Your Distant Name

The plot of Natalya Nikitina’s novel astonishingly echoes Daniel Granin’s book “My Lieutenant,” the winner of the 2012 “Big Book” prize, and even Boris Polevoy’s “Tale of a Real Man.” Even though her main hero is fighting on A DIFFERENT SIDE… It is the story of an entire generation betrayed and thrown into the flames of war by “friends”—and saved by “enemies.”
Your distant name…
“...On my father’s fiftieth birthday, he received as a gift from his friend a Hungarian pilot’s dagger. On the blade it was written: ‘To Lieutenant Imre Shanta.’ Working at the editorial office of the newspaper ‘Lenin’s Banner’ for the Southern Group of Forces in Budapest from 1987 to 1990, I tried to find the pilot’s relatives…’
…He read wonderful books and dreamed of his first love. But the “fateful 1940s” put an end to that dream: war entered the life of a Hungarian boy against his will—he was drafted to fight for a foreign country in the sky over the bend of the River Don…. The rhythm of poems and dances is no longer heard. The music of first love is torn apart by chaotic bomb blasts and the whistle of bullets. Ice-cold air cuts like a blade as he falls—his plane, with crosses on its wings…
‘Let them say: “You’re a soldier, you perform your duty. You must be steadfast, brave, and courageous to protect your homeland.”’ But whom am I protecting? I’ve come to someone else’s land and killed a person just like me...’
He wanted to rise. Pain in his leg pinned him to the ground. His leg felt like iron. Imre did not know what to do. For what should he ask forgiveness from the Lord? Where to wait for help? He raised his hand, wanted to mark himself with the cross—and felt again on it the sticky cold blood.”