The Unwomanly Face of War
Memoir Intermediate Primary Sources
☭ Soviet
An oral history of the million Soviet women who fought — snipers, pilots, tank drivers, medics — in their own voices.
The Verdict
The book that helped win a Nobel Prize, and one of the great works of witness of the century. Svetlana Alexievich recorded hundreds of the million Soviet women who fought — snipers, pilots, tank crews, medics — and assembled their voices into a chorus the official histories had silenced. It is not a narrative but an accumulation, devastating in aggregate: the war as women remembered it, in the body and the heart, recorded before those memories were lost.
Who Should Read It
Read it if you want
- The Soviet women's war in their own voices
- Readers who value oral history and testimony
- A perspective absent from conventional histories
- The emotional and bodily reality of war
Look elsewhere if you want
- Battles, strategy, or chronological narrative
- A single story to follow
- Readers wanting the male combat memoir
Why We Rated It 4.8
Historical Context
Roughly a million Soviet women served in combat and support roles in the Second World War. Alexievich conducted hundreds of interviews in the late Soviet period; the book was published in 1985, initially in censored form, and contributed to her 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Events Covered
Editions & Reading Notes
Penguin / Random House editionThe unexpurgated translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
Read It Alongside
Ivan's War Catherine Merridale · 2006 · ★ 4.5
Popular History 
The Diamond Eye Kate Quinn · 2022 · ★ 4.4
Historical Fiction 
A Writer at War Vasily Grossman · 2005 · ★ 4.7
Memoir Where to Buy
ISBN: 978-0399588723
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Is this a novel or non-fiction?
- Non-fiction — a work of oral history assembled from hundreds of interviews with Soviet women who served in the war.
- Why is it important?
- It recovered the silenced experience of the million Soviet women who fought, and helped earn Alexievich the Nobel Prize in Literature.