138: highly education
"The demand for human rights and for civil liberties and political self-expression is very much a demand emanating from the educated segment of Soviet society." (Shatz, 138)
-product of the Russian state, Stalin compared to PTG
"Unquestionably, the names of Soviet dissidents most familiar to wEsterners have been those of writers..."
"Given the traditional role of literature as the 'conscience' of Russia and the high moral calling that many writers consequently feel, it is not surprising that literature and nonconformity show a marked affinity for one another. Because of it's social commitment and its frequent use as a vehicle of critical ideas, literature naturally attracts the restless, the questioning, the individualistic spitits." (Shatz, 141)
"Under Soviet conditions, however, literature does not merely attract dissidents, it generates them; for the amount of creative liberty granetd to it, though greater than in some othe endeavors, has strict limits. THe very nature of his work propels the wrier into a head-on confrontation with the control apparatus of the state through the latter's excersise of censorship....Censorship thwarts his creative impulses-and hence his very personality- and at the same time humiliates him by subjecting him to te dictates of individuals who are less knowledgeable, less imaginiative, less sensitive than he feels himself to be." (Shatz, 141)
Generations:
"According to this theory, dissent is largely the work of the postwar generation. THis younger generation was shocked and repelled by the revelations of its parent complicity, whether active or passive, in Staln's repression; having grown up in relative secutiry and prosperity, it is more willing to assume the risks of outspoken criticism than its elders, who cherish the peace and stability they have at last achieved. From this perspectiv, Soviet dissent may appear to be a local branch of the worldwide youth rebellion of the late sixties and early seventies, rejecting, like its foreign counterparts, 'bourgeoise' materialism, social conformity, and political hypocrisy-an example, perhaps, of the 'convergence' of industrial societies, whether socialist or capitalist.
...BUT..."Despite some external similarities to contemporary currents in the West, the characer of Soviet dissent has been determined by specigic Russian historical and political circumstances and is a response to local events."(shatz, 149-150)
"One of the themes the dissidents voice most frequently when asked to explain their actions is a strong sense of personal guilt over the repressions of the Stalin era, and a determination to redeem that guilt by combating injustice in the present. Even when they themselves in no way participated in the repressions, the silent acquiescence, the passivity, and the unquestioned faith in the authorities that Soviet society displayed under Stalin torment them and compel them to speak out." (Shatz, 150)
Skaharov: "[A man] may hope for nothing but nonetheless speak, because he cannot, simply cannot remain silent."
NG: on Czech protest "The purpose of our demonstration was, so it seems to me, not merely to give expression to our own remorse, but also to redeem at least a freaction of our people's guilt before history" Shatz 150
secret speech as awakening
Evutshenko
"Although I had some idea of Stalin's guilt, I could not imagine, until Khrushchev mad his speech, how tremendous it was. Most people had the same experience. After the text was read to them at Party meetings they went away, their eyes on the ground. Probably many among the older people tortured themselves with the question: had they lived their lives in vain." (Shatz, 151)
"As a group experience, the impact of Khrushchev's secret speech on the educated eleite of Soviet society was as decisive as the impact of the wholesale importation of Western culture had been on the Russian nobility in the eighteenth century." (Shatz, 153)
Sakharov- written by Shatz "THe effecto f the exposure of Stalin's injustivices was to mak him examin his own relation to the forces of good and evil in the world and to arouse within him a latent sense of guilt over his contribution to the forces of nuclear destruction" (Shatz 154)
"More frequently, however, a deeply affecting personal taste of Stalnisim helps to explain the feelings and determination of the dissident.."
Showing posts with label writers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writers. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Shatz, The Sinyavsky-Daniel trial and its aftermath: legal tactics and organizational efforts
"Signs of 're-Stalinization' had been appearing since the removal of Khrushchev from power in the autumn of 1964. Public references to the STalin era were beginning to play down the negative sides-the purges, te executions, the camps-and to stress he more favorabl e aspects, such as the heroic efforts of the first Five Years Plans and the war years. Stalin's role as war leader, which Khrushchev had criticized with particularly harshness was partially refurbished and articles extolling the victims of Stalin's purges began to disappear from the press. Finally, early in 1966, Pravda printed a statement ruling out further use of 'period of the cult of personality.'" (Shatz, 118)
"The embarrassing problem facing the prosecution was the two writers had not in fact committed an illegal act. There was no law on the Soviet statute books prohibiting an author from sending manuscripts abroad for publication." (Shatz, 119)
"Complaints came from many quarters that legality had not been observed in the treatment of Siniavskay and Daniel: the charge against them was false; the standards of evidence and trial procedure had been deplorable; the trial was not truly open to the public as required by law; and the reports in the press had been scanty and grossly biased against the defendents.")120
"In making this demand, the critics and protestors were calling for the redemption of one of the promises Khrushchev had made in his 1956 speech. Agter detailing the arrrests and executions of the STalin period, Khrushchev had assured his audience that 'socialist legality' woudl be restored and violations of it no longer tolerated.'" 120
"The Soviet legal system is under considerable pressure to apply Party policy, that is, to respond to political considerations, in the determination of individual cases."
"Complaints came from many quarters that legality had not been observed in the treatment of Siniavskay and Daniel: the charge against them was false; the standards of evidence and trial procedure had been deplorable; the trial was not truly open to the public as required by law; and the reports in the press had been scanty and grossly biased against the defendents.")120
"In making this demand, the critics and protestors were calling for the redemption of one of the promises Khrushchev had made in his 1956 speech. Agter detailing the arrrests and executions of the STalin period, Khrushchev had assured his audience that 'socialist legality' woudl be restored and violations of it no longer tolerated.'" 120
"The Soviet legal system is under considerable pressure to apply Party policy, that is, to respond to political considerations, in the determination of individual cases."
Article 70
"They were accused of slandering the Soviet government and people, of slandering Lenin and of enabling some WEstern commentators to use their works for anti-Soviet purposes-hardly the 'especially dangerous crimes against the state' referred to in the law code." (Shatz, 119)-airing dirty laundry
"By putting the writers on trial, the authorities tacitly confirmed the political significance of literature and validated the role of the writer as a social critic. LIterature is recognized by the Soviet government as such a powerful force that it insists on monopolizing it for its own purposes punishing any use of it for unauthorized sentiments-writers, after all, are 'engineers of human souls.'" (Shatz, 120)
"The management of the trial reflected the government's general policy toward the issue of Stalinism in the wake of Khrushchev's departure from office. On the one hand, it wished to impose greater restrictions on criticism of the Stalinist past, with its inescapable implication of criticism of the post-Stalin present; on the other hand, it showed no desire to revert to the outright terrorism of the previous era. Therefore it sought to manipulate the courts and the legal system, giving a veneer of legality to the curtailment of political self-expression. The result was a glaring infringement of legal due process; it shocked many Soviet citizens who felt they had been assured by the Party that such travesties of justice were a thing of the Stalinist past and would not be permitted to recur. This was the main issue on which the various currents of dissent now concentrated." (Shatz, 121)
"The wave of indignation elicited by the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial advanced two major themes. First, putting writers on trial for the content of their fiction struck many observers as an absurd and shocking violation of the sanctity of literature." (Shatz, 121-122)
"The second major theme which gave Soviet dissent a new dimension, was a demand for dure process of law....Many of those who voiced such complaints stated that they disagreed with the writers' views or with the methods they had used to publish them. Nevertheless, they felt compelled to protest against the abitrariness and unfairness with which teh case had been handled. There were no public complaints about te laws themselves, or about the judicial process or the legal system in general; it was assumed that the law was just but had not been properly applied. The critics therefore demanded that the trial be reviewed and the writers acquitted (because they had obviously not violated the laws under which they have been tried) or at least that their very hard sentsences be reduced" (Shatz, 122)
-first it was petitions
then (Again younger generation)
"At the same time, some younger individuals decided to adopt bolder though still technically legal, forms of protest. Even before the trial itseld, on December 6, 1965, Soviet Constitution Day, some 200 students from the Gorky Institute of World Literature, where Siniavsky worked, had staged a rally in Moscow's Pushkin Square to demand a fair and open trial for the two writers. (This began something of an annual tradition: silent demonstrations in behalf of dissidents hae been held at the same spot on the same day in subsequent years.) THe rally was he first public protest Moscow had seen since the 1920s. (Shatz, 123)
124: trial documents, you're working against us (Socialist realism?)
"THe trials of 1967 and 1968, like the Siniavsky-Daniel trial, generated a series of petitions and open letters to the authorities protesting these new violations of due process and calling for review of the conviction and sentences." (Shatz, 126)
Ginzburg protest-126
"The most conspicuous effort in behalf of freedom of expression-and in retrospect, the highwater mark of the tide of dissent in the late sixties, at least in terms of public assertiveness-was the demonstration in Moscow's Red Square on August 25, 1968...The word 'demonstration' somewhat magnifies what actually occured: seven individuals gathered at noon at the ancient Execution Place in Red Square and unfurled a few hand-letered banners protesting the invasion." (shatz, 127)
"What was so unique about this event was that , for the first time in the history of Soviet dissent, the demonstrators were not protesting a specific case of injustice in the Soviet Union or even an issue that directly concerned them (although in the crushing of the Czech experiment in 'democratic socialism' they percieved a real threat to their aspirations for their own country). The demonstrations in Red Square was purely an act of civic duty and inficidual conscience. This is amply confirmed by the statements of the defendants at their subsequent trial."
Larisa Bogoraz" "I was faced by the choice of protesting or staying silent. Staying silent would have meant for me sharing in the general approbal of actions which I did not approve. STaying silent would have meant lying." - just like Lie essay (Shatz, 129)
128-this trial is how the W. discovers samizdat
Birth of the Chronicle
"Some kind of permanent cohesive organization was essential in order to mount a sustained campaign for civil liberties instead of merely responding to the government's acts of repression; it was also essential if such a campaign were to survive the arrest of individual dissidents by the police. With an organizational base, the scattered and highly vulnerable individuals and circles that had emerged in the late sixties might be able to transform their expression of criticism and protest into a real "movement" on behalf of civil liberties." (Shaztz, 131)
"One of the first, and most successful, of these organizing efforts was A Chronicle of Current Events....A number of other underground journals have made their appearance in the last two decades, some of a literary nature and others devoted to political and social themes. Like the intelligentsia's 'thick journals' of the nineteenth century, they have served as behicles for the expression of a variety of nonconformist ideas, though most of these publications have been of brief duration. The Chronicle was the first one devoted exclusively to dissent itself." (Shatz, 131)
"More broadly, the rise of autonomous public associations represents a new stage of political consciousness on the part of at least some Soviet dissidents. Post-Stalin dissent in its initial phas was limited to moral appeals to the authorities for more humane treatment, and in its seconde phase to peitions and protests against violations of Soviet law and judicial procedure. It did not challenge the authorities' right to rule, nor did it question their legitimacy or demand that they be held accountable for their actions except in a moral sense. But the attempt to create citizens' organizations independent of the Party and state represents a significant break with the paternalistic principle of authority comparable to that achieved by the early intelligentsia at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century." (Shatz, 135)
"By putting the writers on trial, the authorities tacitly confirmed the political significance of literature and validated the role of the writer as a social critic. LIterature is recognized by the Soviet government as such a powerful force that it insists on monopolizing it for its own purposes punishing any use of it for unauthorized sentiments-writers, after all, are 'engineers of human souls.'" (Shatz, 120)
"The management of the trial reflected the government's general policy toward the issue of Stalinism in the wake of Khrushchev's departure from office. On the one hand, it wished to impose greater restrictions on criticism of the Stalinist past, with its inescapable implication of criticism of the post-Stalin present; on the other hand, it showed no desire to revert to the outright terrorism of the previous era. Therefore it sought to manipulate the courts and the legal system, giving a veneer of legality to the curtailment of political self-expression. The result was a glaring infringement of legal due process; it shocked many Soviet citizens who felt they had been assured by the Party that such travesties of justice were a thing of the Stalinist past and would not be permitted to recur. This was the main issue on which the various currents of dissent now concentrated." (Shatz, 121)
"The wave of indignation elicited by the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial advanced two major themes. First, putting writers on trial for the content of their fiction struck many observers as an absurd and shocking violation of the sanctity of literature." (Shatz, 121-122)
"The second major theme which gave Soviet dissent a new dimension, was a demand for dure process of law....Many of those who voiced such complaints stated that they disagreed with the writers' views or with the methods they had used to publish them. Nevertheless, they felt compelled to protest against the abitrariness and unfairness with which teh case had been handled. There were no public complaints about te laws themselves, or about the judicial process or the legal system in general; it was assumed that the law was just but had not been properly applied. The critics therefore demanded that the trial be reviewed and the writers acquitted (because they had obviously not violated the laws under which they have been tried) or at least that their very hard sentsences be reduced" (Shatz, 122)
-first it was petitions
then (Again younger generation)
"At the same time, some younger individuals decided to adopt bolder though still technically legal, forms of protest. Even before the trial itseld, on December 6, 1965, Soviet Constitution Day, some 200 students from the Gorky Institute of World Literature, where Siniavsky worked, had staged a rally in Moscow's Pushkin Square to demand a fair and open trial for the two writers. (This began something of an annual tradition: silent demonstrations in behalf of dissidents hae been held at the same spot on the same day in subsequent years.) THe rally was he first public protest Moscow had seen since the 1920s. (Shatz, 123)
124: trial documents, you're working against us (Socialist realism?)
"THe trials of 1967 and 1968, like the Siniavsky-Daniel trial, generated a series of petitions and open letters to the authorities protesting these new violations of due process and calling for review of the conviction and sentences." (Shatz, 126)
Ginzburg protest-126
"The most conspicuous effort in behalf of freedom of expression-and in retrospect, the highwater mark of the tide of dissent in the late sixties, at least in terms of public assertiveness-was the demonstration in Moscow's Red Square on August 25, 1968...The word 'demonstration' somewhat magnifies what actually occured: seven individuals gathered at noon at the ancient Execution Place in Red Square and unfurled a few hand-letered banners protesting the invasion." (shatz, 127)
"What was so unique about this event was that , for the first time in the history of Soviet dissent, the demonstrators were not protesting a specific case of injustice in the Soviet Union or even an issue that directly concerned them (although in the crushing of the Czech experiment in 'democratic socialism' they percieved a real threat to their aspirations for their own country). The demonstrations in Red Square was purely an act of civic duty and inficidual conscience. This is amply confirmed by the statements of the defendants at their subsequent trial."
Larisa Bogoraz" "I was faced by the choice of protesting or staying silent. Staying silent would have meant for me sharing in the general approbal of actions which I did not approve. STaying silent would have meant lying." - just like Lie essay (Shatz, 129)
128-this trial is how the W. discovers samizdat
Birth of the Chronicle
"Some kind of permanent cohesive organization was essential in order to mount a sustained campaign for civil liberties instead of merely responding to the government's acts of repression; it was also essential if such a campaign were to survive the arrest of individual dissidents by the police. With an organizational base, the scattered and highly vulnerable individuals and circles that had emerged in the late sixties might be able to transform their expression of criticism and protest into a real "movement" on behalf of civil liberties." (Shaztz, 131)
"One of the first, and most successful, of these organizing efforts was A Chronicle of Current Events....A number of other underground journals have made their appearance in the last two decades, some of a literary nature and others devoted to political and social themes. Like the intelligentsia's 'thick journals' of the nineteenth century, they have served as behicles for the expression of a variety of nonconformist ideas, though most of these publications have been of brief duration. The Chronicle was the first one devoted exclusively to dissent itself." (Shatz, 131)
"More broadly, the rise of autonomous public associations represents a new stage of political consciousness on the part of at least some Soviet dissidents. Post-Stalin dissent in its initial phas was limited to moral appeals to the authorities for more humane treatment, and in its seconde phase to peitions and protests against violations of Soviet law and judicial procedure. It did not challenge the authorities' right to rule, nor did it question their legitimacy or demand that they be held accountable for their actions except in a moral sense. But the attempt to create citizens' organizations independent of the Party and state represents a significant break with the paternalistic principle of authority comparable to that achieved by the early intelligentsia at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century." (Shatz, 135)
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Sinyavsky "The Literary Process in Russia"
Sinyavsky, Andrei. "The Literary Process in Russia." Kontinent. New York: Anchor Books, 1976.
satirical
"The Russian author does not want to write to the state's direction has assumed the nightmarish status of an underground writer, that is to say, from the state's point of view he has chosen a life of crime for which strict penalties and deterrents are laid down. Literature has become a forbidden, risky and thus all the more fascinating activity." (S, 77)
"The writer had to be reduced to the status of a criminal, a lawbreaker-to which some writers first had to be driven to suicide, others expelled, still others tortured. Thousand of writers had to be corrupted and castrated-a task undertaken for several decades by the founders and stormy petrels of Soviet literature." (S, 78)
"Thus at a certain stage the literary process has assumed the character of a double-edged game, an escapade which in itself could well provide the plot of an entertaining novel. Authors have been turned into the heroes of as yet unwritten books; they have tasted the savor of an intrigue which may end in disaster ('If you play with fire, you can burn your fingers,' as Khrushchev warned writers with his customary bluntness), but which on the other hand lends a certain higher meaning-a gaiety, an interest, 'a pledge who knows, of immortality'--to the writer's otherwise drab existence." (S,79)
"The wrier nowadays is walking a knife-edge; but unlike the old days, when writers were simply eliminated one after another, he now derives pleasure and moral satisfaction from this curious pastime. The writer is now someone to be reckoned with." (S, 79)
"When they discovered that a woman of my acquaintance going to Russia from the West, was carrying a copy of Doctor Zhivago in her suitcase, she was immediately put into a gynecological chair and subjected to a medical examination to find out whether she might be carrying any more banned novels. This is excellent. This all to the good. It means that a book is worth something, it is sought after pursued; and by escaping, hiding, or being buried in the ground it gathers weight and power." (S, 80-81)
"We shall not be far wrong if we say that the major topics are prison and labor camps. The themes which inspire the Russian writer today are not stories about collective farms, or factories, not love stories or even the pangs of youth, but how people are imprisoned, where they are sent into exile and exactly how (interesting topic, you must admit) they shoot you in the back of the neck. The labor camp is now the central, the dominant them of literature." (S, 81)
"Whether we take Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, or for greater respectability Tolstoy's Resurrection, we will notice that both of them are based on the notion of escape, of breaking the bounds; that the writer's very soul longs to escape; that the savor, the sense, the ideal of being a writer has nothing whatever to do with 'telling the truth' (go an tell it if you want to-in a tramcar), but it has to do with planting that so-called 'truth' across the tracks of the 'lie' which is universally, legally, and publicly accepted as truth-- and thus to assume, as a duty, the role of 'criminal,' 'lawbreaker,' 'renegade,' 'degenerate,' or (what an apt new word they have invented) as 'ideological saboteur (hell-no dynamite!) and as he surveys the horizon wondering what to write about, more often than not he will chose some forbidden topic." (S, 84)
"It would be hard to invent a more precise and more inoffensive name than samizdat, indicating no more than that a person has simply written everything he wanted to say as he thought fit, and has published it himself, regardless of the consequences, by passing a wad of typewritten sheets to a friend. The friend has gone running to boas about it to two more like-minded drop-outs-and we are witnessing the conception of something great, fantastic, unique, incomparable: the embryo of Russian literature, which once before in the in the nineteenth century, delighted mankind, and is now once more feeling the urge to return to the old battleground." (S, 87)
"In historical perspective of the literary process in Russia, that period which for convenience we have marked with the searing brand of 'Stalinism' has also, perhaps made its modest but legitimate contributin to this process. It may be that too long a spell of silence and despair has made us speak up with such passion and fervor in the conditions of today's relatively tolerable (and even, as I have said, in some ways beneficial) unfreedom--in other words, as soon as the writers were able so much as to open thier mouths. If nowadays we shout so loudly to the world at large about the terrible and shameful things that are being done in Russia, then it is because among other things we have had direct experience eof the 'cold and murk of days to come' which Alexander Blok prophesied for us all." (S, 90)
"It is at this point that literature must be on its guard and must not give way to the seductive spell of speaking the truth and nothing but the truth. The danger threatening modern Russian literature--banned literature, of course (the other literature is not worth considering, since artistically it is about two hundred years out of date)--is assuming the role of a sort of whining complaints book, supposedly to be pursued by the leaders (who don't give a damn anyway), or to be stored away in a cupboard untli the advent of those better times when people will have learned to live by the light of truth." (S, 104)
"We are again faced by the eternal Russian dilemma: Where is your allegiance, you profession purveyors of culture? Whose side are you on? Are you for truth, or for the official lie? When the question is put like that, the writer obviously has no choice but to answer proudly: for truth! And that is the only fitting reply in such a situation. But in proclaiming oneself to be on the side of truth, it is worthwhile remembering what Stalin said when some brave members of the Union of Writers asked him to explain once and for all what socialist realism was, and how, in practical terms, to attain thos glittering heights. Without taking a moment's thought or batting an eyelid, the leader replied:
'Write the truth--and that will be socialist realism!'
The point has been reached where we should feat the truth, lest it hang round out necks again like an albatross. Let the writer refuse to tell lies, but let him create fiction--and in disregard of any kind of 'realism.'" (S, 104)
"All this is simply a set of variations on my original theme: the belief in the power of words. Everyone shares this belief: the common people, the writers, the authorities (who, having investigated the leaflets, immediately, as the rules prescribe, arrested and imprisoned the young truth-seekers), as well as the writers of those countless letters, complaints, and appeals to those same authorities. That is why people write, and why they are forbidden to write." (S, 108)
satirical
"The Russian author does not want to write to the state's direction has assumed the nightmarish status of an underground writer, that is to say, from the state's point of view he has chosen a life of crime for which strict penalties and deterrents are laid down. Literature has become a forbidden, risky and thus all the more fascinating activity." (S, 77)
"The writer had to be reduced to the status of a criminal, a lawbreaker-to which some writers first had to be driven to suicide, others expelled, still others tortured. Thousand of writers had to be corrupted and castrated-a task undertaken for several decades by the founders and stormy petrels of Soviet literature." (S, 78)
"Thus at a certain stage the literary process has assumed the character of a double-edged game, an escapade which in itself could well provide the plot of an entertaining novel. Authors have been turned into the heroes of as yet unwritten books; they have tasted the savor of an intrigue which may end in disaster ('If you play with fire, you can burn your fingers,' as Khrushchev warned writers with his customary bluntness), but which on the other hand lends a certain higher meaning-a gaiety, an interest, 'a pledge who knows, of immortality'--to the writer's otherwise drab existence." (S,79)
"The wrier nowadays is walking a knife-edge; but unlike the old days, when writers were simply eliminated one after another, he now derives pleasure and moral satisfaction from this curious pastime. The writer is now someone to be reckoned with." (S, 79)
"When they discovered that a woman of my acquaintance going to Russia from the West, was carrying a copy of Doctor Zhivago in her suitcase, she was immediately put into a gynecological chair and subjected to a medical examination to find out whether she might be carrying any more banned novels. This is excellent. This all to the good. It means that a book is worth something, it is sought after pursued; and by escaping, hiding, or being buried in the ground it gathers weight and power." (S, 80-81)
"We shall not be far wrong if we say that the major topics are prison and labor camps. The themes which inspire the Russian writer today are not stories about collective farms, or factories, not love stories or even the pangs of youth, but how people are imprisoned, where they are sent into exile and exactly how (interesting topic, you must admit) they shoot you in the back of the neck. The labor camp is now the central, the dominant them of literature." (S, 81)
"Whether we take Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, or for greater respectability Tolstoy's Resurrection, we will notice that both of them are based on the notion of escape, of breaking the bounds; that the writer's very soul longs to escape; that the savor, the sense, the ideal of being a writer has nothing whatever to do with 'telling the truth' (go an tell it if you want to-in a tramcar), but it has to do with planting that so-called 'truth' across the tracks of the 'lie' which is universally, legally, and publicly accepted as truth-- and thus to assume, as a duty, the role of 'criminal,' 'lawbreaker,' 'renegade,' 'degenerate,' or (what an apt new word they have invented) as 'ideological saboteur (hell-no dynamite!) and as he surveys the horizon wondering what to write about, more often than not he will chose some forbidden topic." (S, 84)
"It would be hard to invent a more precise and more inoffensive name than samizdat, indicating no more than that a person has simply written everything he wanted to say as he thought fit, and has published it himself, regardless of the consequences, by passing a wad of typewritten sheets to a friend. The friend has gone running to boas about it to two more like-minded drop-outs-and we are witnessing the conception of something great, fantastic, unique, incomparable: the embryo of Russian literature, which once before in the in the nineteenth century, delighted mankind, and is now once more feeling the urge to return to the old battleground." (S, 87)
"In historical perspective of the literary process in Russia, that period which for convenience we have marked with the searing brand of 'Stalinism' has also, perhaps made its modest but legitimate contributin to this process. It may be that too long a spell of silence and despair has made us speak up with such passion and fervor in the conditions of today's relatively tolerable (and even, as I have said, in some ways beneficial) unfreedom--in other words, as soon as the writers were able so much as to open thier mouths. If nowadays we shout so loudly to the world at large about the terrible and shameful things that are being done in Russia, then it is because among other things we have had direct experience eof the 'cold and murk of days to come' which Alexander Blok prophesied for us all." (S, 90)
"It is at this point that literature must be on its guard and must not give way to the seductive spell of speaking the truth and nothing but the truth. The danger threatening modern Russian literature--banned literature, of course (the other literature is not worth considering, since artistically it is about two hundred years out of date)--is assuming the role of a sort of whining complaints book, supposedly to be pursued by the leaders (who don't give a damn anyway), or to be stored away in a cupboard untli the advent of those better times when people will have learned to live by the light of truth." (S, 104)
"We are again faced by the eternal Russian dilemma: Where is your allegiance, you profession purveyors of culture? Whose side are you on? Are you for truth, or for the official lie? When the question is put like that, the writer obviously has no choice but to answer proudly: for truth! And that is the only fitting reply in such a situation. But in proclaiming oneself to be on the side of truth, it is worthwhile remembering what Stalin said when some brave members of the Union of Writers asked him to explain once and for all what socialist realism was, and how, in practical terms, to attain thos glittering heights. Without taking a moment's thought or batting an eyelid, the leader replied:
'Write the truth--and that will be socialist realism!'
The point has been reached where we should feat the truth, lest it hang round out necks again like an albatross. Let the writer refuse to tell lies, but let him create fiction--and in disregard of any kind of 'realism.'" (S, 104)
"All this is simply a set of variations on my original theme: the belief in the power of words. Everyone shares this belief: the common people, the writers, the authorities (who, having investigated the leaflets, immediately, as the rules prescribe, arrested and imprisoned the young truth-seekers), as well as the writers of those countless letters, complaints, and appeals to those same authorities. That is why people write, and why they are forbidden to write." (S, 108)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)