WRITERS IN EXILE
15
More than one hundred years ago a great Russian writer and
revolutionary, Aleksandr Herzen, said, "How sad and tragic the
Russian life! But, there is hope, because each time autocracy be–
comes lighter, as after the death of Nicholas IV, something new im–
mediately appears - new social, political, and literary forces. And
each time new people are produced by Russia." We have to remem–
ber, since the death of Stalin - it's been less than thirty years - how
much has changed. Nobody could have predicted that after Khru–
shchev's Twentieth Party Congress speech, there would be some
kind of literary renaissance, and some hope for political develop–
ment. Not much happened, but some books
were
published.
Samizdat
was born. Many writers, after Siniavski, started to publish their
books abroad, and those books returned to Russia in printed form.
The Soviet government was forced for a while to stop jamming the
Voice of America, and many people learned a lot of things about the
world. Then, after Khrushchev was ousted, there developed a certain
literary movement. True , most activists of this movement sooner or
later were arrested or forced to emigrate, and the fate of those people
has been harsh. But it happened. Such writers as Solzhenitsyn ap–
peared, and Andrei Sakharov, maybe one of the greatest spokesmen
for peace and humanity in today's world .
People started to talk. In 1968, I remember, we thought that
the Soviets might permit emigration. By now, a quarter of a million
Soviet people, most but not all Jews (and this isn't the most impor–
tant thing), have left the Soviet Union. Emigration has to some de–
gree become a reality. Though activists fighting for emigration, like
Scharansky, who is now in jail, are in great trouble, those who are
here were not strangled in labor camps. Our movement for human
rights, our speaking up, and our books made this discussion possi–
ble. In the Soviet Union there is no such people's movement, but our
movement created at least some basis upon which a discussion about
the future of Russia became possible .
YUZ ALESHKOVSKY: In a certain sense history does not exist at
all, because Bolshevism throws man and human culture so far back
in time that it is entirely justifiable to speak of the total degradation
of personality under victorious Bolshevism. Nationalism has arisen
as a phenomenon under conditions of totalitarian power. Thus it
must be viewed as a sign of recovery. In other words, the nation must
begin its dance all over again. Of course it can dance its way to fas–
cism. All of us-the Russians and Jews and Poles and Czechs-we
