History of Disease. Army: Life, Service, and Escape from the Russian Army shares your story of growing up in the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, your experiences with the army, and ultimately your escape to Canada. Why was this an important book for you to write?

I think my life was generous enough for me with certain events, though not always pleasant and desirable, so I could share some moments of it with my readers. Also, it was exciting to restore it in detail and answer for myself eternal and timeless philosophical question of what could be changed, improved, or refined had I had a chance to go through it again.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

In the light of Russian-Ukranian War, I wanted to answer questions about how and why Russia has degraded to the state it is in, with all associated unprofessionalism, incompetence, and barbarity of its Army. What made Russia to loose bright opportunities of 1990th to step into the family of European states following the example of Baltic states, why had it followed the old and so familiar brutal path leading it to the new dictatorship and catastrophe.

I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?

Since it was a memoir, it was not too hard to re-live my life unwinding it like an old tape recorder cassette. The challenge was to interpolate my life onto political events that were in abundance of that period of time of Russian history.

Over time, my vision of those events might have slightly changed and been affected by new experiences brought by my life in Canada and view through the prism of time. So, in certain moments it required certain efforts to present the events as they were without been biased and prejudiced.

What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?

I tried and hopefully succeeded up to a certain extent, not to be too boring and overload my readers with unimportant and trivial details impregnating my story with irony and sarcasm. I wanted to send a message between the lines that one should be open-minded and resilient to the avalanche of outside brainwashing and propaganda, so omnipresent in the modern world, and be persistent in achieving one’s goals and dreams regardless of pit holes and unpleasant surprises which life has in stock for everybody. As once Mr. Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t – you are right.”

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Serge R. Pospelov, born in the USSR, reflects on a tumultuous journey from school years to the final days in Russia in his book “HISTORY OF DISEASE: Life, Service, and Escape from the Russian Army.” His narrative encompasses the sarcastic nuances of life in the USSR and the Russian Army, detailing the struggles, survival, and disappointments during the tumult of the 1990s. Volume 2 contains a memoir about his attempts to leave the country, leading to imprisonment under suspicion of espionage. Released without trial, he lived under the constant surveillance of the FSB until a daring escape took him from Russia to Belarus, then Poland, and ultimately to Canada.