> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:owner-pen-l@;galaxy.csuchico.edu]On Behalf Of joanna bujes > Sent: 06 November 2002 00:49 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > I grew up reading Russian authors writing about this same > experience; > however, it was possible for me to distinguish between the > "orthodoxy" that > dictated the format of these pieces, and the reality of people's deep > longing for peace and justice, which also informed films like > "Ballad of a > Soldier" and "The Cranes are Flying."
My own favourite Soviet war film is Stanislav Rostotskii's "... A zori zdyes' tikhiye' which describes the fate of an all-women anti-aircraft unit stationed in Latvia, but the only dep longing I saw there was for victory over the Nazis and their Romanian allies. > > While I can appreciate the courage it would take for an American > to become > any kind of red, I'm not an American but you're not the first to assume I was and then to deplore me for being ready to look at all sides of the truth about Stalin (from whom people 'cowered in abject terror' etc etc) while in the same breath congratulating an American for being brave enough to do so, which suggests to me that most of the cowering in abject terror is being done these days by Americans. Now, we don't agree. I din't live in Romania my wife was born there and I did live in the Soviet Union for many years so I guess I'm also entitled to anecdotalise a little. Mark
