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Feb 09, 2019dart67 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
The Winter Soldier is an excellent read. Set in a unique location -- the Eastern Front during World War I where the forces of the decaying Austro-Hungarian Army fought epic, but certainly often ignored, battles with the collapsing army of Tsarist Russia. This book describes the intense suffering of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers who were wounded in these battles, both physically and mentally. More significant are the dogged and often heroic efforts of the medical caregivers, primarily an inexperienced and young Polish doctor and a nurse with unique healing powers, both operating in the worst of medical conditions. The story also focusses upon the injured soldiers, especially the "winter soldier" who comes to epitomize the horrors of war, the forgotten plight of the wounded, and the mental costs of war. The geographic context, high in the Carpathian Mountains of Poland/Hungary/Ukraine, and located within Galacia where there is a tremendous confluence of cultures: Polish, Hungarian, Austrian, German, Ruthenian, Russian, and Ukranian, is itself an education about a place that is not a well known location for American novels of any kind. The story itself does a great job of character description, especially the doctor, the nurse, and the winter soldier. The story begins slow, but ends with a rush. The finale is sad, but in the end redemptive. To me, the book has several positive strains of the novel Dr. Zhivago, with love and loss, a historically underappreciated conflict, and, in the end, a great and thought provoking tale.