In the sixth month of pregnancy, I read Remark, but I did not think that his works would again become so relevant. Bashny.Net

To the younger generation, literary classics often seem like a dusty collection of useless texts. Something like time-erased cuneiforms on the Egyptian pyramids. But it also happens that the words of a century ago strike at the heart. Especially today, when the air of Europe is again soaked in soot and powder fumes. And the anti-war quotes of Erich Maria Remarque sound like reports from recent newspapers.



GettyImages quotes Erich Maria Remarque had something to say about life. At 18, he faced the horrors of war on the Western Front of World War I. After going through hell, the writer did not want to repeat it. In 1933 he had to leave his native country.



Remarca's younger sister, who remained in Germany, was executed in 1943 for making anti-war remarks. Erich learned about this only after the war and dedicated the novel Spark of Life to her.

History repeats itself: "The leading newspapers were terrible - lying, bloodthirsty, arrogant." The whole world outside Germany was portrayed as degenerate, stupid, insidious. The world had no choice but to be conquered by Germany.”



He stood before the crowd and shouted about the right to conquer all German lands, about a great Germany, about revenge, about the fact that peace in the world can only be preserved if other countries fulfill Germany’s demands, and that this is justice.



“An order from someone made these silent figures our enemies; another order could have made them our friends. Some people, whom none of us knows, sat down somewhere at the table and signed the document, and now for several years we see our supreme goal in the fact that the human race is usually branded with contempt and for which it punishes with the heaviest punishment.

Our hands are earth, our bodies are clay, and our eyes are rain puddles; we do not know whether we are still alive.



GettyImages: "Never has life been more precious than it is today ... when it is worth so little."



“The front is a cage in which we have to wait for what comes next.”



GettyImages: A person is really happy only when he pays the least attention to time and when he is not driven by fear. And yet, even if you are driven by fear, you can laugh. What else is there to do? ?



From the pen of Remarque came the novels “On the Western Front without change”, “Three comrades”, “Triumph Arch”, “Life on loan”, “Black obelisk”, “Return” and others. Read at least one of these masterpieces should every self-respecting modern reader. Moreover, they regularly fall into the lists of the most important and iconic books of the XX century.

The article and the preview used photos.