ANDREI SINYAVSKY
34 1
tended for an internal , Russian audience. In addition to
Nash Sovrernennik,
Shafarevich is supported by the journal
Molodaya Gvuardiya (Young Guard)
and in the West by the Munichjournal
Veche,
which actually first published
Shafarevich's piece.
Shafarevich is not an idiot; he is a world-renowned mathematician, a
corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, and an honorary
professor at several foreign universities and academies. But his book, per–
haps unconsciously , fully coincides with theories of German Nazism from
Hitler to Rosenberg. It is a very level-headed work, written in high academic
style. Its basic idea is that a small group of people, by whom he means the
Jews, are Russophobes , conducting an internal struggle against the people
whom they are in the midst of, the Russians.
I will give you a short quotation from Shafarevich's book: "Russophobic
literature is under the strong influence ofJewish nationalist sentiments."
Among the supposed Russophobes are the writers Galich, Vitsotsky,
Karecharvin , Andrei Amalrik, Grossman, Tarkovsky, I1fand Petrov, Bialik,
and Babel. In a similar way, the works of Heinrich Heine were reviled in
azi Germany as being anti-German and banned.
Those sharing Shafarevich's thinking also explain by the use of this
conspiracy theory the influence of Freud, Schoenberg, Picasso, Kafka, and the
poet Brodsky. (Picasso is included on the list because according to the Hit–
leJ·ite conception, his mother was Jewish .) To summarize Shafarevich's
thinking, t11e aim of this small group is the final destruction of the religious and
national foundations oflife, the opportunity
to
manipulate decisively the fate
of the Russian people, resulting in a new and final catastrophe, after which
noiliing of the Russian people will remain.
Shafarevich characterizes the mentality of the Jewish people as being
completely alienated from and hostile to Russia's spiritual principles. It sup–
posedly involves not just the rejection of all political rights but the desire to
influence the life of the country. What is meant is that the activities ofJews
throughout history are now culminating in a striving to master the whole
world.
What do the Soviet writers who support Shafarevich have to say? The
writer Lichutin gave an interview to the journal
Moskovsky Lilertilor.
Lichutin is now being put forward as the next editor-in-chief of the journal
Oklyabr.
Recently the Plenum of the Russian Writers Society removed the
former editor because he supposedly published Russophobic pieces. These
pieces were not Russophobic but anti-Semitic. It is quite clear from the con–
text of these pieces that they refer to the Jews who have come to the Soviet
Union to accomplish their striving for world mastery. The date for this ac–
complishment has already been designated , the year 2,000. This date does
