Black Market and Cultural Exchange

...They are interested in the novels of Budd Schulberg, especially in the novel, Waterfront...

...Tennessee Williams' play, Sweet Bird of Youth, currently being presented on Broadway, was seen by many Soviet visitors...

...And a magazine devoted to translations of American writers and critics into Russian is the best means for such a contact...

...Wilson regards Doctor Zhivago as a kind of "suspension bridge" across the Iron Curtain—from the Soviet Union to contemporary Western literature—and the Soviet visitor abroad values Wilson's writings for his sincere conviction that Pasternak's novel is a work of universal human significance...

...Until 1929, translated literature in the Soviet Union was far richer than it is today...

...Most of them, both here and along the tiny passageway to the Art Theater, which is a continuation of Kuznetsk Bridge, are book stores, second-hand book shops, stores of the 'Mosknigtorg,' booths and stalls...

...This figure might seem incredible and fantastic, especially since it was the offering price of a book dealer who expected to resell them under the counter or in the black market at even higher prices...

...Not too long ago, in an edition of over 200,000 copies, a two-volume translation of Hemingway's selected works was published...

...One of the sailors of the tanker "Tuapse" who had first expressed the wish to remain in the U.S...

...But those who know how rapidly books disappeared from the American exhibition in Sokolniki Park last summer will not be astonished at these prices...

...I can cite only individual, unrelated facts...

...I have been told that a certain Soviet film worker was so moved by the production that he expressed keen regret that Soviet theaters have not been able, since the 1930s, to present such emotionally charged plays...

...How many "star chasers" are there in Soviet Russia who can make use of these non-Russian "falling stars" without translators...

...Several years ago the defunct Chekhov Publishing House in New York published a Russian translation of The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder...

...If the publication itself and the selection of the material are wholly in the hands of American writers and publishers, shunning all politics and propaganda, the enormous success of such a magazine may be assured in advance, and we may be certain that it would reach the Soviet public...

...In the Soviet Union there are many excellent literary translators, but they must work principally with classics...

...However, his name was remembered, and it is quite natural that Soviet visitors to the U.S...

...The eminent Russian satirist, Mikhail Zosh-chenko, thought highly of this writer, and some of his stories, such as "The Bees" and particularly "The History of a Life...

...Under the tourist rate of exchange, 300 rubles are worth $30...

...Soviet people also look for works by Carl Sandburg...

...Among the more educated Soviet visitors in America, there is also a marked interest in Thornton Wilder and Tennessee Williams...

...In almost all cases, this desire goes hand in hand with the wish to transcend the politically motivated tendentiousness which motivates the Soviet publishing organizations in their choice of modern American works for translation...

...But it seems to me that they are quite indicative...

...Hostility toward all forms of propaganda is combined in the Soviet citizen with dislike of all political tendentiousness...

...The sailor from "Nikolai Moskvin" bought 10 copies of the paperback edition of The Green Hills of Africa...

...When the ship returned to Sevastopol, in Soviet Crimea, a local second-hand book dealer snapped up these books...

...Judging from all this, it would appear that these are the three most popular American writers in the Soviet Union...

...He was referring to translators of the '30s—but this apprehension is still valid today...

...The existence of this black market, which reflects the unusual interest of Soviet citizens in contemporary American writing, provides the basis for a proposal whose effect would be to familiarize the literate Soviet public with the best of this writing: a magazine devoted exclusively to Russian translations of current American writers and critics...

...A magazine devoted to translations of American writers and critics and edited by these writers and critics themselves would be a far more useful and significant form of cultural exchange than the exchange which is confined within the narrow limits of official agreements and state control...

...have sought out his works...

...There are a great many special foreign-language institutes in a number of the larger Soviet cities...

...Vladimir Nabokov's novels, for instance, have long been held in high regard within the narrow circle of Soviet intellectuals who were able to gain access to them...

...Thanks to this spontaneous exchange, individual Soviet citizens are beginning to see American literature as it is, in the light of reality, rather than as it is pictured in Communist propaganda...

...The bookkeeper of a Soviet commercial vessel docked in Salonika bought several English books from a merchant there...

...At present Kuznetsk Bridge is occupied chiefly by stores...

...The smuggling of books, according to this sailor, is far less popular than, say, the smuggling of foreign phonograph records with hit tunes or jazz music...

...But Lolita is not especially well thought of...

...But they are most eager to buy the works of Faulkner, Hemingway and Steinbeck...

...Of course, such a magazine requires excellent translators, endowed with considerable literary talent...

...With the exception of The Old Man and the Sea and a few others, the remainder consisted of his earlier stories...

...These stars are of two kinds: Some are "indigenous, Russian," and others have been plucked from Western, foreign skies, Through what channels do foreign books penetrate the Soviet book market...

...The prices may be attributed to the scarcity of American books in the black market, since only a small proportion of the foreign books brought into the Soviet Union in contraband or semi-contraband fashion finds its way to the market...

...And several professors of literature give them far more objective and serious consideration in their current lectures and reports...

...Another sailor, from the Soviet steamship "Nikolai Moskvin" (which transported the exhibits for the Soviet exposition at the New York Coliseum earlier this year) asked me to help him obtain a number of books by American writers...

...This sailor gave me several instances of such smuggling, of which the following is one...

...The existence of controversial questions and even differences of opinion concerning literature and its aims make it all the more necessary to establish contact between contemporary American literature and Soviet readers...

...According to the author's doubtlessly reliable testimony, the chapters in the novel which deal with the black market in books in Russia were written "on the basis of documentary material...

...As a rule, they buy inexpensive paperbacks...

...But the projected collection of Runyon's stories never appeared, probably because of censorship interference...

...When Soviet citizens are asked about Doctor Zhivago, their first question—if they trust their interlocutor and feel they can be frank with him—is usually: "But tell me, is it genuine art or also propaganda...

...Several conclusions may be drawn from this intense interest among Soviet citizens in contemporary American literature...

...The American literary community might, for example, launch the publication of a magazine in Russian, containing solely translations of recent works of American writers, critics and art scholars...

...And, of course, there are the older intellectuals, whose knowledge of foreign languages dates back to pre-revolutionary days...

...The heightened interest in Melville is partially bound up with the common elements which the Soviet reader finds in his work and that of Alexander Grin (Grin-evsky), who is perhaps the most prominent representative of Russian post-revolutionary romanticism...

...In recent years Grin, who was virtually under a ban, has been given what amounts to a creative amnesty, and this has reawakened the long-standing interest in Melville...

...Thus, according to the newspaper, Evening Leningrad, "brigades of partisans of the book trade are active along Stremyannaya Street in Leningrad...

...He offered the bookkeeper, who had paid two dollars for the four American books, 150 rubles for Steinbeck's novel alone, and an equal amount for the three copies of Hemingway's novel...

...They also want such works as Edna Ferber's Giant and Ice Palace...

...Shrewd speculators have been selling 'hard-to-get' books here for three times their original prices, and inveterate book hounds come here to barter 'novelties.'" Similar markets, on a somewhat smaller scale, exist in other Soviet cities...

...In Schulberg's work he also finds great boldness and creative initiative, and regards them as another form of American neo-realism...

...The latter question is not too difficult to answer...

...When I inquired whether the books had been ordered by black market dealers, he emphatically denied it...

...And in this sense the emigre translators are definitely at an advantage...

...At one time, Osip Mandelstam, Pasternak's predecessor both as a poet and as a translator, voiced his apprehension that "the flowering of the language of contemporary Western writers may pass by our translators...

...Even before World War I, a collection of Damon Runyon's stories in Russian translation was slated for publication...

...Other books reach not the hands of black market dealers, but those who are eager to make their own direct acquaintance with contemporary American literature...

...reveal traces of Runyon's influence...

...In such cases, I have usually replied by a summary of Edmund Wilson's articles, indicating where they were published, since I knew in advance that the visitor would want to verify my words...

...From time to time, the Soviet police disperses these markets...

...Although my information is somewhat fragmentary, it is sufficient to indicate that a cultural exchange of quite another, spontaneous and undirected nature is taking place today, if only on a modest scale, between American art and the Soviet reader...

...And the Soviet provincial press reveals the presence of black markets in books in Odessa, Sevastopol, Riga, Baku and many other large cities...

...It seems, from what I have been able to gather, that they seek works by Herman Melville, Ambrose Bierce and Damon Runyon, among others...

...It is not surprising, therefore, that the Soviet black market in books is frequented by hundreds, if not thousands, of university and other students in search of foreign books...

...In the Soviet Union there is still no edition of the collected works of Hemingway, Steinbeck or Faulkner...

...There is, in other words, a thriving Soviet black market in American literature...

...Many of their works have not been translated into Russian...

...and later returned home, told me that many Soviet seamen secretly engage in contraband, and have connections with the Soviet black markets...

...On this score, American writers and critics might meet Soviet readers half-way...

...As for Thornton Wilder and Tennessee Williams, the Soviet reader knows almost nothing about them, except perhaps that they have been described as decadent and typical representatives of "dying capitalism" and "spokesmen for the moods of the doomed bourgeois world...

...Soviet readers still remember this period, when American literature was accessible to the general Russian reading public...

...To begin with, it points to a desire to extend acquaintance with this literature beyond the limited and scanty supply of available Soviet translations, especially of works by modern American writers...

...The Soviet reader evidently admires the critical realism of James Jones' novels, which he sees as an expression of dauntless boldness...

...I had the impression that he was telling the truth...

...When Arthur Miller began to win recognition in the Soviet Union, when his works began to be published and produced, the Soviet public was inclined to think that Miller had been taken under the wing of the propagandists...

...They look for novels by James Jones (I know of Soviet people who have bought three and four copies of From Here to Eternity and two and three copies of Some Came Running...

...Hemingway and Steinbeck are better known, since more of their works have been translated...

...The Kuznetsk Bridge," writes Grebnev, "is a small narrow street located at the very center of Moscow...

...He had prepared a list of those he wanted...

...For his was not an isolated instance, American book stores have been visited by the pianist Emil Gilels and the violinist David Oistrakh, the writer Valentin Kataev and the painter Yakov Romas, the film director Sergei Gerasimov, the playwright Mdivani, the ballerina Galina Ulanova, Igor Moiseyev and the artists of his company, artists of the "Berezka" company and the Bolshoi Theater, soloists of the Pyatnitsky Chorus, numerous guides at the Soviet exposition, and Soviet theater personnel...

...But books are also a rather frequent "forbidden fruit...

...True, in the most recent period this approach to their work has been branded a relic of "vulgar sociologism...

...Also, realizing that foreign languages are more easily assimilated in childhood, the Soviet Government has introduced important reforms in language instruction in primary schools...

...Faulkner, for instance, is known in Russian translation, as far as I know, only from one collection and several translated stories...

...In his novel, Grebnev speaks of "valuable books, which appear and disappear with the speed of falling stars...

...But few people seem to be aware that American culture reaches the USSR not only through the "front door," flanked on either side by censors, but also through the "back entrance," where there are no such guards...

...It is much more difficult to trace the paths by which foreign books reach the Soviet Union...

...But this problem can be solved with the aid of the many young emigre writers who combine an extensive knowledge of modern American literature with great interest in literary translation...

...Ever since World War II, language instruction in Soviet universities and other institutions of higher learning has constantly been improved and expanded...

...We can learn something about how this "contraband" exchange takes place today from Lost Treasures, by the Soviet writer Georgy Grebnev...

...I have heard Soviet visitors say that Pnin, by the same author, is a much more significant work, and they seemed rather astonished at its comparatively moderate success in America...

...Individual copies of this book found their way into the Soviet Union, and Thornton Wilder immediately won the admiration of the few readers who were able to obtain his novel...

...He insisted that the list had been drawn up by students of Leningrad University and the Herzen Institute in Leningrad, who knew English and wanted the books, not for speculation, but for their own use and for their friends...

...They included a second-hand copy of John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden, for which he paid the approximate equivalent an American dollar (his rubles were exchanged for Greek drachmas), and three copies of Ernest Hemingway's Across the River and Into the Trees, in an inexpensive 35-cent edition, for which he paid less than one dollar...

...He told me that he was able to afford only inexpensive paperbacks and I was struck by the fact that he wanted to buy from five to 10 copies of each of the books in his list...

...This is why they are so eager to obtain these writers' latest works...

...But a few years ago, after Miller spoke over Radio Liberation on the 75th anniversary of Dostoyevsky's death, defending the artist's spiritual independence from any regime whatsoever, he evidently, without realizing it himself, destroyed this preconceived notion and raised his prestige among the Soviet people, who now recognized him as a writer who transcends political barriers...

...They also remember Fanny Hurst's early novels and Edna Ferber's So Big...

...Soviet citizens are tired of all forms of propaganda, and seek in foreign literature what they do not find in their own—spiritual independence and true art...

...Of course, not everything that is taking place in American art will be approved or accepted...

...How great is the VYACHESLAV ZAVALIEHIN is the author of Early Soviet Writers, a source book published this year by Praeger interest in these untranslated books in present-day Russia...

...The special characteristic of this exchange is not only that it does not follow any official agreements, but that it is taking place despite and apart from them...

...But on the whole their existence is tolerated...

...And yet, no matter how great the curiosity of Soviet readers, such a spontaneous exchange permits only of a rather limited acquaintance with the facts, despite the unquestionable increase of knowledge...