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What matters is the need to move from the rigidity of national stereotypes towards something more truly human; what matters is to discover the riches of human hearts and souls; what matters is the human content of poetry and science, the universal charm and beauty of architecture; what matters is the magnanimity of a nation’s leaders and historical figures. only by exalting what is truly human, only by fusing the national with what is universally human, can try dignity – and true freedom – be achieved.It is the struggle for freedom of thought and expression, the struggle for a peasant’s freedom to sow what he wants to sow, for everyone’s freedom to enjoy the fruits of their own work – this is the true struggle for national dignity.The only real triumph of national freedom is one that brings about the triumph of all human freedom.For small nations and large nations alike, this is the only way forward.And it goes without saying that the Russians too – as well as Armenians, Georgians, Kazakhs, Kalmyks and Uzbeks – must understand that it is precisely through renouncing the idea of their own national superiority that they can truly affirm the grandeur and dignity of their own people, of their own literature and science.

Vasily Grossman

What matters is the need to move from the rigidity of national stereotypes towards something more truly human; what matters is to discover the riches of human hearts and souls; what matters is the human content of poetry and science, the universal charm and beauty of architecture; what matters is the magnanimity of a nation’s leaders and historical figures. only by exalting what is truly human, only by fusing the national with what is universally human, can try dignity – and true freedom – be achieved.It is the struggle for freedom of thought and expression, the struggle for a peasant’s freedom to sow what he wants to sow, for everyone’s freedom to enjoy the fruits of their own work – this is the true struggle for national dignity.The only real triumph of national freedom is one that brings about the triumph of all human freedom.For small nations and large nations alike, this is the only way forward.And it goes without saying that the Russians too – as well as Armenians, Georgians, Kazakhs, Kalmyks and Uzbeks – must understand that it is precisely through renouncing the idea of their own national superiority that they can truly affirm the grandeur and dignity of their own people, of their own literature and science.

Vasily Grossman
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The longer a nation's history, the more wars, invasions, wanderings, and periods of captivity it has seen-the greater the diversity of its faces.
Vasily Grossman
A mountain had died, its skeleton had been scattered over the ground. Time had aged the mountain; time had killed the mountain-and here lay the mountain's bones.
Vasily Grossman
Both his voice and eyes had the burning cold of alcohol. His strength no longer lay in his military experience or his knowledge of the map, but in his harsh, impetuous soul.
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The snow filled the air with a soft grey-blue mist, softening the wind and gunfire, bringing the earth and sky together into one swaying blur.The snow fell on Bach's shoulders; it was as though flakes of silence were falling on the still Volga, on the dead city, on the skeletons of horses. It was snowing everywhere, on earth and on the stars; the whole universe was full of snow. Everything was disappearing beneath it: guns, the bodies of the dead, filthy dressings, rubble, scraps of twisted iron.This soft, white snow settling over the carnage of the city was time itself; the present was turning into the past, and there was no future.
Vasily Grossman
The nationalism of a small nation can, with treacherous ease, become detached from its roots in what is noble and human. It then become pitiful, making the nation appear smaller rather than greater. It is the same with nations as with individuals; while trying to draw attention to the inadequacies of others, people all too often reveal their own.
Vasily Grossman
Why do people have memories? It would be easier to die - anything to stop remembering.
Vasily Grossman
A wife! No one else could love a man who had been trampled on by iron feet. She would wash his feet after he had been spat on; she would comb his tangled hair; she would look into his embittered eyes. The more lacerated his soul, the more revolting and contemptible he became to the world, the more she would love him. She would run after a truck; she would wait in queues on Kuznetsky Most, or even by the camp boundary fence, desperate to hand over a few sweets or an onion; she would bake shortbread for him on an oil stove; she would give years of her life just to be able to see him for half an hour... Not every woman you sleep with can be called a wife.
Vasily Grossman
To Polyakov it was as though a fierce wind from downstream was sweeping up the Volga. Several times he was knocked off his feet; he fell to the ground no longer knowing what world he lived in, whether he was old or young, what was up and what was down. But Klimov dragged him along and finally they slid to the bottom of a huge crater. Here the darkness was threefold: the darkness of night, the darkness of dust and smoke, the darkness of a deep pit.They lay there beside one another; the same soft light, the same prayer for life filled both their heads. It was the same light, the same touching hope that glows in all heads and all hearts – in those of birds and animals as well as in those of human beings.
Vasily Grossman
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