Victims and Heroes by Konstantin Simonov

By Admin on June 15, 2022 in Blog

. Victims and Heroes by Konstantin Simonov is a powerful book. One that lays bare the existential crisis brought on by the sudden invasion of a country by a foreign army under the control of a power mad dictator.

Which is why I found myself questioning my choice of book when I pulled this one off the shelf. After all, who needs fiction when we have the twenty four hour news cycle?

There are many books out there that deal with the complexities of war, the ugliness of it and the long lasting and devastating effects it has on a country and its people. One that comes to mind, and that I have been reading about, is Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War. A book which has been the involved in a plagiarism scandal recently and which you can read about here

I’m sure there are many others, but they are not sitting on my shelf. Victims and Heroes has been for a while now.

When the war in Ukraine broke out, I like many others, watched the events unfold with disbelief. Have those in power not learned anything from the mistakes of the past? Have they not realised that conflict begets instability both for the invaded and the invaders?

Victims and Heroes relates the first few months of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union during World War 2. Our main character Sintsov, a war correspondent is separated from his family as war breaks out. We follow Sintsov as he bounces around from battalion to battalion, in and out of the front line and meeting different members of the Red Army who perform heroics and proudly do their duty while dealing with a bureaucratic and unsympathetic government. It is a novel that could only be written after the death of Stalin as it takes a slightly critical look at some of the failings of the Soviet regime’s lack of preparedness for an invasion that had been anticipated.

At times this book feels like a love letter to the Soviet Regime of the time, and this is understandable. As we are seeing now in Ukraine, people will defend their homeland. They will stand up proudly against the aggressor and they will willingly leave their loved ones behind to make the ultimate sacrifice defending their homeland. One thing that fiction does so well, and that I have written about before is that it makes us ask ourselves “what would I do in this situation?”. So I can appreciate the point this book is trying to make on both the critical side and its praise for the war effort of the invaded people.

It does however, as mentioned earlier, point the finger at those in charge. This is the frustrating part for anyone who has an ounce of sympathy toward the victims of senseless conflict. Many will have, and have had much to say about current events. Opinions will differ and the propaganda machine will steamroll its way onto our screens. But the human toll can never be, and should never be forgotten or overlooked. The effects and trauma will live on and be inherited by future generations and there will be other conflicts. The power hungry will sadly always have their way with the world. They will ignore the lessons history provides and those of us not in power will continue to count the cost, while those in power continue their political games.

The first world war was the supposedly “the war to end all wars” sadly this was not the case.

So this is what brought me to pick this book as my next read, the irony of it all. Art imitating life imitating art and so on and so forth…and the vicious cycle continues.

When we think of all the war literature that is available, the countless history books relating the details of past conflicts and the ever lasting consequences for both sides, it is unfathomable that those who seek to gain power are still repeating these same mistakes and committing these crimes against the often defenceless masses.

Victims and Heroes by Konstantin Simonov, or The living and the Dead as it was also titled is part of a trilogy. As far as I have been able to research, there are no English translations of parts 2 and 3. But a quick online search will tell you how the unsuccessful German invasion of the Soviet Union took a heavy human toll on both sides.

I leave you with a powerful and poignant poem written by Konstantin Simonov