Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery
Amazon prime logo
Buy new:
-35% $14.99
FREE delivery Saturday, January 11 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$14.99 with 35 percent savings
List Price: $23.00
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Saturday, January 11 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Wednesday, January 8. Order within 22 hrs 14 mins.
In Stock
$$14.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$14.99
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$13.49
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
Nice clean copy with no highlighting or writing. We take pride in our accurate descriptions. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Nice clean copy with no highlighting or writing. We take pride in our accurate descriptions. Satisfaction Guaranteed. See less
FREE delivery Saturday, January 11 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery Friday, January 10. Order within 22 hrs 14 mins
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$14.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$14.99
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets Paperback – March 21, 2017

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,503 ratings

Great on Kindle
Great Experience. Great Value.
iphone with kindle app
Putting our best book forward
Each Great on Kindle book offers a great reading experience, at a better value than print to keep your wallet happy.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.

View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.

Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.

Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.

Get the free Kindle app: Link to the kindle app page Link to the kindle app page
Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$14.99","priceAmount":14.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"14","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"dVoedJlXi7z0TpNV75A2IvEqUcNiJqm3V9RyWB%2F9jVSCTnLA0JaLT369PX6YbQ2RNunybF7vlkDSemAnQ%2BjdXudXokRIvs8eoUryGUw6xKQ%2FF7OXRSWzD5J7VgKg7zw9CPeGgICvF3DB8DTHTmUXJw%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$13.49","priceAmount":13.49,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"13","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"49","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"dVoedJlXi7z0TpNV75A2IvEqUcNiJqm3x1%2FR3DgpQbjiSp8apSUvpoqMWS5yYyCCPAZSaRipDVpDwgh7XqQ%2FBuw1U96oqYRfAu%2F%2BaY2rDvnhkzbwi2UTlRLbiwY%2FwS8UwGtkuq8W%2FiJR4%2B7kFeSdOVrK09yyJKxihmjV3wFGd9LTa6kGDGEMcQbJ4fjnsavL","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia, from Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY • LOS ANGELES TIMESBOOK PRIZE WINNER

One of the New York Times’s100 Best Books of the 21st Century

When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions—a history of the soul.” Alexievich’s distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.

In
Secondhand Time, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past thirty years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it’s like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia and Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, massacres—but also of pride in their country, hope for the future, and a belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Hereis an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful it once dominated a third of the world.

A magnificent tapestry of the sorrows and triumphs of the human spirit woven by a master,
Secondhand Time tells the stories that together make up the true history of a nation. “Through the voices of those who confided in her,” The Nation writes, “Alexievich tells us about human nature, about our dreams, our choices, about good and evil—in a word, about ourselves.”

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Financial Times, Kirkus Reviews
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now

Frequently bought together

This item: Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets
$14.99
Get it as soon as Saturday, Jan 11
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$16.16
Get it as soon as Saturday, Jan 11
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$17.59
Get it as soon as Saturday, Jan 11
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
spCSRF_Treatment
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Svetlana Alexievich and Secondhand Time

“There are many worthwhile books on the post-Soviet period and Putin’s ascent. . . . But the nonfiction volume that has done the most to deepen the emotional understanding of Russia during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union of late is Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history
Secondhand Time.”—David Remnick, The New Yorker

“Like the greatest works of fiction, 
Secondhand Time is a comprehensive and unflinching exploration of the human condition. . . . Alexievich’s tools are different from those of a novelist, yet in its scope and wisdom, Secondhand Time is comparable to War and Peace.”The Wall Street Journal

“Already hailed as a masterpiece across Europe, 
Secondhand Time is an intimate portrait of a country yearning for meaning after the sudden lurch from Communism to capitalism in the 1990s plunged it into existential crisis. A series of monologues by people across the former Soviet empire, it is Tolstoyan in scope, driven by the idea that history is made not only by major players but also by ordinary people talking in their kitchens.”The New York Times

“The most ambitious Russian literary work of art of the century . . . There’s been nothing in Russian literature as great or personal or troubling as Secondhand Time since Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, nothing as necessary and overdue. . . . Alexievich’s witnesses are those who haven’t had a say. She shows us from these conversations, many of them coming at the confessional kitchen table of Russian apartments, that it’s powerful simply to be allowed to tell one’s own story. . . . This is the kind of history, otherwise almost unacknowledged by today’s dictatorships, that matters.”The Christian Science Monitor

“Alexievich’s masterpiece—not only for what it says about the fall of the Soviet Union but for what it suggests about the future of Russia and its former satellites. . .  Stylistically, 
Secondhand Time, like her other books, produces a mosaic of overlapping voices… deepened by extraordinary stories of love and perseverance.”Newsweek

“A trove of emotions and memories, raw and powerful . . . [Secondhand Time] is one of the most vivid and incandescent accounts of [Soviet] society caught in the throes of change that anyone has yet attempted. . . . Alexievich stations herself at a crossroads of history and turns on her tape recorder. . . . [She] makes it feel intimate, as if you are sitting in the kitchen with the characters, sharing in their happiness and agony.”The Washington Post

“An enormous investigation of the generation that saw communism fall, [
Secondhand Time] gives a staggeringly deep and plural picture of a people that has lost its place in history.”San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, in 1948 and has spent most of her life in the Soviet Union and present-day Belarus, with prolonged periods of exile in Western Europe. Starting out as a journalist, she developed her own nonfiction genre, which gathers a chorus of voices to describe a specific historical moment. Her works include War’s Unwomanly Face (1985), Last Witnesses (1985), Zinky Boys (1990), Voices from Chernobyl (1997), and Secondhand Time (2013). She has won many international awards, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0399588825
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (March 21, 2017)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780399588822
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0399588822
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.48 x 1.05 x 8.19 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,503 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Svetlana Alexievich
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, in 1948 and has spent most of her life in the Soviet Union and present-day Belarus, with prolonged periods of exile in Western Europe. Starting out as a journalist, she developed her own nonfiction genre, which gathers a chorus of voices to describe a specific historical moment. Her works include The Unwomanly Face of War (1985), Last Witnesses (1985), Zinky Boys (1990), Voices from Chernobyl (1997), and Secondhand Time (2013). She has won many international awards, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,503 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers

Customers say

Customers find the narrative compelling and interesting. They describe the book as an amazing, surprising read with high value content. The book provides them with insightful perspectives into the lives of three eras of Russians. Many readers praise the power and authenticity of the work. However, opinions differ on how heartbreaking or poignant the book is.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

112 customers mention "Narrative quality"94 positive18 negative

Customers find the narrative compelling and creative. They appreciate the literary innovations and cross-section of life represented. The book is complex and not for the faint of heart, but it's a splendid collection of memories, guilts, and sorrows.

"...of recorded interviews into the most relevant, revealing and interesting passages. That takes a great deal of skill and artistry. ...." Read more

"...-Soviet Russia collected in Alexeyev's "Secondhand Time", a splendid book of memories, guilts and sorrows, of what the Soviet union, and its passing..." Read more

"...It runs through peoples varied life stories from the period, breathlessly, as told by themselves, many of which could stand alone as self-contained..." Read more

"...It stirs the heart and mind and gives the reader the opportunity to examine a shattered world, the chance to think about other such civilizations,..." Read more

95 customers mention "Readability"74 positive21 negative

Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They describe it as an important read with authentic content. The English translation is also praised for its quality.

"...Read this great book. Svetlana Alexievich, of Belarus and Ukrainian parents, spent years on this book...." Read more

"...This volume is certainly worth a purchase; it is in such assemblages of one-on-one testimony that authentic and meaningful works of history are made." Read more

"...While I took the reminder seriously, it is only after reading this great book did I feel the impact of the Soviet belief system...." Read more

"...provided they are distinguished by artistic excellence and high value of content...." Read more

70 customers mention "Insight"62 positive8 negative

Customers find the book provides interesting insights into the lives of Russians from three eras. They say it brings truth and is an oral history. The book provides a clearer understanding of today's contemporary Russia and life under the Soviets. It's a real eye-opener for US observers.

"...thousands of hours of recorded interviews into the most relevant, revealing and interesting passages...." Read more

"...By the halfway mark, the interest has built and built, and then it becomes a page-turner...." Read more

"...This book presents a new way of examining broad stretches of life...." Read more

"...is meant to include philosophical, religious, scientific, and historical writings, provided they are distinguished by artistic excellence and high..." Read more

30 customers mention "Illuminating"27 positive3 negative

Customers find the book insightful and memorable. They appreciate the author's original perspectives and vibrant writing style. The book provides a vivid, gripping account of post-Soviet life.

"...That takes a great deal of skill and artistry. . It lifts this book to the level of literature...." Read more

"...the reader, and which make this book of memories so remarkable and illuminating...." Read more

"...of interviews with subjects who had experiences or observations of great moments in history. This is oral history, a form of non-fiction...." Read more

"...As such, it delivers a more effective and memorable overview of the past and especially the current state of mind of the Russian people...." Read more

18 customers mention "Power"18 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's power. They describe it as a remarkable project that gives voice to those who are rarely heard. The writing is excellent and the quality is good.

"...It was worth the long slog of reading this long and magnificent work, and I recommend it highly to all serious readers." Read more

"...Second, the author has done a very good job of finding a particular type of Russian (namely, the inhabitants described in the first paragraph) and..." Read more

"...A remarkable project, giving voice to those who normally are never interviewed by anyone." Read more

"...It is memorizing, shocking, numbing, and powerful. I strongly encourage anyone to read this who is interested in the psyche of a people...." Read more

7 customers mention "Authenticity"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book honest, sincere, and accurate. They describe it as a unique and wonderful documentary style. The reporting is brilliant on how ordinary people live.

"...peoples varied life stories from the period, breathlessly, as told by themselves, many of which could stand alone as self-contained works of strong..." Read more

"...Brutal, tender, honest, heartbreaking and hopeful. Alexievich is extraordinary writer, who has absolutely earned her Nobel Prize all over again." Read more

"Heartwrenching but brilliant reporting on how the ordinary person lives and suffers in Russia and satellite countries, no matter what political..." Read more

"A wonderful, unique, and authentic style of documentary." Read more

55 customers mention "Heartbreakingness"25 positive30 negative

Customers have different views on the book's heartbreakingness. Some find it poignant and a deep, empathic reading experience. Others find the stories depressing and graphic, making it emotionally draining to read.

"...This book frightened and saddened me. There were passages where I, an old veteran, noticed tears on my cheeks...." Read more

"Reading the many perspectives and stories was absolutely fascinating, sad, happy, and everything in between...." Read more

"...this government proceeded instead to ignore, brutalize, imprison, torture, kill, and starve to death a goodly part of its people, enabling their..." Read more

"...It is memorizing, shocking, numbing, and powerful. I strongly encourage anyone to read this who is interested in the psyche of a people...." Read more

17 customers mention "Pacing"11 positive6 negative

Customers have different views on the pacing of the book. Some find it well-written with interesting interviews and stories of kindness. Others mention meanness, cruelty, and unusual thinking.

"...It is journalistic and documentary. It links the people in a collective whole...." Read more

"...But there are also stories of incredible kindness and sharing of what little they have to help a neighbor worse off than themselves...." Read more

"...I think Svetlana is saying the inability to control your instincts and a desire to make the grand gesture is a Russian trait...." Read more

"Extremely well written and researched. A chilling look at the brutality and senselessness of the Stalin purges; however, too much repetition of..." Read more

The Place Need to Worry About is Russia
5 out of 5 stars
The Place Need to Worry About is Russia
To read this book is an amazing experience. Since 1917, the authentic voice of Russia has been stifled by political propaganda. Svetlana Alexievich has given that voice back and provides us with the stories of just some of the people who survived the events of the last 70 years.Although the theme of the book is the fate of the Soviet Union, the individuals whose stories are told in this book are still haunted by the time before, Stalin and "the Great Patriotic War" weigh heavier on contemporary society in Russia than FDR and WWII do in the USA.Along with the various traumas of the past, the collapse of "the unbreakable union" of Soviet Socialist Republics inflicted new burdens. Alexievich provides her readers with tales of people fleeing from one corner of the Soviet Union for another and living, but generally leading miserable lives. While many initially thought they would get rich and start a business after the fall of communism, most hanker for the days of Brezhnev only with enough salami.The consensus of many people in the book is that the mighty fortress that was the Soviet Union, the country that beat Hitler and conquered space was exchanged for blue jeans and VCRs and destitution. Engineers became cab drivers, families could not afford to bury their dead, refugees from the former outposts of empire were forced to squat in the Moscow train station.There are some who (mistakenly, in my opinion) believe that these economic dislocations will lead to "rebirth of freedom" that will drive autocrats like Putin from power. If anything this book underscores the fallacy of that expectation. Every neo con with an opinion on Russia ought to be forced to stand in a corner and not be allowed to leave until he has read this book. If anything, this book is a justification and explanation for Putin. Freedom, in the minds of the former Soviet citizens led to murder, rape, homelessness, and suicide. Why would they want more?There are a couple of things I would have liked to have seen with this book. Most of the people, though certainly not all, are women. I would have like to heard From more male witnesses to the post1991 dislocations. I would have like to have also read about some of the winners, the profiteers and gangsters who rose to prominence. However, Alexievich's subjects tend to be introspective and candid, virtues not generally associated with either group.This is an important book and worth reading. The author won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2015, this work more than justifies the honor.
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2017
    My family, long ago, came from Ukraine so I have a special interest in this book, though most of the interviews are with Russians. Over the decades I read many books, before and after the collapse of the USSR, These books would describe the great events, the leaders, the wars, the financial shenanigans, but they were like getting all the nutritional and marketing information on a food product but never being able to taste it. Do you want to know what the collapse of the USSR meant to most of its people? Read this great book. Svetlana Alexievich, of Belarus and Ukrainian parents, spent years on this book. She has a genius on getting people to open up and, distilling thousands of hours of recorded interviews into the most relevant, revealing and interesting passages. That takes a great deal of skill and artistry. . It lifts this book to the level of literature. I cannot remember reading a book that was so moving; much more so than some of the best novels I have read. Svetlana deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature she was awarded in 2015, primarily for her books on the Aphganistan war and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. She was the first journalist, who only wrote non-fiction, to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
    This book frightened and saddened me. There were passages where I, an old veteran, noticed tears on my cheeks. How can people do such things to each other? Do we all have a beast inside us that the right circumstances and forces can release? How can Armenians and Azerbaijani, who had lived peacefully as neighbors for generations, commit atrocities against each other? One witness describes an Azerbaijani gang killing a pregnant woman and then cutting the baby out of her. Another describes a terrified little girl climbing a tree to get away from her pursuers. They surrounded the tree and shot at her until she fell to the ground.
    Another interviewer describes what his future father-in-law, a retired NKVD colonel, told him about his service. How he would torture prisoners, make them kneel, and then shoot them behind the ear. This colonel seethed with rage at the new Russia but behind his words I felt shame and pangs of conscience, all repressed. After hearing the colonel’s stories the future son-in-law broke his engagement and fled the family.
    Many of the people said they never told their story to anyone, not even family members. But finally they were willing to talk. One man described that as a schoolboy in Ukraine he fell under Communist propaganda requiring denouncing “enemies of the people.” So he denounced his uncle. What had the uncle done? He hid several sacks of flour and other food in the forest because he saw communist gangs going from farm to farm and confiscating all available food. This was the start of the Great Famine in Ukraine 1931-1933 in which several million Ukrainians starved. Stalin’s purpose was to force the farmers to give up their land and go into collective farms. But it was also meant to induce terror and break the spirit of the people, make them docile and obedient. “Bitter Harvest”, a just released dramatic film, deals with this period. Anyway, the uncle was arrested and sent to Siberian prison, the mother disowned her son and threw him out of her house. The family apparently perished in the great famine.
    Some old communists describe how they hate predatory capitalism. They were poor in their time but the West feared the USSR and they still believed communism would make life better. They had their pride and ideals. Now they just have their poverty, pensions that may not permit even buying a sausage, though there always seems to be money for cheap vodka.
    It seems nothing much has changed. During communism it was the opportunists, the liars, thieves and psychopaths who had the best chance to get ahead. After the USSR fall it was the thugs, bribers, and people with connections and with power who had a jump on everyone else. Strangely, almost none of the old communists question the criminality of the system. One woman, though, whose daughter was badly injured in a terrorist attack in a Moscow subway, said. “The Chechens are doing to us what we did to them.”
    Near the end of the book I got irritated and impatient with the long saga of Lena. But maybe Svetlana wanted to make a point about the Russian character. Lena marries for love but, as happens to the majority of the women in these interviews, her husband becomes a heavy drinker and constantly beats her. After a time Lena flees to a boy who loved her in school. Eventually they marry and have two sons. Some years pass but Lena is obsessed with a dream she had of a handsome man who is her soulmate. Corresponding with a lifer in prison Lena decides he is it. She divorces her husband and marries the lifer. No matter that she has married a murderer who is permitted visits twice a year. No matter that her former husband did not drink, or beat her and loved her. A filmmaker hears about Lena and makes a documentary about her life. She and her former husband are invited to Moscow to tell their story before a television audience. Meanwhile, her prison husbands says she lives too far away from the prison, located in the boondocks of Russia and has probably been unfaithful to him. So he demands Lena move to a nowhere town near the prison even though she can visit him only twice a year. Lena complies.
    Her prison husband is also a piece of work. He was 18 and walking from a dance with the girl he loved. She asked how much he loved her. He said more than life itself. He would die for her. Dying for me is nothing; would you kill a man for me, the girl asked. Yes, I would, he replied. Good; kill the next man that comes up the road. He did.
    Now the Russians may be fascinated with this story but I am disgusted. This is not great passion and tragedy but two people in need of psychiatric help. I think Svetlana is saying the inability to control your instincts and a desire to make the grand gesture is a Russian trait. If you can’t control your instincts and are a romantic you need outside control. So hand the Russians democracy on a platter; they will choose dictatorship. “Everything Russian is filled with sorrow” Svetlana has written.
    One lesson I got from the book is that civilization is a thin veneer covering potential savagery; and that democracy is fragile. The “enemy of the people” quote made me think of Trump and what an American journalist described recently about her visit to a beauty salon in Moscow. She was having her nails done when Trump’s name came up. The Russian manicurist started crying. Why, what’s wrong, the journalist asked. “That’s the way it started here,” the beautician said.
    Please God not here.
    24 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2022
    Let me tell you a story. It is about people, good people, who lived in the largest country on earth, and for 70 years this land was governed to become-or to resemble-a paradise for the workers inside it. And the rulers of that "worker's paradise" did try to put out written statements telling everyone inside and outside their country that it was such a "paradise" for the least privileged of its own citizens, or that it was fast on the way to becoming in full reality this sort of utopia. And however much they kept telling their own people, their workers, how special and "revolutionary" they were, they never succeeded in their task of building for their citizens their long-promised utopian worker's paradise, and, over the course of their rule, this government proceeded instead to ignore, brutalize, imprison, torture, kill, and starve to death a goodly part of its people, enabling their top leaders to live like kings and magnates. Of course the people remembered this ill-treatment they had received over the course of 70 years, but they also valued the stability of their lives, under a government that provided free education, cut-rate (but shoddily built) apartment residences, free health care. And then, after a few decades of this kind of stability and half-prosperity, again, with everyone hoping that they were really on the "revolutionary" train to earthly perfection, as their commissars had told them to believe, poof, it was all gone. In its place, a decade of shortages of everything, a worthless paper currency, the rise of a class of ultra-rich who cared nothing for anyone else who weren't as rich and privileged as they were. And all the people's sufferings and brave endurance under the hoof of all those promises, and those sacrifices were just forgotten. This is the story of reminiscences by ex-Soviet citizens of a post-Soviet Russia collected in Alexeyev's "Secondhand Time", a splendid book of memories, guilts and sorrows, of what the Soviet union, and its passing, meant to them. What can a reader who did not grow up in Russia, particularly in the Soviet Union, tell these people? What can he tell them what their lives, their decades of hoping, of sacrifices, of sufferings and betrayal by the Regime that so many of them utterly believed in are worth, now? There are in this carefully compiled book, so many agonizing statements by these men and women, life-veterans of a great endeavor that never really worked, that betrayed in the end the very people who believed in it and its leaders the most, which cry out to the reader, and which make this book of memories so remarkable and illuminating. The volume is divided into two big parts: interviews taken 1991-2001, and 2002-2012. Like her respondents, the interviewer, Svetlana Alexievich, is herself a former citizen of the Soviet Union, the worker's paradise that went askew early in its course, and that never got re-righted into something humane and just, but became first a shameless plutocracy and then, under Putin, an utter, bloodthirsty dictatorship. (She has also received the Nobel Prize for literature.) This volume is certainly worth a purchase; it is in such assemblages of one-on-one testimony that authentic and meaningful works of history are made.
    11 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2022
    I like the authors style of interviewing numerous people and collecting and interconnecting their experiences. It is journalistic and documentary. It links the people in a collective whole.

    Its starts slowly and there is a sort of lack of continuity, there is no plot to follow. This does mean that you can pick it up and put it down at any page. It’s a kaleidoscope, a fascinating gallery of voices. By the halfway mark, the interest has built and built, and then it becomes a page-turner.

    This memoir includes some remarkable individual accounts. It runs through peoples varied life stories from the period, breathlessly, as told by themselves, many of which could stand alone as self-contained works of strong individual interest. Most memorable and notable of which, “on the mercy of memories and the lust for meaning” and “A mans story” (p 195). One womans fickle mind is revealed in “the story of a love affair”. A romance across sectarian divides, to the backdrop of the ethnic cleansing in Azerbaijan is told in “On Romeo and Juliet…”. These are snapshots from the recent past, of a country rapidly changing. They are already memorable lives to me. And those are the bits you will want to return to and savour.
    One person found this helpful
    Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
  • Sergio Levin Kosberg
    5.0 out of 5 stars Periodo histórico muy importante
    Reviewed in Mexico on August 5, 2024
    El uso de la técnica de Historia Oral nos ofrece la vivencia directa de los habitantes de Rusia durante esos años.
  • Helena
    5.0 out of 5 stars Chegou logo
    Reviewed in Brazil on October 20, 2021
    Gostei que chegou logo e bem embalado. Ainda não li mas sei que vou gostar.
  • Tomas Danielis
    5.0 out of 5 stars Must read
    Reviewed in Germany on January 1, 2025
    Books offers unique view into experiences of post-soviet times. Stories of ordinary people creates bridge for understanding without prejudice or need of judgment.
  • vivek
    5.0 out of 5 stars The most humane writing
    Reviewed in India on September 3, 2022
    Customer image
    vivek
    5.0 out of 5 stars The most humane writing
    Reviewed in India on September 3, 2022

    Images in this review
    Customer image
    Customer image
  • John Cook
    5.0 out of 5 stars From Stalin to Putin
    Reviewed in Canada on August 4, 2018
    A super book about the very complex and difficult transition from communism to capitalism, from an almost religious sense of communal life to the challenges and disappointments of the competitive market economy.
    One person found this helpful
    Report