Life and Fate Read Along, Part 3 Chapter 46

This post, covering Part 3, Chapter 46 is part of The Slavic Literature Pod’s chapter a day read along of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate. Learn more about our project here.

Today we witness the Germans handing over their arms, the surrender finally all but complete.

While Soviet troops are working on collecting German weapons, Colonel Filimonov ponders a question he finds more important than surrender. He thinks about how “He had said yesterday in the Military Soviet canteen that the central commissariat in Moscow still contained supplies of gold braid that had been used for epaulettes in pre-revolutionary days; it was the done thing among his circle of friends to have one’s epaulettes sewn from this fine old braid,” (p. 799). Glory will soon find the defenders of Stalingrad—the ones who fought Nazis and the ones who fought over epaulettes alike.