The Unwomanly Face of War
An oral history of the million Soviet women who fought — snipers, pilots, tank drivers, medics — in their own voices.
The Verdict
It helped win a Nobel Prize, and it is 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
- 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
- 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
Read It Alongside
Where to Buy
ISBN: 978-0399588723
Read This Against
The same events seen from a different vantage point. The fullest understanding often lives in the space between accounts that don't agree.
Other Books About the Same Events
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.