Polina Zherebtsova's Journal

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Polina Zherebtsova's Journal: Chechnya 1999-2002 is the edited diary kept by Polina Zherebtsova while she was living in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic. It was published in September 2011 in Russia.^[1] Zherebtsova wrote the diary when she was 14–17 years old, from the beginning of The Second Chechen War until December 2002. It tells the story of ethnic relations between Russian and Chechen peoples and of the lives of civilians during the war. This book is non-fiction, but real names were changed by the author in the book.

According to The Guardian, Zherebtsova said of the book:

I don't scold anyone in particular, neither the rebels nor the Russian soldiers ... There is no evil in the book – just the life of civilians who fell into life in war^[2]

The published in Russia book resulted in a hatred campaign against the author, and she was forced to flee to Finland, where Polina Zherebtsova asked for political asylum.^[1]