Svetlana Alexievich’s book ‘The Unwomanly Face of War’ is one of the most impactful I’ve ever read. The book is a series of interviews with surviving women who fought in the Soviet Red Army during World War Two. Most (not all), of these women were medics and snipers. There are first-person tales of incredible stuff – medics whose job it was to rescue wounded soldiers while under fire – carry a fully grown man, and his weapon (they were ordered to bring the weapon as well), back to Soviet lines. Or (get this…) ride on the outside of tanks as they went into battle. If one tank was hit, their job was to rush to that tank, and help its crew get out (see the Featured Image for a shot of a real T-34 tank from the Second World War).
To be absolutely clear, the book is not Alexievich writing her opinion of Soviet women in war – it’s a collection of interviews. Alexievich chose to track down and interview several hundred of these survivors (I’ve come across estimates of over 200, or even more than 500) back in the 1980s. Alexievich made this topic her own – no one else has bothered to go out and record the memories of these women. As a social-science/historical dataset, ‘The Unwomanly Face of War’ is pure gold.
At the time, the Soviet Union promoted an ideal of equality – among other things, between men and women. This resulted in many women joining the Soviet armed forces. There was a division of gender there – typically they ended up as medics, or, because they were found to be very, very good at this – as snipers.
But here’s the thing. At the end of the war, after all they’d gone through, those women who had survived – came home to find themselves ‘ostracised’. That’s my word, as Alexievich writes in Russian, and I read the English translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. But I think it succinctly describes what the clear majority of these women experienced. It was extreme social prejudice – often from other women. They were viewed as immoral, ‘unwomanly’, and in general, found it easier to never mention the war again. They were excluded from honours and had to deal with their PTSD on their own.
I bought and read ‘The Unwomanly Face of War’ back in September of 2017. Astonished at what I had read, I remarked on it to a Russian friend. The response was instant dismissal. Alexievich had been ‘accused’ of something, and that was that.
What totally mystified me was this reaction to a book – which is simply a collection of interviews. It’s not an opinion-piece. How could this be such a problem?
Alexievich had been put on trial in Belorussia between 1992 and 1996. These trials were in response to another of her books, ‘Zinky Boys, about the fallen soldiers who had returned in zinc coffins from the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979 – 1985‘.
It seems the home truths she was documenting about that war put noses out of joint in the Belarus and Russia leadership. The trials led to nothing – but they were enough to slur her reputation, and that was all that was needed for my Russian friend. Public opinion in Russian society is controlled in various ways.
Alexievich (who was born in Ukraine, to a Belorussian father and Ukrainian mother, but grew up and currently lives in Belorussia) won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015, has condemned Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, and, with respect to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, commented that “providing a territory [Belorussia] for an aggressor country [Russia] is nothing but complicity in a crime”.
After the invasion, a few female Ukrainian fighters became prominent on social media and I started following updates from Olha Bihar, call-sign ‘Witch’ (відьма). She seemed to go quiet after a while, but eventually (Nov 17, 2024) gave an extensive interview with ‘Ukrainian Jenny meets…’ on YouTube:
Then, a few months agom I read Lara Marlowe’s book, ‘How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying’. It’s about Yulia Mykytenko, a Lieutenant commanding a twenty-five men drone reconnaissance platoon on the front. Along with Mykytenko’s amazing life-experiences, she doesn’t hold back opinions about Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian government, or the Armed Forces of Ukraine (democracy in action!), and, importantly – that being accepted in the military as female, remains a battle. The book is extremely topical, as Mykytenko is fighting out there right now.
Currently, the official view is:
“As of January 2024, women constitute 7.3% of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: there are more than 62 thousand women in the AFU, and 45,5 thousand of them hold military positions [and] over 13,000 have been granted combatant status. More than 4,000 women are currently taking part in the fighting.”
This is, of course, no where near ‘equality’, but my feeling is that these women are both being treated nationally as heroes, with respect and admiration. I don’t think there is any chance that after the war, these women will be outcast and ostracised as the Soviet women were. There is, and will be, serious issues of civilians being able to accept and relate to combatants, particularly disabled ones. But that’s a quite separate issue from despising women because they chose to fight in the military.
So here’s what intrigues me: If females (including Ukrainians) who served in the military were ostracised in 1945, what’s happened in Ukrainian society since then, such that they are lionised in 2024? (If you understand the question – well-done. It seems like a lot of people don’t)
I asked one senior Ukrainian academic this question, and got a pithy answer:
“Because we got democracy!”
That made perfect sense to me, but I’m sure (and they will be too) that there’s more to it than that.
For example, Ukraine has aspirations to join Europe. So there is legislation designed to promote gender equality to European standards. In concert with that, there may be subtle ways the government promotes female soldiers and medics to the Ukrainian public. There’s recent history – women were a big part of the Maidan, and Ukraine’s current war-time situation will be promoting overall unity. I guess there are a few feed-back loops in operation, which are acting together to facilitate acceptance of women in various roles in Ukraine. But that would be my-take – I wanted to hear Ukrainian voices on this.
Recently I had the chance to raise the issue with another Ukrainian. This time, a much younger woman, and who hadn’t heard of Alexievich or her book. Her response was one of immediate hostility – and several accusations in quick succession, that I was setting up a “straw-man” (This is a debating tactic, where one person offers a false or facile view of a situation – with the aim of then destroying it and claiming victory).
Trying to walk this back, the hostile reaction seems to have been to the basic point of ‘The Unwomanly Face of War’ – that Red Army women had been “ostracised”. The mere suggestion of this apparently offended her – and furthermore, I was simply reading the (probably false) opinion of this one person (It’s not – it’s the opinion of the several hundred women Alexievich had interviewed), and a Belorussian at that (so possibly some simple knee-jerk response there, and I get that).
This discussion was in the context of trying to find out a little more about what binds the Ukrainian identity. There is a widespread view that the war has helped focus the astonishing difference in mentality between Ukrainians and Russians. One thing about ‘The Unwomanly Face of War’ that I was curious about – was that it described the experience only of ‘Soviet women’. That is, the interviews were with a mixture of national identities, including Ukrainian, Russians and Belorussians, all lumped together as ‘Soviet’. But could Ukrainian veterans have returned home to a different reception than than what most of Alexievich’s informants reported? The general response that I read, is that no, it wasn’t. All those women came home to a pervasive, essentially patriarchal, Soviet society. If Ukraine has changed its views on gender equality over the past few decades, it has likely added a new dimension to how they distinguish themselves from Russians. Over there, the role of women in the Army is more complicated. They do serve, but the leadership rhetoric is that the role of women is to stay at home and have kids.
But again, I wanted to hear Ukrainian thoughts – and I asked the young Ukrainian woman – if she had heard any tales of Ukrainian veterans having had a different reception at the end of the Second World War. Her response was:
“It’s not my job to educate ignorant foreigners. Do your own research.”
So I came away in a bit of a daze – I seem to have found a topic that to me, seemed like a fascinating avenue to explore – but one that clearly triggers hostility – apparently in both some Russians and some Ukrainians.
I’m sure there are plenty of Ukrainian voices out there with thoughtful opinions on this. I’d love to hear them.
References
Alexievich, S. 1992. Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War. W. W. Norton and Company.
Alexievich, S. 2017. The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II. Random House. ISBN 9780399588723.
Marlowe, L. 2024. How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying. Apollo.
Feel like helping?
There are three women I follow on Twitter who are medics in the Ukrainian Army, and very much out in the danger-zone. They are not Ukrainian, but American and Canadian – I follow them as they post in English. They are:
Rima Med: @rima_medUA
April Huggett @AprilHuggett
Rebekah Maciorowski @bekamaciorowski
There is a constant need for donations, for various bits of equipment and medical supplies. If you feel like donating, look them up on Twitter – they (If you prefer to donate to Ukrainian women in the Ukrainian Army, search through who they follow).
