Grave of the Fireflies

My father had been killed, that I knew… My brother was dead. And to die or not die no longer had any significance for me. I only pitied my mama. She had instantly turned from a beauty into an old woman, very embittered by her lot. She couldn’t live without my papa.
“Why are you going to the war?” She asked.
“To avenge papa.”
“Papa wouldn’t stand seeing you with a rifle.”
My papa used to do my braids when I was little. Tied the ribbons. He liked beautiful clothes more than mama did….
– The Unwomanly Face of War, Svetlana Alexievich

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015, Svetlana Alexievich has lived most of her life in Soviet Union, and Belarus – now the neighbour of Ukraine, run by a ruthless dictator, a buddy of Vladimir Putin. This book is her tribute to the thousands of young girls, some still in school, daughters beloveds, mothers and sisters, who fought the Nazis in the front and at the barricades, many of them dead, many of them survivors and alive, their minds, bodies and souls, scarred, ravaged by the apocalyptic war.

Alexievich grew up surrounded by the tragic bravery of these women. And their memories, stated, unstated, suppressed, crushed.

Many women could never be able to love – thereafter. Many never found love, because male machismo just could not reconcile with such incredible courage in women. Many suspected the purity of their character, once they returned from the battlefield, wounded in body and spirit. Indeed, some men can never change their spots.

The writer spent years creating an original non-fiction genre, documenting painstakingly the invisible stories of these remarkable Soviet women – tank drivers, snipers, pilots, captains, soldiers, nurses, doctors. Many of them just could not speak. Their lips were sealed. Others found the anti-catharsis of an avalanche of angst, after pouring it all out, even relief and optimism. A certain lightness of the soul. Perhaps.

Among these women were amazingly brave young girls and women from all over Soviet Russia, including Ukraine. Their shared memories and nightmares remain etched in their consciousness. War separates, but also unites. This solidarity, amid daily death and dying, and the bestiality of men, could never be forgotten.

Six million Jews were murdered in the Nazi labour and concentration camps in the heart of Europe. More than 20 million Russians died to protect their motherland, and to liberate Berlin. The Nazis were not defeated by the Western allies. They were finally defeated by the Red Army of the Soviet Union, despite the endless siege of Leningrad and Stalingrad – and  how can we forget the infinite resilience and sacrifices of the people of Soviet Russia, which included Ukraine?

Were they not the same people with intense bonds of passion shared for their country? Did they not read Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alexander Pushkin, Anton Chekov, Nicolai Gogol? Were they not deeply moved by Maxim Gorky’s epic – Mother? Did they not get transfixed by the exquisite movements of the Ballet, its sublime music crafted by great composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky of the Romantic era?

Can anyone ever forget the Swan Lake, after being totally captivated by its intense beauty in the darkness? Or, The Sleeping Beauty? Did they not watch, or aspire to watch, the magical opera at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, steeped in history, with its neo-classical columns? I have seen it in Moscow – it was hypnotic.

Now, will Ukraine ban Tchaikovsky, as angry nationalism and anti-Russia hate overtakes the nation? Will they burn Tolstoy’s War and Peace? Will they disown Mother and Crime and Punishment?

Now, in this endless, meaningless, botched-up war, the children of the great fighters against fascism, have no choice but to kill each other. In tens of thousands – no one knows the count of the dead in Russia and Ukraine. Russia had to hire mercenaries and recruit criminals from prisons, because so many of their young had died in this so-called ‘military operation’, while many others have chosen exile, escaping the brutality of this mindless war machine.

Putin seems unaffected, his face motionless, as if on steroids. Now, first time in the history of the post-war, Cold War world, America has aligned with Russia, even at the UN, something unprecedented. Donald Trump has called Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, a Western ally, a “dictator”. Now he wants the rich mineral resources of Ukraine, in lieu for all the arms pumped in by Joe Biden, in the same manner that he wants to convert a ravaged Gaza into a real estate Riviera, a kind of Trumpesque/Kafkasque La La Land  – after forcibly evacuating 2 million Palestinians from their homeland.

In any case, Ukraine, a big producer of wheat and known as the ‘bread basket’ of Europe, has been integrated into the multinational agribusiness of corporates like Monsanto. Now, Trump might want the wheat too.

Besides, Trump has polarized Europe, again, for the first time. He seems to have dumped Western Europe for the time being to align with Putin, thereby pushing Ukraine and the EU to the brink. European powers, like Germany and France, are already calling for a big rise in defense budgets, knowing the fickle character of Trump.

In any case, Putin went to war because Ukraine was being roped into NATO, hence drastically disturbing the geo-political scenario in the region, and directly endangering the security of Russia. Surely, he could have chosen diplomacy and hard dialogue, instead of manslaughter on both sides of the border. Besides, it remains a mystery as to why Trump is so besotted by Putin, finds no trace of a dictator in him, even while miscellaneous conspiracy theories float in the grapevine.

ALSO READ: Putin Has Blood On His Face

In the end, even as Neo-Nazis and the extreme Right seem to be gaining ground in many parts of Europe, and one of them with his Heil Hitler salute is now the closest advisor to Trump in the US, there is bound to be a paradigm shift in the days to come. While war is always used by the West to boost a sinking economy, how far the arms industry will call the shots in the Trump era, will remain to be discovered.

However, let us not forget the tens of thousands butchered in Gaza, including young women, mothers and kids, in what seems to a deliberate strategy to stop a new generation to take birth in Palestine. Sounds like the Holocaust and Nazi genetics, is it?

Will the drumbeats of war ever end? Will the simmering pain ever become a faint memory? Will the vast ocean of loss and suffering inflicted by war ever be over in this world which claims to be civilised and modern?

I listen to Joan Baez, yet again. Because this song, too, will never die.

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
They are all in uniform
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone with flowers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?