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PARTISAN REVIEW
obedient authors has generally been regarded as the survival of
the old style rather than the brilliant discovery of contemporary
life, the new splendor of the so-called highly advanced and ripe
socialism.
.
In
other words,
I
would thank them for the happiness I ex–
perienced. I experienced this fantastic state of mind, this happi–
ness, taking part in the movement of the Soviet sixties. I was
twice as happy as long as this unbelievable period of Soviet life
coincided with my youth. I belonged to a generation born in the
thirties, on the crest of revolutionary violence, when in Russia
and Germany two kinds of socialism were simultaneously
blooming. Should I thank and praise those "Cheka" officers
who had taken my parents to jail and put me in an orphanage?
Probably I should, because otherwise I would have run the risk
of becoming one of them-either a ruler or a watchdog. After the
great purges of the thirties, we-a thoroughly edited generation–
were supposed to become the ideal slaves, but thanks to this loss
of style, the result of the editing turned out to be the opposite df
what had been expected.
In
the sixties, the writers of our generation became known
as the new voices of Russia. We looked to world literature, already
mesmerized and inspired by the new ideas, new sounds, new
smells, and all that jazz of the renaissance. Sure, it was a timid
and feeble one, but nonetheless a renaissance indeed. And those
who lived during those exciting periods of human history might
know the touch of Fortune's wing. I read in an article by a sur–
prisingly young Moscow writer that during the sixties he got up
every morning with a strong feeling of the growing feast-a feel–
ing of freedom broadening and deepening one's perception of
independence. Formerly, it went without saying that a Soviet
writer had to develop a sort of deviant conscience; to submit to
the countless Soviet prejudices as if it were necessarily a big hand–
icap for him to live in the ethical sphere; to omit any painful
questions; to be an inspiring liar for the sake of the great idea.
Our generation entered the literary stage with a vague perception
of honesty, and-what is probably more important-without a
clearly formulated aesthetic, without which you can hardly
achieve a full scale of expression of anything, including honesty.
It
sounds paradoxical, but while the years were passing by
and the writers were getting older, any possibility for compromise
