Svetlana Alexievitch

Avec André Bayrou (CPGE lycée Carnot), Hélène Gravier (CPGE Georges de la Tour), Philippe Quesne (CPGE Henri 4) et Fanny Vernay (CPGE Jules Garnier)
nous publions ce volume consacré au programme de lettres-philo des CPGE scientifiques 2021, "La force de vivre" (Hugo, Nietzsche, Alexievitch).
Un ouvrage à destination des étudiants, étudiantes, collègues enseignants ou enseignantes, membres de jury (et de toute personne intéressée)... conçu et utile à la fois pour l'introduction, les repères, l'approfondissement et les révisions du thème.
- Cours synthétique sur les trois œuvres
- Citations commentées à mémoriser
- Réseau de mots-clés et de références culturelles, selon 5 axes
- Méthodologie de la dissertation, pas à pas
- Grille de compétences
- 20 sujets intégralement rédigés
- Sujets pour s’entraîner

La autora rusa, galardonada recientemente con el Premio Nobel de literatura, culmina en El fin del “Homo sovieticus” una de las mejores y más originales obras literarias y de pensamiento de estos principios de siglo XXI. Un libro que atrapa, fascina y aterra, a partes iguales.

U članku se analiziraju svjedočenja žena i muškaraca koji su djetinjstvo i mladost proveli u socijalizmu te odrastao život u kapitalizmu, a koje je Svetlana Aleksievič sabrala i objavila u jednoj od svojih najpopularnijih knjiga Rabljeno doba (kraj crvenog čovjeka) [Vremja sekond hènd (konec krasnogo čeloveka), 2013]. Rad promatra kako kroz materijalne predmete – novac kao u najdoslovnijem smislu “korijensku metaforu” (Shell 1995) i druge predmete potrošnje – njezini sugovornici vide, tumače i predočuju tranziciju. Nadovezujući se na istraživanja Mauricea Halbwachsa o društvenim okvirima pamćenja te Jana Assmanna i Pierrea Nore o prošlosti kao uvijek aktualnom fenomenu jer ga oblikuje pojedinčev odnos prema sadašnjosti, postavljam tezu da je u predočavanju socijalizma za Aleksievičine sugovornike ključan njihov doživljaj tranzicije i kapitalističke suvremenosti. Rabljeno doba nudi prikaz afektivnog života kapitalizma u postsovjetskoj svakodnevici iz kojeg je moguće predočiti i njegovu moralnu ekonomiju. U drugom dijelu rada kritički pristupam autorskome glasu Svetlane Aleksievič (vidljivom na različitim razinama njezinih djela) pokazujući da on često stigmatizira iskustvo svojih sugovornika, što se osobito jasno vidi u autoričinu tretmanu nostalgije prema sovjetskoj prošlosti kojom se nameće moralna ekonomija koja ne proizlazi iz iskazanih afekata u samim svjedočenjima njezinih sugovornika.

The paper undertakes a comparative analysis of three texts: War’s Unwomanly Face by Svetlana Alexievich, the novel The Sleeping Voice by Dulce Chacón, and a testimony about women’s activism, resistance and imprisonment during the Francoist regime edited by Tomasa Cuevas. The aim of the study is to examine the problems of feminine authors’ narratives being excluded from official archives of memory, as well as emotions. The issues are considered in two different political contexts which, nevertheless, reveal quite similar mechanisms of an organization using hegemonic discourses of power.

In this fictional conversation with Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize-winning author of The Unwomanly Face of War and Second-Hand Time, the author meditates on the lived simplicity of a ‘conversation’ between women, such as Alexievich weaves through her writing, as she interviews older women who had volunteered to fight on the Soviet front. Weaving between anecdote, memoir and ‘empty time’ spent in Athens reading, writing, the author thinks how to articulate another genre of ‘philosophy’ that would not be heroic but intimate, a space opening between two, as if under the shelter of a shady awning, in the sun – stretching across geography and time to think also the taboos of philosophical discourse: confession, ‘personal life’, the space and place of writing, doubt, fear – we arrive at a ‘bare’ space of philosophical address, in which care takes the place of boasting or authority and nothing very much happens except time spent. What is enacted then is the moment of address, the confidence, as between a mother and daughter, across generations, revealing a gulf and desire for proximity, for hearing and being heard. Enacting also Heraclitus’s dictum – to search (for) oneself – this letter-essay seeks its aim, its end, its center, just as it unfolds.

Sul tema della guerra e in particolare del corpo del caduto, si propone un raffronto tra i testi (e i mondi) di due autori, Giovanni Verga e il  premio nobel 2015,  Svetlana Aleksievič,    distanti nel tempo e nello spazio, ma accomunati dal voler  contenere, o dissimulare, nelle loro narrazioni polifoniche, la presenza  autoriale. Un accostamento indirizzato a rilevare la  comune «concrezione» antropologica trattata (la guerra,  il corpo del caduto, l’attesa da parte della donna).  Alcuni testi di Verga e della Aleksievič (tratti in particolare da Ragazzi di zinco)  rappresentano  in modo emblematico un fenomeno  drammaticamente caratterizzante la condizione umana e consentono  di  evidenziare  mutamenti  riguardanti il reale, l’immaginario, e le «forme del contenuto».

En el presente artículo, analizamos cómo varios traductores a idiomas europeos abordan la traducción de las referencias históricas de la época soviética, presentes en Vremja sekond hènd (El fin del «Homo sovieticus»), una obra literaria de Svetlana Aleksiévich. El abismo entre la cultura rusa y las de los países occidentales hace que gran cantidad de las referencias al pasado de la URSS resulte opaca para el público lector de Occidente. Debido a reiteradas apariciones de estas en la obra objeto de estudio, los traductores se ven obligados a decidir qué procedimientos de traducción pueden emplear para transmitir el significado de dichas referencias, en qué casos tienen que conservarlas tal cual y hasta qué punto necesitan acercar el texto al lector. Con el fin de detectar posibles dificultades a la hora de traducir elementos propios de la historia soviética y ejemplificar las estrategias aplicadas, estudiamos el trasvase del texto original ruso a cuatro idiomas: francés, portugués, español e inglés. Tras clasificar las referencias históricas y contrastar su tratamiento en el corpus, podemos concluir que la selección de los procedimientos de traducción varía no solo en función de la referencia en cuestión y el contexto en el que figura, sino también en función del género al que el traductor y la editorial atribuyen la obra.

"De Russische inmenging in de Amerikaanse verkiezingen is een zoveelste stap in een lange geschiedenis van Russische manipulatie van historische gebeurtenissen. Met haar literaire werken gaat de Wit-Russische schrijfster en Nobelprijswinnares Svetlana Alexijevitsj de strijd aan met deze mystificaties van de geschiedenis. Het verhaal van een meerstemmig oeuvre."
https://www.rektoverso.be/artikel/svetlana-alexijevitsj-en-de-nacht-van-de-geschiedenis

[fr] La Supplication de Svetlana Alexievitch traite de la catastrophe nucléaire de Tchernobyl à partir d’entretiens menés par l’auteur en 1996 avec plus de cinq cents personnes en Biélorussie. Malgré le caractère accidentel de l’événement, cette œuvre doit être considérée comme un témoignage, héritier de la tradition testimoniale qui s’est constituée au XXe siècle en lien avec les violences politiques de masse ; car elle vise essentiellement à dénoncer un crime politique, dans la gestion de la catastrophe. Le témoignage prend ainsi la forme d’une enquête qui, tout en tâchant de penser l’impensable mal radioactif, donne à comprendre l’étendue du sacrifice humain. Si celui-ci est encore en cours, c’est notamment parce que le déni totalitaire de la catastrophe par le parti communiste de l’Union soviétique a été relayé par celui des instances nationales et internationales post-totalitaires.

[en] Writing the Future : Testimony and Politics According to Svetlana Aleksievich
Svetlana Aleksievich’s Voices from Chernobyl deals with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster through more than 500 interviews conducted in Byelorussia by the author. Despite the accidental nature of the event, this work must be understood as a form of testimony, heir to the witness tradition born in the 20th century in response to mass political violence, inasmuch as it essentially aims at denouncing, in the way the catastrophe was managed, a political crime. The testimony thus takes the shape of an enquiry which, at the same time as it tries to come to terms with the unspeakable evils of radioactivity, gives us to understand the depth of the human sacrifice involved. If the latter is still going on, it is more particularly because the totalitarian denial by the Soviet Union’s Communist party of the catastrophe has been followed by the same denial on the part of the post-totalitarian national and international authorities.

Il saggio è dedicato alla rappresentazione della guerra nelle scritture del premio Nobel della Letteratura 2015,  Svetlana Aleksievič, rilevandone l’assoluta novità: perché adotta, in La guerra non ha un volto di donna, uno «sguardo di genere»; perché le storie narrate sono antiepiche; perché le sue narrazioni sono polifoniche, costituite dalle «voci» di innumerevoli testimoni: di donne combattenti, di coloro che erano bambini durante la seconda guerra mondiale (Gli ultimi testimoni), di donne  che hanno atteso invano il ritorno dei loro uomini (Ragazzi di zinco). Mediante l’ intersecarsi di punti di vista, rifiutando  la «selezione» mimetica, abbandonandosi a una «cattiva infinità» di  piccole storie individuali,  la Aleksievič intende comunque confrontarsi con la Storia, non quella  ufficiale e legittimata, ma quella obliata.

This essay discusses the representation of war in the writings of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, Svetlana Aleksievič,  and notes  the novelty of her work:  the description of war through the eyes of women (War's Unwomanly Face); the stories she tells us are anti-epic and polyphonic;  they are stories that represent the voices of countless witnesses from women fighters and children of World War II (The Last Witnesses) to women who hopelessly waited for their men (Zinky Boys).  In her refusal to select the experience of the few and in her representation of the countless witnesses of war, Svetlana Aleksievič is nevertheless confronting history; not the official history but the forgotten one.  In her description of the countless victims of the brutality of war, Svetlana Aleksievič imprint in the collective memory the true reality of war and real meaning of history.

"Я предполагаю рассматривать эти тексты из другой перспективы: они являются моральной философией, способом обсуждения этических вопросов, прежде всего проблемы поиска смысла страдания (советским, а затем постсоветским) человеком, задавшимся фундаментальным вопросом - имеет ли наше существование смысл либо происходящее с нами является бессмысленным, случайным, абсурдным? -- в ситуации, когда происходит слом и распад казавшегося незыблемым порядка."

In literary journalism, just like in fiction, reality is organized in ways that reflect the authors’ worldviews. Their choices in style and structure often result in unique ways for the reader to virtually experience the events told in reportages. Based on a close reading of excerpts from three books – one by the Polish writer Hanna Krall and two by the Belarusian reporter Svetlana Alexievich – we intend to understand features peculiar to literary journalism produced by Slavic women. Our goal is to identify the singularities in style and voice in each author’s work, as well as their narrative and discourse strategies. In our findings, we understand that Svetlana Alexievich tends to present a mosaic of individual experience for the reader to grasp a broader sense of reality, while Hanna Krall’s style is full of narrative discontinuities and gaps of information, an approach she believes is more truthful in emulating reality as it is experienced by her subjects.

Etik estetiğe yem edilebilir mi? Asıl soru budur trajedi karşısında, Adorno o meşhur yargıyı ortaya koyduğundan beri.-Barbarlık mıydı Auschwitz'ten sonra şiir yazmak?-Bu yargı faşizmin egemen gücünün kurbanlarının estetik bir kültür belgesine dönüştürülmesine karşı bir tedbir, bir uyarı niteliği taşıyordu. Nitekim Adorno, nasıl hiçbir kilisenin ikonu Tanrı'yı temsil edemiyorsa, hiçbir imgenin ve dilin de bu vahşeti ifade edemeyeceğini düşünüyordu. Sanatı sanat için kabul etmek; yani ona malzemesi ne olursa olsun yalnızca kendi ontolojisinden bir pay vermek yeni bir tür barbarlık güzellemesi idi. Biliyorduk, faşizmin coşkusu savaşta ve kanda görülmek istiyordu. Peki ya kendi çağının şahitleri; o şahitlerin hafızalarının üretecekleri kültür belgelerinde, kurulan metinlerde toplama kampları ve savaşlar hakkı ile anlatılabilecek miydi?

"Voces de Chernóbil. Crónica del futuro" (2015[2005]) de Svetlana Alexiévich resulta difícil de encasillar en un género, ya que encabalga el testimonio, el periodismo y la narrativa (con su consecuente impronta ficcional), de ahí que para este artículo se escogiera el término "testimonio ficcional" para leer a través de este cómo se construye la catástrofe de Chernóbil a partir de la condición residual en la palabra que testimonia y en dos espacios que fijan el resto: el museo y la fotografía. Textos de autores como Georges Didi-Huberman, Giorgio Agamben, Ricardo Forster, Elizabeth Jelin y Andreas Huyssen, entre otros, se utilizarán como soportes teóricos que ayudarán en la reflexión sobre este libro, el más reconocido, de la Premio Nobel de Literatura 2015.

Oral histories are emerging as a useful way for analysts to get beyond the facade of high politics, public discourse and popular protests in the post-Soviet space
//
Для исследователей устное повествование становится полезным инструментом, позволяющим взглянуть на то, что таится за фасадом официальной политики, широко обсуждаемых тем и общественных протестов на постсоветском пространстве

Рассматривается круг чтения героев в романе С.А. Алексиевич «Цинковые мальчики». Раскрывается альтернативное видение автором событий Афганской войны. Доказывается, что русская и мировая литература воспринимаются как основа для создания и одновременно развенчания идеологических и культурных мифов о войне. Литературная рефлексия героев исследуется в контексте истории эмоций советского человека последних десятилетий XX в. Акцентируется роль автора в создании художественно-документальной прозы.

Ключевые слова: художественно-документальная проза; человек читающий; «роман голосов»; литературная рефлексия; интертекстуальные связи.

This courses focuses on the environmental, historical, political, social, and cultural aftermath of the disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in the Soviet Union on April 26 1986. A seeming utopia turned dystopia, it haunts our nostalgia for a lost world as well as our current climate anxieties. It was and remains a catastrophe in search of a narrative frame, and as such it introduces the contradictions of Russian culture and society. Throughout this course, we will consider various responses to and representations of what happened that night as well as the irreversible consequences it is still
causing for us today. Three works in different genres from different countries will guide our inquiry: the Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana
Alexievich’s oral history Voices from Chernobyl (1997), the Russian mini-series Inseparable (2014), and the acclaimed HBO mini-series Chernobyl (2019). These works will be complemented by other materials from multiple disciplines to provide a broader view of the ways in which human disaster can be known and depicted. Assignments as well as readings may be completed in either English or Russian.

In literary journalism, just like in fiction, reality is organized in ways that reflect the author's worldviews. Their choices in style and structure often result in unique ways for the reader to virtually experience the events told in reportages. Based on a close reading of excerpts from three books – one by the Polish writer Hanna Krall and two by the Belarusian reporter Svetlana Alexievich – we intend to understand features peculiar to literary journalism produced by Slavic women. Our goal is to identify the singularities in style and voice in each author's work, as well as their narrative and discourse strategies. In our findings, we understand that Svetlana Alexievich tends to present a mosaic of individual experience for the reader to grasp a broader sense of reality, while Hanna Krall's style is full of narrative discontinuities and gaps of information, an approach she believes is more truthful in emulating reality as it is experienced by her subjects.

Resumo: Propõe-se aqui uma análise do livro Vozes de Tchernóbil, de Svetlana Aleksiévitch, contra o pano de fundo da bibliografia recente sobre temporalidade histórica e a respeito da atual mudança climática. Procura-se abordar o acidente nuclear da usina soviética como exemplo do que a autora afirma ser uma " história de catástrofes ". Pensada com relação à ação humana, essa história de catástrofes se situa sobre a dissolução das fronteiras entre natureza e cultura e no interior de uma profunda alteração na escala do agir humano, que agora alcança escala planetária. Por isso, utiliza-se o desastre nuclear de Tchernóbil como forma de refletir a respeito do papel da história no chamado Antropoceno, período geológico caracterizado pela capacidade da agência humana de interferir nos ciclos naturais. Por fim, reflete-se acerca do tema do " fim do mundo " a partir da simultaneidade entre o desastre de Abstract: What is proposed here is a reading of Svetlana Aleksiévitch's Voices of Chernobyl against the background of recent literatura about historical time and about the contemporary climate change. The paper analyses the nuclear disaster at the Soviet energy plan as an example of what Aleksiévitch calls a " history of catastrophes ". If thought in relation with human agency, this history of catastrophes situates itself over the dissolution of the limits between nature and culture and inside a profound modification in the scale of human agency, which now extends over a planetary dimension. In

Galia Ackerman raconte Tchernobyl, région florissante d’Ukraine à jamais transformée en zone interdite. Au fil de ses rencontres avec la population, prise entre trafics mafieux et animaux sauvages, elle décrit une nature empoisonnée qui annonce l’avenir d’après la catastrophe.

O presente trabalho busca relacionar os conceitos de “cena da escrita” e “cena da leitura” no primeiro capítulo do livro “A Guerra não tem rosto de mulher”, da escritora bielorrussa Svetlana Aleksiévitch. Nele a autora se questiona, num primeiro momento, sobre o porquê de estar escrevendo um livro sobre a Guerra. Ao longo do texto, ela se recorda do que havia lido na infância, que poderia ter lhe despertado este desejo.
(continua na p. 1)

Este ensaio tem como foco essencial analisar a complexa trama política e ideológica que marca o pensamento filosófico, político e social da Rússia contemporânea. A discussão e o confronto crítico de ideias e reflexões teóricas (divergentes e convergentes, russas e estrangeiras) sobre a história, o pensamento e a sociedade russas norteiam este texto e encaminham a análise para uma ampla percepção sobre os mecanismos ideológicos, que regem, em particular, uma releitura da figura de Stálin e de certos princípios stalinistas (como o patriotismo, por exemplo), operantes nos rumos atuais da história russa. O texto se debruça também sobre a análise de escritores da literatura russa contemporânea, dentre os quais a escritora bielorussa, Svetlana Alexiévitch, ganhadora do prêmio Nobel de Literatura, em 2015.
(continua na p. 1)

The aim of the article is the interpretation of Svetlana Alexievich's prose focused, first of all, on women's characters. They are discussed, among other things, from the point of view of the feminine myth which constitutes the basis of the Russian culture. The examination of the collections of reportages War does not have a woman's face, Chernobyl prayer and Secondhand time. The last of the Soviets allowed us to turn the attention to the motivation and images of female characters of the aforementioned texts. On the one hand, the stories of contemporary women, recorded by the Nobel prize winner, confirm the stereotypical perception of Soviet women in the society, on the other, however, they help us to discover the features which are common for those images and very often enrooted in Slavic mythology and Christianity. The text also gives insight into the poetics of Alexievich's works and constitutes an attempt at looking at the documentary character of her prose through the problem of the myth.

Em dezembro de 2015, a escritora bielorrussa Svetlana Aleksiévitch subiu à tribuna da Academia Sueca, em Estocolmo, para realizar um discurso sobre sua obra, na ocasião de recebimento do prêmio Nobel de Literatura. "Escrevi cinco livros, mas tenho a impressão de que todos eles são apenas um. Um livro sobre a história de uma utopia", afirmou (ALEKSIÉVITCH, 2016, p. 370). De fato, todos os livros que publicou possuem um interesse comum pelo povo soviético, seus amores, suas construções, suas lutas, seus projetos, suas falhas. Não é à toa que a própria Aleksiévitch denomina esse seu empreendimento de "Enciclopédia Vermelha" ou "Ciclo Vermelho".

Este artigo propõe uma análise das experiências do tempo registradas no livro Vozes de Tchernóbil, de Svetlana Aleksiévitch. A partir da expressão "catástrofe do tempo", que a própria autora utiliza para referir-se ao desastre nuclear, buscamos entender de que maneiras as narrativas presentes na obra tentam lidar com a potência desse acontecimento-limite, que rompe com os parâmetros de compreensão temporal antes estabelecidos. Na leitura crítica dos esforços de comunicação das testemunhas ouvidas e nos excertos autorreferentes de Aleksiévitch, propomos uma reflexão sobre as historicidades possíveis diante da incompreensibilidade da catástrofe, por meio da narrativa e do cotidiano.

Abstract: A "catastrophe of time": narrative and historicity in Voices from Chernobyl-In this paper, we propose an analysis of the experiences of time registered in the book Voices from Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexievich. From the expression "a catastrophe of time", that Alexievich uses to refer to the nuclear disaster, we try to understand how the narratives found in the book try to deal with the potency of this terminal event, which breaks with the parameters of temporal comprehension previously established. By doing a critical reading of the communicative efforts made by the witnesses and of Alexievich's self-referential excerpts, we propose a reflection on the possible historicities in the face of the incomprehensibility of the catastrophe, through narrative and daily life.

Alexievich’s six books make up a series that she calls “The Chronicle of the Big Utopia, or The History of the Red Man.”
Each deals with trauma; through individual memories, she gives a voice to an entire Soviet society that has strained to make sense of the enormous suffering it experienced during the 20th century. See: https://theconversation.com/svetlana-alexievich-captured-the-psyche-and-trauma-of-a-soviet-people-and-nation-48869

Swetlana Alexijewitsch ist Journalistin, Schriftstellerin und Historikerin. Sie folgt als Nobelpreisträgerin Theodor Mommsen und Winston Churchill, die ebenfalls für die Darstellung historischer Stoffe ausgezeichnet wurden.  Während Mommsen die römische Republik aus der Perspektive des 19. Jahrhunderts neu vermaß, schreiben Churchill und Alexijewitsch die Geschichte ihrer Gegenwart. Doch wo der britische Kriegspremier als Meister konventionellen Erzählens gefeiert wurde, setzt Alexijewitsch auf die Erinnerungen ihrer Mitbürgerinnen und Mitbürger. Ihre Quellen sind Gespräche, die sie führt und dann komponiert und verdichtet. Somit handelt es sich nicht nur um den seltenen Fall der Auszeichnung einer historischen Arbeit mit dem Nobelpreis für Literatur. Tatsächlich ist es ein Nobelpreis für Oral History, den die Akademie vergeben hat. Swetlana Alexijewitsch hat ein Genre geschaffen, das den Leser berührt und irritiert und doch ohne die Plattitüden einer Littérature engagée auskommt.