Life and Fate Read Along, Part 3 Chapter 60
This post, covering Part 3, Chapter 60 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.
In Grossman’s penultimate chapter to Life and Fate, he explores some of the lingering questions of the novel.
Looking over the ruins of her home city, Alexandra Vladimirovna wonders “was it really here that she had bought a length of material for a coat or a watch as a birthday present for Marusya? Had she really come here with Seryozha and got him a pair of skates in the sports department on the first floor?” (p. 859). It becomes difficult for the residents of the city to reconcile their memory of prosaic, everyday life with the epic events of the Battle of Stalingrad.
As the narrator expands, “It was on these streets that the war had been decided. The outcome of this battle was to determine the map of the post-war world, to determine the greatness of Stalin or the terrible power of Adolf Hitler. For ninety days one word had filled both the Kremlin and Berchtesgaden — Stalingrad,” (p. 860). For ninety days, Stalingrad became a symbol of freedom for the world. What does life look like after a battle of that magnitude?
