I am even now constantly tormented by the thought of those years of life we were not allowed to live. I am always wondering what they would have been… - Nadezhda Mandelstam

Now again we are not supposed to remember the past and think-let alone speak about it. (42: Last Letter)

Nationalism, like the ideas of Leo Tolstoi, is an attempt to stop the course of history. Everything leading to separation is the result of license: it smashes what is whole, breaks and pulverizes it into tiny fragments that can never be joined together again. The truth of this has become completely apparent in our century. We have been witness to the process of disintegration. What has it brought us, apart from material and spiritual impoverishment?

How did it happen? We saw it come about in front of our very eyes. All intermediate social links, such as the family, one's circle of friends, class, society itself-each abruptly disappeared, leaving every one of us to stand alone before the mysterious force embodied in the State, with its powers of life and death. In ordinary parlance, this was summed up in the word "Lubianka" (Footnote: "Headquarters of the secret police, and political prison in Moscow.") If what we have seen in this country is only a process taking place throughout Europe, then it must be said that we have demonstrated the sickness of the age in a form so acute and unadulterated as to merit special study in any search for the prevention and cure of it. In an age when the main cry is "Every man for himself," the personality is doomed. Personality is dependent on the world at large, on one's neighbors. It defines itself by reference to others and becomes aware of its own uniqueness only when it sees the uniqueness of everyone else.