Fear Everywhere

I was born in a country where fearlessness was an unwavering ideological dogma, running like a red thread through every book, film, and newspaper article.

I was born in a country where fearlessness was an unwavering ideological dogma, running like a red thread through every book, film, and newspaper article.

The Red Army soldiers knew no fear in combat. Nor did underground agents under torture. Cosmonauts and polar explorers. Modest engineers faced with problems in production. Pioneers and combine drivers, border guards and kolkhoz workers.

The exalted vocabulary of fearlessness, the synonyms of epithets for glorifying exploits, was extremely rich. The language of fear was dull, repetitive, caricatured: pale face, trembling hands …