Oksana Kirillova “Wieland” M.: Alpina. Prose, 2024

Oksana Kirillova's "Wieland" grows from archival records, biographies, historical documents, and the writer's imagination, which weaves fiction into the most horrific pages of human history. The book is dedicated to the Holocaust, and while it's certainly not the first such work, Kirillova's novel is remarkable in that it offers the reader more than just an inside view. "Wieland" is the name of the narrator, who made a career in the SS, and his personal story doesn't go beyond the banality of evil. However, the novel proves much broader: Kirillova continually compels the reader to consider how, having witnessed the development of thousands of Wielands, society could tolerate, understand, and accept this process.
"Submission, elevated to the rank of virtue, is the essence and foundation of a dictatorial state that will destroy us all."

