CENTRAL EUROPEAN WR.lTER.S
AS A SOC IAL FORCE
665
enough the notion that, after all, what writers do best is to write from
their own experiences, from their inner voices?
Donald Fanger:
Idea lly, Saul Bellow, and others who are not only
academics but have credentials as writers, ought to comment on your
question, rather than myself I don't really think it is my and other aca–
demics' place
to
answer authoritatively; on the other hand it is our place
to be tempted to answer this. I suspect that any Western, American
writer - and this was mentioned in yesterday's opening remarks - must
to some extent envy those dissident writers who, by virtue of the fact
that they are writers, are invested with heroic status. It is because dissi–
dence has deep moral resonances, because it offers satisfactions, at a terri–
ble price to be sure, of a kind whi ch are not available offered to con–
temporary American writers. I suspect that it's an extension, into a moral
and a social dimension, of what fame can mean. And who, dreaming
about fame, would not welcome its extension into such a moral domain?
Michael Heirn: It
seems to me what you heard at that conference in
Philadelphia was something very natural. You heard each side hoping that
it cou ld do what the other side did.
It
makes perfect psychological sense .
Qllestioll:
Professor Laqueur, would you care to comment on the ambi –
guity of Bertold Brecht's comments on the great purge, that the more
innocent they are the more they deserve to die? My second question
concerns the ambiguity surrounding the death of Willi Mlinzenberg the
left wing publisher.
Walter Laqueur: I'm
sorry. I cannot comment on Brecht's observation,
since I am not familiar with it. As for the ambiguity about the murder of
Mlinzenberg - that is a very sad detective story. Mlinzenberg was a lapsed
member and leader of the German Communist party, a great publisher
who broke with the Party in 1935 or so. While trying to escape to
Spain in 1940, he all egedly committed suicide. Whether he really
committed suicide or not is not clear. Within the several last years, two
or three biographies of Mlinzenberg have been published. Two have
reached the conclusions that he did commit suicide, and the third one
sa id perhaps he died by other means.
It
is really a very sad and
inconclusive story.
Donald Fanger:
Thank you alL
