on shit

Not until 1980 were we able to read in the Sunday Times how Stalin's son, Yakov,

died. Captured by the Germans during the Second World War, he was placed in a

camp together with a group of British officers. They shared a latrine. Stalin's

son habitually left a foul mess. The British officers resented having their

latrine smeared with shit, even if it was the shit of the son of the most

powerful man in the world. They brought the matter to his attention. He took

offense. They brought it to his attention again and again, and tried to make him

clean the latrine. He raged, argued, and fought. Finally, he demanded a hearing

with the camp commander. He wanted the commander to act as arbiter. But the

arrogant German refused to talk about shit. Stalin's son could not stand the

humiliation. Crying out to heaven in the most terrifying of Russian curses, he

took a running jump into the electrified barbed-wire fence that surrounded the

camp. He hit the target. His body, which would never again make a mess of the

Britishers' latrine, was pinned to the wire.

Stalin's son laid down his life for shit. But a death for shit is not a

senseless death. The Germans who sacrificed their lives to expand their

country's territory to the east, the Russians who died to extend their country's

power to the west—yes, they died for something idiotic, and their deaths have no

meaning or general validity. Amid the general idiocy of the war, the death of

Stalin's son stands out as the sole metaphysical death.

-Milan Kundera, The unbearable lightness of being