Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR TEBALDI vs. CALLAS Hibbard James, in his "Music" column in the August 4-11 issue, takes up Renata Tebaldi and Maria Callas. After hearing so many times that Callas is a greater artist...
...C. C. Wilson CORRECTION In my column in the issue of July 7-14, I referred to the Congressional Quarterly as the "Republican Congressional Quarterly...
...As for Callas's dramatic ability, I fail to see it...
...with the very small number of "maladjusted" people who were not able to overcome their homesickness and returned to the somber realm of Communism, then we will find in Chamber-lin's thesis no more than one per cent of truth...
...That she can produce "harsh, ragged tones" in Medea does not prove her acting ability, but rather the fact that she cannot produce any other kind of tones...
...William E. Bohn...
...We have had the opportunity to help underdeveloped countries for centuries...
...Danville, Ill...
...Laqueur apparently only knew the fact that Sultan Galiev was critical of "classical Marxism" and European policies toward the Moslems...
...and her Tosca has all the passion of a woman violently in love...
...New York City William Barcham SULTAN GALIEV Walter Z. Laqueur's article, "Sultan Galiev's Ghost" (NL, February 3, 1958), just recently came to my attention...
...She does give the audience a. marvelous sense of circus...
...It amazed me not only by its hostile spirit toward Russia's victims, but also by the author's apparent ignorance of the subject...
...In some extreme cases, like that of aviator Anatole Barsov, they have returned to the USSR...
...The people in what we like to call the backward areas are on the march...
...There are still guided missiles, block-busters, jellied gasoline, etc...
...Actually, the republic mentioned did not even exist at that time...
...If we compare the great number of Russian-Americans who entered American life and are honestly and successfully working in the U.S...
...This short list of Russians who are, or were well adjusted and successfully working in the U. S. can be enlarged ad infinitum...
...Moscow's attitude toward the independence of small nations has not changed since...
...New York City Salih Faizi RUSSIANS & AMERICANS The article "How Russians Are Not Like Americans" (NL, July 21-28, 1958), by William Henry Chamberlin, was an unpleasant surprise...
...Unless the West wakes up pretty soon and does something about these conditions, the Communists will win hands down—and they should...
...The man who cooperated with Stalin on matters of Moslem nationalities early in 1918 was not Sultan Galiev but Mulla Nur Vakhitov...
...What we should be thinking about is the abolition of war itself, of putting the $10 billion the world is spending each month on weapons of war to more constructive use...
...She very often misses a note or, if she hits it, cannot hold it securely...
...For a time," Laqueur writes, "Sultan Galiev was Commissar for Education and Nationalities in the Tatar Bolshevik republic...
...In February 1918, he became one of Stalin's chief lieutenants...
...A large part of the world lives in squalor, is dominated by colonialism and feudal systems, has not even been exposed to the industrial revolution and scarcely knows what representative government is...
...Galiev was purged 35 years ago for his refusal to accept Russian domination...
...More than once, in visiting some small college town in the United States or Canada, I found that perhaps the only Russian there was a refugee from Communism teaching in the local college...
...If Callas can act with her voice, why doesn't she give us a Mimi or a Butterfly which is as lovely as Medea isn't...
...her Violetta a woman of the world...
...Moscow used the Cairo Conference simply to mobilize everybody against its own main opponents...
...But even without atomic and H-bombs, such a war would be horrible...
...To my mind, however, they are not important except that they touch upon one aspect of the world situation which might explode into another world war at almost any moment...
...Thomas N. Schroth, editor of the Quarterly, has sent me evidence which convinces me that his publication is quite non-partisan...
...Interestingly enough, a year ago the same "William Henry Chamberlin wrote in the New Leader (June 10, 1957) : "The last works of such eminent scholars as Rostovtsev, specialist in the economics of the Greco-Roman world, and Vassiliev, one of the foremost authorities on Byzantine civilization, were published in this country...
...As for her Madeleine in Andrea Chenier, I felt she fashioned "La mamma morte," for instance, into a drama all by itself...
...She was always standing in front of the character, exhibiting her own personality...
...Callas does not seem to have this...
...An artist is someone who has not only a gift but also a technique which allows him to perform with ease and control...
...Certainly, this had nothing to do with Sultan Galiev...
...New Haven, Conn...
...Her Mimi is light and innocent...
...Yet I wonder whether, on some future occasion, Laqueur intends to "prove" that Nikita Khrushchev adopted Wilson's Fourteen Points...
...Russia's loss, under Soviet rule, was the world's gain...
...Accepting Callas as singing artist is tantamount to saying that a singer does not need technique...
...Sergei Pushkarev RUSSELL-HOOK "Round Two of a Vital Debate" between Bertrand Russell and Sidney Hook (NL, July 7-14) was interesting, but just what difference will it make as far as world history is concerned...
...Undoubtedly, Galiev was not happy with the policy of the Entente Powers—but neither was President Woodrow Wilson...
...James will listen to the two singers again—with a fresh point of view...
...Yet when I saw Norma at the Metropolitan Opera, I never felt that Callas was really bringing out the character of Norma...
...Actually, Sultan Galiev remained politically active until 1928, and he was sentenced to death by a special court decision in the winter of 1929-1930...
...Laqueur tries to prove that the Kremlin rulers now adopted Sultan Galiev's policy toward Moslems at the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in Cairo in January 1958...
...He writes: "Proof of the wide gap between Americans and Russians can be found in the large proportion of maladjustments among Russian defectors many have found life in America uncongenial...
...The execution of Imre Nagy and renewed attacks against Marshal Tito prove this beyond doubt...
...Renata Tebaldi, in my opinion, has not yet displayed the fire and temperament necessary for certain roles, but her Mimi and Violetta have shown her as a supreme artist...
...Her voice actually takes on a different quality in different roles...
...After hearing so many times that Callas is a greater artist than Tebaldi, it has become obvious to me that people who say this do not understand what the word "artist" means...
...If such debates axe important, they should be held in the General Assembly of the United Nations where the world will hear them, where they might influence the official representatives of the various nations...
...As a Russian historian, I could challenge almost every sentence in this article, but I will limit myself to an examination of the main "proof" of his thesis...
...We always seem to back the wrong horse and promote the status quo...
...I am quite sure I will not convert any loyal Callas fans, but I hope that Mr...
...Another professor of Russian origin, retiring with Karpo-vich at Harvard this year, is Serge Eliseev, an outstanding specialist in Japanese studies...
...It was formed by the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on June 25, 1920...
...only months after the latter's death, late in 1918, did Sultan Galiev appear on the political scene in the Kremlin...
...This is nonsense...
...After his release from prison [1923] he did not return to Soviet politics," writes Laqueur, "and in the purges of 1936-1938 he disappeared...
...A principal cause of this maladjustment is that many Russians, accustomed to having the state assign them to this or that job, cannot understand the American practice of the individual looking out for himself...
...We should be the revolutionaries—we started in 1776—but we have neglected to help those others who wanted to revolt since...
Vol. 41 • September 1958 • No. 31
