Exploring the Emigre Spirit
THORNE, LUDMILLA
Exploring the Emigre Spirit Explorations in Freedom Edited by Leopold Tyrmand The Free Press. 442 pp. $8.95. Reviewed by Ludmilla Thorne A totalitarian government anywhere is perhaps a greater...
...A poet in Russia or Eastern Europe is forbidden to dwell on "decadent themes" or preoccupy himself with innovations in verse structure and style...
...It could be Hitler or Churchill...
...He threw all his energy into producing Kultura, feeling strongly that political expatriates needed to make their presence and positions known...
...Brodsky is considered the leading young poet of Leningrad, an heir to Anna Akhmatova...
...1, an Argentinian...
...Who wants to read a Greek writer in Argentina...
...It did not matter who did it: good or bad, from the Left or the Right...
...Several of Brodsky's poems, and the trial proceedings against him, were published in The New Leader in 1964-65...
...From the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and through the Communist domination of Eastern Europe following World War II, multilingual journals mushroomed across Western Europe, the United States and South America...
...the other is Kultura Essays), the emigre spirit has been extended to the English-speaking reader...
...Other pieces in the anthology are more concerned with everyday human relationships in a Communist society...
...they are intimidated by their own daring, afraid of their own courage, tamed by their own revolt, made mediocre by their own technique...
...National and ethnic animosities of long standing have been subordinated in recognition of the common hardships and interests...
...Such diverse authors as George Orwell, Daniel Bell, Graham Greene, and Albert Camus have been translated into Polish along with Milovan Djilas, Boris Pasternak and A. D. Sakharov...
...Jozef Wittlin's essay, "The Splendor and the Squalor of Exile," opens Explorations in Freedom and quickly propels it along its paradoxical course...
...Six Polish poets and one Russian are represented: Kazimierz Wier-zynski, Waclaw Iwaniuk, Jozef Lo-bodowski, Czeslaw Milosz, Adam Czerniawski, Bogdan Czaykowski, and Iosif Brodsky...
...After twenty-four years of Bolshevism they waited for its end...
...Gombrowicz, hailed by French critics as a major European writer, died last year in Paris...
...to the writer in exile, they represent the opportunity to be printed in his native language instead of being doomed to silence...
...Furthermore, because emigre reviews inevitably find their way through the Iron Curtain, they frequently have a unique ideological impact...
...Almost every East European nationality has its own literary community in exile, with publications generally superior to those sanctioned by the Central Committee...
...Andrei Sinyavsky's intensely personal "Thoughts Taken Unawares" (first published in English in The New Leader, July 19, 1965) is included here...
...It is noteworthy that this tragic and often misinterpreted chapter of Russia's history is not clarified by a Cossack or a Russian, but by a Polish intellectual...
...But these people did not know of Hitlers particular aversion to Slavs...
...He admires Berlin, but cannot forget its past: "It seemed to me . . . that Berlin, like Lady Macbeth, was constantly washing its hands...
...Most controversial among the non-Polish authors whose works have been published by the Institut are the Russians Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel...
...Aleksandr ("Aleksei") Remizov writes of Paris...
...Its editor is Leopold Tyrmand, a successful Polish writer and lecturer now living in the United States who has contributed to many American magazines, among them The New Leader...
...As Abram Tertz and Nikolai Arzhak, they were first introduced to the West in 1959 when the Institut issued editions of their works in both Russian and Polish...
...Hands...
...Russian readers have Novy Zhurnal (The New Review) a quarterly published in New York, Grani (Facets), printed in Frankfurt, and many more...
...Based in Paris, both were established in 1947 by Jerzy Giedroyc and a few collaborators...
...His negative opinions of the French are oddly ambivalent: "Their genius has become an anti-genius...
...many have perished...
...New publishing houses, such as the Herzen Foundation in Amsterdam and the revived Chekhov Publishing House in New York (both for Russian literature), are emerging to meet new needs...
...He describes how during World War II entire Red Army units surrendered to the Germans without fighting...
...Discussing "the laws that govern creativity in exile," Wittlin describes the threats and opportunities, the risks and advantages involved...
...Reviewed by Ludmilla Thorne A totalitarian government anywhere is perhaps a greater hardship on the writer than on most other members of society...
...Indeed, this collection, far from having merely political value, is an exploration in diversity and experimentation...
...Because most of the authors in the book are, to use the official term, "displaced nationals," the action in the stories, diaries and essays shifts all around the globe...
...a writer lost in Paris, searching for a sting with which to leave his mark," we understand some of the painful experience behind his words...
...The Hungarians have Vj Latohatar (New Horizons), a bimonthly published in Munich, and Iradalmi Ujsag (Literary News), issued every month in Paris...
...The Czechs have Svedectvi (Testimony), also published in Paris...
...These and other dictates are incorporated in the official doctrine of Socialist Realism—the literary straitjacket of the Soviet Union since 1932...
...others are faltering...
...a Slav and a South American...
...And who will publish him...
...If he goes into exile, he cuts himself off from the main body of his readership...
...Ingeniously, he enables the reader to see life through the eyes of an exile...
...Thus, when later we find Witold Gombrowicz saying, "I, a Pole...
...If he continues to write in his home country, he must either produce mediocre work that will pass censorship or suffer "inner emigration"—writing for the desk drawer, not publication...
...Andrej Bobkowski describes his life as a model airplane maker...
...Stalin-ski is the pseudonym of an unidentified author living in Poland...
...A prose writer dare not show the dark aspects of human nature or end his story on an unhappy note...
...Yet there is no mistaking the feeling that these people are not where they would like to be...
...Sociologist Alijca Iwanska writes of her experiences with Mazahuanas Indians in Mbayo, Mexico...
...His name, too, is familiar to readers of this magazine...
...So is Yuli Daniel's short story...
...and monthly review, Kultura...
...The traditional approach is basically prescriptive, primarily limiting what may be written...
...Some, of excellent literary quality, are in good health...
...A publisher and editor, Giedroyc could not bring himself to return to a Communist Poland after serving with the Polish Army in the Near East and Africa during World War II...
...Mackiewicz describes the events at Lenz on May 20, 1945, when the British turned over 2,750 Cossack soldiers to the Soviet authorities...
...In "Contra," a historical account of the Soviet peoples' opposition to Communist rule, Josef Mackiewicz tells the price they paid for it in human life...
...There is a marked difference, however, between the literary restrictions imposed over the ages by various emperors, kings and tsars, or even such modern-day totalitarian regimes as Nazi Germany, and the repression practiced by Communist states...
...Explorations in Freedom has much else to offer, not the least being Paul F. Wheeler's thoughtful Foreword...
...The journal and the Institut, besides fulfilling their primary function of serving as a bridge between Polish writers at home and abroad, have made it possible for Russians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, and others to channel their work to the free world as well...
...Polish emigres are particularly fortunate in their excellent publishing house, the Institut Litteraire...
...Over the years the Institut has offered Polish readers many other works from both the East and West...
...He is represented in this volume by his "Diaries"—one describing his impressions of Paris, the other of Berlin...
...Not everything in Explorations in Freedom touches on the pathos of exile...
...Nor could they believe the Allies would ever deliver them back to the Soviets...
...Containing 38 selections by 27 authors, this anthology is an excellent sampling from Kultura's 22 years...
...Communist censorship is essentially prescriptive, not only imposing limitations but also telling authors how and what they are to write...
...Given these circumstances, a number of East European emigre literary journals and publishing houses have won deserved recognition for their dual role in combatting the erosions of Communist conformity: To the writer who has chosen inner emigration, they offer the chance to publish his work (usually under a pseudonym) as he wrote it...
...Now, with the publication of Explorations in Freedom (one of two companion anthologies...
...Among these are Piotr Guzy's story, "The Short Life of a Positive Hero," Leopold Tyrmand's "The Cocktail Party," and Tomasz Stalinski's "The Funeral...
Vol. 53 • May 1970 • No. 11
