WRITERS IN EXILE
27
Well , Sholokhov, if it really was Sholokhov, wrote
The Quiet Don
under different circumstances. But as far as I know, Sholokhov has
written nothing for the last thirty or forty years.
YUZ ALESHKOVSKY : No , he
did
write.
ANDREI SINIAVSKI: Well , if he did write anything, it was some–
thing very bad. The literary situation has changed a lot in post-Stalin
times . It's a very diverse, complicated picture. But there are certain
constants that have accompanied these changes- such circumstances,
for example , as censorship and prison.
MAN FROM AUDIENCE: I'd like to make a very brief comment
and then ask a question . My comment is this: I think that the gentle–
men on this panel are people of extraordinary courage who expressed
their opposition to a brutal regime and were prepared to risk the
consequences, and I think they deserve a great deal of credit. I'd like
to add , though, that I've been somewhat disappointed by the way in
which they responded to the question on American foreign policy.
St. Juste once said that no one can rule guiltlessly, and I think it was
Solzhenitsyn who once said that every great writer living in a coun–
try is like a foreign power living in a country. I can't imagine why
people who are sensitive to the concerns of humanity generally
would hesitate to criticize, as one or two of the panelists in fact did,
aspects of American foreign policy along with, I think, their very
legitimate and justified, and much more far-reaching criticism of the
Soviet Union and its policies. I hope that they realize that the effect
of this is to undercut their own credibility . My question is this: can
they tell us what impact their views have had - the various and di–
vergent views- not only on intellectuals in the Soviet Union, but on
the Soviet people? And what are the prospects for any kind of radical
change, and the direction it's likely to take if there is a real prospect?
YUZ ALESHKOVSKY: Among the group of literary men partici–
pating in this meeting, there are writers whom I would call political
writers . Also among us are lyricists and people drawn to other
genres . The most important thing in our work is not what we say at
meetings with writers, but what is in our books . Dovlatov was totally
correct in saying that the most gratifying thing for us in our perhaps
comfortable life in exile, but in exile all the same, is the fact that our
books end up in Russia and are read until they fall to pieces. On the
black market in Moscow one of my novels sells for two hundred
roubles. They say the novels of Aksyonov are worth even more . It's
impossible for us now to say what kind of influence our books have
