量子的生活呢喃
愛人，被愛，珍惜，寬待
暑假我們一家將首次造訪俄國。 對於俄國的了解太過欠缺，我想借這本書來做點補足。
“Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets”by Svetlana Alexievich
此書作者－白俄作家Svetlana Alexievich獲得2015年諾貝爾文學獎。 她的寫作體裁不是小說，而以口述采訪的形式，裁剪、集合數百人的獨白。 這本書講述自蘇聯解體後二十年間（1991－2012）的震蕩和混亂，普通俄羅斯人的生活和掙紮。
書中多處追溯蘇聯曆史。 他們從小被灌輸的隻有戰爭，沒有生活。
At heart, we’re built for war. We were always either fighting or preparing to fight. We’ve never known anything else—hence our wartime psychology. Even in civilian life, everything was always militarized. The drums were beating, the banners flying, our hearts leaping out of our chests. People didn’t recognize their own slavery—they even liked being slaves.
你會以為俄羅斯人簡直就喜歡自虐。 為了維護極端的‘主義’，餓殍遍地，焦土三千也在所不惜。 他們幾乎是以享受的態度去經曆痛苦，痛苦的魅力被誇大。
Russian life is supposed to be evil and base, that’s what elevates the soul, and forces it to recognize that it doesn’t belong in this world… The cruder and bloodier life is, the more space there is for the soul.
連女人也喜歡找最悲慘的男人。
But why him? Why him specifically? Russian women love finding these unfortunate men.
永遠把精神生活放在第一位，為了崇高的理想而犧牲；忽視、打壓‘平庸’的幸福。
Russians need something to believe in … Something lofty and luminous. Empire and communism are ingrained in us. We seek out heroic ideals.
蘇聯解體後，民眾滿懷對自由的希望，但接踵而至的卻是經濟崩毀、理想幻滅、價值觀粉碎，曾經激情四射的民眾陷入彷徨失落。 長期封閉突然打開之後，找不到生活的坐標。 向往民主自由的人民突然發現，新的價值觀是錢！錢！錢！ 教授、建築師、藝術家都丟棄了詩歌和書籍，“Russian novels don't teach you how to become successful.”，賣掉了吉他，變成了倒買倒賣的黑市商販，要不就在街頭烤香腸，隻能做最低下的工作以糊口。
人們渴望幸福，但還未從過去的思想中解放出來，還沒有預備好獨立思考，重建心靈，建設家園，從‘偉大’走向平凡，走向‘狹小’的自身、個人的瑣碎幸福。
No one had taught us how to be free. We had only ever been taught how to die for freedom.
For our entire history, we’d been surviving instead of living.
Our people need freedom like a monkey needs glasses. No one would know what to do with it.
I asked everyone I met what “freedom” meant … For the fathers, freedom is the absence of fear…Freedom is never being flogged, although no generation of Russians has yet avoided a flogging. Russians don’t understand freedom, they need the Cossack and the whip. For the children: Freedom is love; inner freedom is an absolute value. Freedom is when you’re not afraid of your own desires; having lots of money so that you’ll have everything; It’s when you can live without having to think about freedom. Freedom is normal.
再節選幾段：
We had a war mentality. “If tomorrow war should break out, if tomorrow we must depart…” I can’t find any other explanation … “Keep your eye on death, on death/You poor singer and rider…” At every single gathering, without fail… Within five minutes, we’ll be remembering the war. We’re constantly singing war songs. Is there anyone else in the world like us? The Poles lived under socialism, too, and the Czechs, and the Romanians, but none of them are quite like this…
Why did we hear from you our whole lives? You have to live for others… for a higher purpose… throw yourself under a tank, go down in an airplane for your Motherland. The rumble of the Revolution … Heroic death … We were taught that death is more beautiful than life. That’s why we grew up to be monsters and freaks.
Instead of lullabies, my mother would sing us songs of the Revolution. Now she sings them to her grandchildren. “Are you nuts?” I ask her. She replies, “I don't know any other songs.”
老一輩的舊蘇維埃人受到最大的衝擊。 社會主義曾經是他們的整個宇宙，取代了他們的個人意識，甚至靈魂。 他們無法擺脫那個時代的烙印，厭惡市場經濟帶來的物質化和功利化，心靈空虛，唯有緬懷舊蘇維埃。
Gorbachev is an American secret agent…a freemason…He betrayed communism. I hate Gorbachev because he stole my Motherland. Yes, we stood in line for discolored chicken and rotting potatoes, but it was our Motherland. I loved it. You lived in a third world country with missiles, but for me, it was a great nation…Happiness is here, huh? Sure, there’s salami and bananas. We’re rolling around in shit and eating foreign food. Instead of a Motherland, we live in a huge supermarket. If this is freedom, I don’t need it.
蘇聯是一個多麽苦難深重的國家，整部書浸透了無比沉重的背叛和痛苦，以致我每讀一段就要放下，無法繼續。
People who’ve come out of socialism are both like and unlike the rest of humanity — we have our own lexicon, our own conceptions of good and evil, our heroes, our martyrs. We have a special relationship with death. The stories people tell me are full of jarring terms: “shoot,” “execute,” “liquidate,” “eliminate,” or typically Soviet varieties of disappearance such as “arrest,” “ten years without the right of correspondence,” and “emigration.”
獨裁統治者擅用人的恐懼來操縱人民，殘酷迫害，鼓勵人民互相舉報，利用外國的敵對勢力為借口，號召人民為了建立強大的蘇維埃而作出犧牲。 人民忍受著監控和迫害、喪失生活的基本保障，忍受物質的匱乏，換來的卻隻是更為集權的統治。
長年被威權統治，人格和認知都被扭曲，普通人無法判斷是非，也不願承擔責任。
其中一個故事的主人公一向最喜歡Olga姑姑，後來讀大學時，才知道Olga姑姑就是告密導致爸爸和叔叔被關進最可怕的集中營，叔叔死在裏麵。 他鼓起勇氣質問姑姑，“Aunt Olga, why did you do it?” 姑姑平靜地回答，“Show me an honest person who survived Stalin’s time.”
書中的一位老共產黨，雖然一生悲慘，數次入獄，妻子也死於勞改，卻終其一生對這個叫他家破人亡的體製忠心耿耿。 而最後他也透露，15歲時，他舉報舅舅偷藏糧食，而導致舅舅被紅軍砍成碎片。
善與惡的混淆，沒有人願意承認自己是罪人。
Everyone thought of themselves as a victim, never a willing accomplice.
“In order to condemn Stalin,” answers one voice, “you’d have to condemn your friends and relatives along with him.” But what about documents? “I worked at an archive myself,” remarks another voice, “I can tell you firsthand: Paper lies even more than people do.”
書中提到兩代人的隔閡：老一輩的俄國人被英雄主義洗腦。 從前線回來的退伍軍人恨死了把逼自己去的爸爸。
Oh! How Papa dreamed of throwing us under a tank. He wanted us to hurry up and grow up so we could volunteer to fight in a war. He needed us to be heroes! … Papa belonged to the Idea. He wasn't really a human.
I don’t like the word ‘hero’. There are no heroes in war. As soon as someone picks up a weapon, they can no longer be good. They won’t be able to.
但是比起俄羅斯人，那些前蘇聯加盟共和國的人民受到的創傷更深刻。
在蘇聯時代，阿塞拜疆和亞美尼亞、俄羅斯都是兄弟。
“The most beautiful holiday, everyone’s favorite, was Navruz. We would all carry our tables into the courtyard and make one long, long table. This table would be covered in Georgian khinkali, Armenian boraki and basturma, Russian bliny, Tatar echpochmak, Ukrainian vareniki, meat and chestnuts Azeri-style … We sang Armenian and Azerbaijani songs. And the Russian “Katyusha”: “The apple and pear trees were in bloom … The mists swam over the river …”
可是解體後，一夜之間阿塞拜疆人和亞美尼亞人反目成仇，昔日裏雞犬相聞的鄰居變為你死我活的死敵，屠殺搶劫遍地開花。 不止他們，其他格魯吉亞人、車臣人、吉爾吉斯、哈薩克斯坦。。。同樣的屠殺簡直造成了民族清洗。 故事裏的這一對，妻子是亞美尼亞人，丈夫是阿塞拜疆人。 為了逃避屠殺，妻子帶著女兒逃到莫斯科，等了丈夫足足七年。 丈夫衝破親友重重阻隔要和妻子團圓，卻被親友質問：
“And where do you think you’re going?” “To be with my wife.” “You’re leaving us for our enemy. You’re no brother of ours. You’re not our son.”
讀到我飆淚啊。
可是逃到了莫斯科的夫妻繼續過著難民的生活。 “We’re not legally registered to live here … we have no rights … There are as many of us here as there are grains of sand in the desert … They escaped to Moscow, the capital of the USSR, only now it’s the capital of another country. You won’t find our nation anywhere on the map.”
啊，俄羅斯，仍舊在痛苦和罪孽中掙紮困頓的俄羅斯。 唯一的拯救是愛。 問到一位自勞改營活著回來的講述者。
“How did you make it out of there alive?” “My parents loved me a lot when I was little.”
We’re saved by the amount of love we get, it’s our safety net. Yes … only love can save us. Love is a vitamin that humans can’t live without—the blood curdles, the heart stops.
我希望未來的俄羅斯文學更多一點愛，多很多很多的愛。
