Alexievich told an audience in Washington on June 17 that those in her generation who had hoped for a democratic future in the post-Soviet world "suffered a defeat" in the 1990s and failed to prevent the ascendance of strongman leaders with a Soviet mind-set.
"The degree of faith that people had in the 1990s, their eyes shining - I don't think we'll see that in our area of the world again soon," she said at the National Endowment for Democracy.
Alexievich, 68, has deployed her journalistic skills to explore major tragedies that impacted Belarus throughout the 20th century, including the Nazi occupation, the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
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