aimedforthemoon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aimedforthemoon) wrote2008-09-22 12:23 pm
aimedforthemoon) wrote2008-09-22 12:23 pm
who is yesfir shostakovna
She is Yesfir Shostakovna Yazycova, born 3rd July 1938 to Shostak Nikolayevich and Yevgenia Timofeyevna, who lived in Stalingrad. It means that she had a brother, Anton Shostakovich, born two years before, and aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandfather on her father’s side who lived on a farm and a grandmother on her mother’s who lived across the hall. It means that she was called Yesfir not because her family is Jewish (Yesfir-Esther-Star) but because it followed tradition; Grandmother Yepistimiya, Mother Yevgenia, Aunts Yekaterina and Yelena, Cousin Yeva and her, Yesfir.
(she is also called Yesfir because Zhenya had slipped down the stairs when seven months pregnant, and the doctors weren’t sure if either were going to survive.
One of the nurses told Shostak that his wife must have been born under a lucky star)
It means most of her family is dead – grandmother, uncles, aunts, second cousins and third. It means that Yevgenia was killed on the 23rd August, 1942, Anton sometime in December of the same year. Father Shostak was killed on 16th April 1943, ramming a German plane in the skies above Moscow and posthumously awarded the gold star hero medal. She was raised by her mother’s twin and the retired soldier Grigori Petrovich, who Katya married after the Great Patriotic War, and that it was Katya who ended up teaching her as there were no schools.
It means that she only thinks of it like that when she’s asked.
It means that until she was five, she was Fira. Just Fira. Little Fira, Mama’s sunshine and Papa’s princess, but she was only Mama’s sunshine until Mama died in bombs and fire, and she was only Papa’s princess in letters.
(she has a memory of him swinging her up into his arms,
but she isn’t sure if it’s memory or fantasy.
She’s never told anyone)
It means that her earliest memories, the ones where she can say I remember instead of I think, are memories of sirens, and screams, and a sky turned black. It means that she remembers her mother shouting ‘RUN’ and shoving her and Antosha into the bomb shelter. It means that it was Aunt Katya and Grandmama who kept Fira and Antosha together and fed in the camp on the other side of the river. It means that she remembers being cold and filthy and hungry, so hungry, and that sirens still make her blood turn to ice. It means that she passed the hours reading newspaper and propaganda and watching the aerial battles over the smoking ruins across the water. It means that she doesn’t know where Antosha is buried, and she doesn’t ever, ever, ever think about that.
(he was only six, only a skinny little boy, but everyone was so hungry…)
It means that she has scars from a childhood in bombed out streets and that she swapped cartridges and pieces of shells with the other children. It means that yes, she was tiny and skinny, but she learned to fight fast and dirty and mean and that someone’s height is really, really not intimidating.
It means that when writing her name in English, she uses an ‘E’ instead of ‘Ye’ because it looks closer to the Russian.
It means that
(It's about what it means to be you. How it felt, what you remember,
the little things--the things you would not tell anyone)
Being Fira meant being someone who cried and cried when she had to cut her hair to join the Air Force (from below her waist to regulation two inches). Being Fira meant, means, being someone with a kind, easy smile. Being Fira means being someone who adores summer, and the silky way her skin feels on those lazy, lazy afternoons. It means that she likes fast cars, fast planes, and there is nothing like a well-tuned engine. It means that she reads science fiction and physics, but that’s not everything to her. Being Fira means that she knows every single fairytale her grandfather told her, and still thinking that to be the priest’s daughter being herself to the point that no one knew if she was Vasilievna or Vasilievitch would be grand. It’s liking her coffee just so, liking the crunch of leaves under her boots, liking the feel of fur on her winter clothes. It’s keeping her father’s medal in a wooden box with the few photographs that were saved, and taking it with her every time she moved. It’s being on top during sex, most of the time, but loving it when she’s not and she always end up shutting her eyes and losing herself. It’s being able to laugh and relax with her friends, and being able to drop in without calling first and sharing everything because you let someone in that much, that’s what you do, and it’s impossible to be-
Remembering what it felt like to be alive is easy.
It’s remembering what it felt like to be warm when all she is now is cold.
(remembering what it felt like to die is easy.
far, far too easy)
One of the nurses told Shostak that his wife must have been born under a lucky star)
It means most of her family is dead – grandmother, uncles, aunts, second cousins and third. It means that Yevgenia was killed on the 23rd August, 1942, Anton sometime in December of the same year. Father Shostak was killed on 16th April 1943, ramming a German plane in the skies above Moscow and posthumously awarded the gold star hero medal. She was raised by her mother’s twin and the retired soldier Grigori Petrovich, who Katya married after the Great Patriotic War, and that it was Katya who ended up teaching her as there were no schools.
It means that she only thinks of it like that when she’s asked.
It means that until she was five, she was Fira. Just Fira. Little Fira, Mama’s sunshine and Papa’s princess, but she was only Mama’s sunshine until Mama died in bombs and fire, and she was only Papa’s princess in letters.
but she isn’t sure if it’s memory or fantasy.
She’s never told anyone)
It means that her earliest memories, the ones where she can say I remember instead of I think, are memories of sirens, and screams, and a sky turned black. It means that she remembers her mother shouting ‘RUN’ and shoving her and Antosha into the bomb shelter. It means that it was Aunt Katya and Grandmama who kept Fira and Antosha together and fed in the camp on the other side of the river. It means that she remembers being cold and filthy and hungry, so hungry, and that sirens still make her blood turn to ice. It means that she passed the hours reading newspaper and propaganda and watching the aerial battles over the smoking ruins across the water. It means that she doesn’t know where Antosha is buried, and she doesn’t ever, ever, ever think about that.
It means that she has scars from a childhood in bombed out streets and that she swapped cartridges and pieces of shells with the other children. It means that yes, she was tiny and skinny, but she learned to fight fast and dirty and mean and that someone’s height is really, really not intimidating.
It means that when writing her name in English, she uses an ‘E’ instead of ‘Ye’ because it looks closer to the Russian.
It means that
the little things--the things you would not tell anyone)
she was Fira more than Yesfir.
Being Fira meant being someone who cried and cried when she had to cut her hair to join the Air Force (from below her waist to regulation two inches). Being Fira meant, means, being someone with a kind, easy smile. Being Fira means being someone who adores summer, and the silky way her skin feels on those lazy, lazy afternoons. It means that she likes fast cars, fast planes, and there is nothing like a well-tuned engine. It means that she reads science fiction and physics, but that’s not everything to her. Being Fira means that she knows every single fairytale her grandfather told her, and still thinking that to be the priest’s daughter being herself to the point that no one knew if she was Vasilievna or Vasilievitch would be grand. It’s liking her coffee just so, liking the crunch of leaves under her boots, liking the feel of fur on her winter clothes. It’s keeping her father’s medal in a wooden box with the few photographs that were saved, and taking it with her every time she moved. It’s being on top during sex, most of the time, but loving it when she’s not and she always end up shutting her eyes and losing herself. It’s being able to laugh and relax with her friends, and being able to drop in without calling first and sharing everything because you let someone in that much, that’s what you do, and it’s impossible to be-
Remembering what it felt like to be alive is easy.
It’s remembering what it felt like to be warm when all she is now is cold.
far, far too easy)