Abstract

This essay revisits Svetlana Aleksievich’s Tsinkovye malʹchiki (Boys in Zinc) from the vantage point of July 2025, the third year of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. While praised for its humanism and anti-war stance, Boys in Zinc reveals troubling silences. The testimonies focus on material and logistical failures of the Soviet Army yet ignore the routine killing of civilians. Equally absent is any discussion of sexual violence, despite its prominence in Aleksievich’s earlier work. The book also limits parenthood to mothers, erasing fathers’ voices and reflecting a gendered silence around grief and responsibility. By framing war solely as personal tragedy and loss, it risks presenting a false symmetry between occupiers and the occupied, redirecting empathy toward the invaders while obscuring violence inflicted upon the Afghan civilians. This essay argues that critical reading must address whose suffering is seen, whose voices are missing, and how narratives of imperial defeat can become evasive forms of humanism that blur political and moral accountability.