uniform to fit him and he was lost in the smallest one they had. My little sunshine…L’invasione durò dieci anni e fu un bagno di sangue. Un milione di giovani sovietici, uomini e donne, furono impegnati e direttamente coinvolti.

They tried to distract me in various ways. A friend came round, then finally a doctor in a white coat arrived. I told him he was crazy, that boys like my son did not get killed. I started hammering the table. I ran over to the window and started beating the glass. They gave me an injection. I kept on shouting. They gave me another injection, but that had no effect, either; I was screaming, ‘I want to see him, take me to my son.’ Eventually they had to take me. Alexievich serves no ideology, only an ideal: to listen closely enough to the ordinary voices of her time to orchestrate them into extraordinary books Philip Gourevitch, New Yorker As part of the regime of military secrecy conscripts are generally sent to their units straight from the training-camp) I’ll sit with him until evening and far on into the night. Sometimes I don’t realize I’ve started wailing until I scare the birds, a whole squall of crows, circling and flapping above me until I come to my senses and stop. I’ve gone there every day for four years, in the evening if not in the morning. I missed eleven days when I was in hospital, then I ran away in the hospital gown to see my son. We got married in the winter, in my village. It was funny and rushed. At Epiphany, when people guess their fortunes, I’d had a dream which I told my mother about in the morning. ‘Mum, I saw this really good-looking boy. He was standing on a bridge, calling me. He was wearing a soldier’s uniform, but when I came towards him he began to go away until he disappeared completely.’

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The haunting history of the Soviet-Afghan War from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2015 My father was a regular officer who died in the defence of Leningrad. My grandfather was an officer too. My son was made to be a military man – he had the bearing, so tall and strong. He should have been a hussar with white gloves, playing cards. Well, angel mother mine, your son has been accepted by the Smolensk Military Academy. I trust you are pleased.’

This book is the result of many personal interviews the author conducted with returned soldiers and civilians and also with the next of kin of those who were returned in zinc coffins, or zinky boys as they became known. Alexievich has managed to put a human face on the Soviet soldier for me, and I have come to realize that soldiers are soldiers the world over. Our governments start wars, and governments legislate soldiers into action whether the soldier likes it or not. In the morning we went to the Military Commissariat. They were very formal. ‘You will be notified when it arrives.’ We waited for two more days before we rang the Provincial Military Commissariat at Minsk. They told us that it would be best if we came to collect my husband’s body ourselves. When we got to Minsk, the official told us that the coffin had been sent on to Baranovichi by mistake. Baranovichi was another 100 kilometres and when we got to the airport there it was after working hours and there was nobody about, except for a night watchman in his hut. Much like any war that is not popular or considered a mistake, the combat veterans heavily contemplate why exactly they were fighting, dying, and mentally scarring themselves. Given how the veterans were treated when they returned home by their politicians, the civilians, etc., I am even more completely comfortable calling this Russia's Vietnam.

And what is it about war-- the most destructive force on earth-- that provides an opportunity to do the most productive self-reflection? In what follows, I haven’t given people’s real names. Some asked for the confidentiality of the confessional, others I don’t feel I can expose to a witch-hunt. We are still so close to the war that there is nowhere for anyone to hide. We went with him as far as Moscow. It was lovely, sunny May weather, and the trees were in bloom. I asked him what it was like over there. Over there,’ he pointed over to a far corner. ‘See if that box is yours. If it is, you can take it.’