title: The Russian's World: Life and Language, Fourth Edition (English and Russian Edition)
author:  Genevra Gerhart 
description: ...gives the necessary ... cultural information within which the Russian language is set ... should be available in every Russian department...<br />-Rusistika, 1999<br />...irreplaceable resource for the non-native scholar ... invitation into the culture ... author deserves the title 'Hero(ine) of Scholastic Labor'.. -Web page of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages a treasure trove ... what all Russians know just by being Russian, and what all students of Russian should know... - --Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 46, no. 2 (Summer 1996)
zlib_text: **IN SEARCH OF THE FREE INDIVIDUAL**
  
  The History of the Russian-Soviet Soul
  
  **SVETLANA ALEXIEVICH**
  
  WINNER OF THE 2015 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
  
  2016-17 Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels
  
  World Affairs Fellowship Lecture
  
  September 12, 2016
  
  Cornell University
  
  **CORNELL GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES**
  
  ![Logo](Image00006.gif)
  
  CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
  
  Ithaca
  
  
  ## CONTENTS
  
    1. [English](text00003.html#fm-chapter2)
    2. [Russian](text00006.html#fm-chapter6)
  
  
  Svetlana Alexievich was the 2016-17 Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World
  Affairs Fellow at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at
  Cornell University. Her public lecture was delivered in Russian. The text was
  translated for publication by Jamey Gambrell.
  
  
  I LOVE LIFE IN ITS LIVING FORM, life that’s found on the street, in human
  conversations, shouts, and moans. That sort of life is genuine, not yet shaped
  by someone else’s ideas or talents.
  
  This probably comes from my childhood. My parents were village teachers and
  