A Talk with A Anatoli (Kuznetsov)

...ADJUSTING TO FREEDOM A Talk with A* Anatoli (Kuznetsov) by ludmilla thorne Iam an utter swine and scoundrel i" These are the opening words of a letter I recently received from Anatoly Kuznetsov, who now prefers to be known as A Anatoli Amid verbal explosions similar to that Russian apology for not writing sooner, he goes on to say that he is nearly ill from exhaustion—a state undoubtedly familiar to anyone who has bought an old house and attempted to make it livable as quickly as possible I was happy to hear that he was settling into a new life To "choose freedom" is always a difficult decision, entailing not only a total severance with one's past but also the prospect of an uncertain future Last spring, when I visited with Anatoli m London, he still felt uprooted and was upset about a number of things We met on a very rainy day at the home of a mutual friend I remember that I expected him to be late, but he came m, very quietly, soon after my arrival Dressed in a dark suit and carrying a bulging briefcase, he looked like an English businessman Once we began to talk in Russian, that impression quickly faded There was something boyish about him, perhaps because of his pouting expression and the sandy hair falling over his broad forehead It was the week of Russian Easter and I had brought a kuhch, the tall, colorfully decorated sweet cake traditionally eaten on this holiday Fixing his gaze on the white sugar icecap?it is beautiful, too beautiful"—he told me that he had not seen a kuhch since his last visit to Kiev, the city where he had spent his childhood and which provides the setting for his autobiographical novel, Babi Yar Otherwise our conversation had a slow, tense start My questions were at first answered haltingly Deep breaths, almost sighs, punctuated Anatoh's sentences, sometimes phrases faded altogether Everything was said in total seriousness Before half an hour had passed, though, he was pacing the floor, waving his arms and speaking very animatedly The room became filled with boisterous "da's," "konechno's" and "poche-mu's " We were on our way What was Anatoh's impression of life in the West7 "Kaleidoscopic1 For someone who has lived here all his life it is difficult to understand the feelings of a person who comes from the Soviet Union Everything, from the greatest concept to the smallest detail of everyday existence, can be a major experience " He told me of how he had lost his first battle with a bottle opener and a can of Coke—the soda burst straight into his face—and of the problems he had with his electric stove and English buses and trams (one time he set out for Margate but wound up in Dover) "I felt like a man of the 12th century who had just arrived in a large metropolis of the 20th century Back home, in his own forest, he could move about quite well " The great variety of goods tastefully presented m London's store windows and display cases—even those of butcher shops—seemed unreal to Anatoli after the grayness of Soviet life He told me that he had spent two weeks at "Fun Fair," the city's amusement park, where the profusion of sounds and colors amazed him "For me, even this was a fountain of ingenuity " Arriving in the West was similar to "landing on a different planet " What concerned him, he said, was "What can 1 offer that new planet9" At the time of my interview Anatoli was neither writing new material nor publishing old Upon arriving m Britain he planned to issue reconstructed texts of his novels prmted m censored form in the Soviet Umon, as well as a number of unpublished works He thought that at least five of the seven manuscripts he had taken with him from the USSR could be brought out within six months But he published only the reconstructed text of Babi Yar, an excellent short story called "Artist mimansa" (The Extra) in the Russian emigre journal The New Review, and several excerpts from an unpublished surrealistic novel, Tattch Five Anatoli produced that book—• "Dali in words," he describes it?by locking himself in a room and recording everything that came to mind, without any inhibitions or restrictions "It was an artist's feast where I could eat to satiation " In a chapter entitled "Escape Bid," which appeared m April 1970 in London's Daily Telegraph Magazine, the protagonist details his feelings as he passes through the turnstile of an automatic death machine, about to receive his fatal dose of radiation Written in the first person, the chapter also contains several diagrams of human lives "sketched by fate " When Anatoli finished Tattch Five he thought the work had merit But at that time he did not comprehend the extent of his cultural isolation, he had never read anything by "forbidden" authors like Orwell, Zamya-tin, Joyce, Nabokov, or Henry Miller Since "discovering" these and other modern Western writers, he has come to view his attempts at surrealistic innovation as "inventing the bicycle for the second time " Moreover, he now feels that "overly concocted" literature and abstract painting are not truly serious—not the real stuff of life or art—and he places his Taitch Five in this category Anatoli admitted that in the Soviet Union he was more cut off than others from Western literature Though in the West he has met Soviet expatriates who had read Orwell in the USSR, such books did not reach him Before defecting, Anatoli considered himself a "cultured person " "Now," he told me, "I see that I am backward and badly educated " At this moment in the conversation Anatoli heaved a sigh of regret that he had not left Soviet Russia 10 years ago So much time had been lost, so many books missed "I must study in preparation for my examination on world literature, then I will see what I myself can do Now it is time to read and learn ' It was strange to hear these words from a man who, in his own country, had published numerous short stories and seven books, some printed in millions of copies I remembered Anatoli's first public statement, made in London in August 1969, when he asked for political asylum "A writer must be able to do his creative work m freedom I came to the point where I could no longer write, no longer sleep, no longer create " His more than two years of freedom, however, seem to have frightened him into silence Speaking of the Soviet cultural quarantine that is so crippling to intellectuals, artists and writers, Anatoli told me, "Anything created in the Soviet Union which bears even a trace of imagination must be valued because it was conceived m isolation " For this reason he regards highly such young Soviet writers as Andrei Amalrik, author of Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984...

...You may not agree with everything he says and it should not be accepted 100 per cent, but you can't help admiring him for his original ideas " I inquired about the autobiography Anatoli was reportedly working on "I haven't written my autobiography, I don't know whether I will ever write one Perhaps I will" He has received several publishers' offers for the autobiography as well as for "all future work," but has declined all proposals "I don't have anything for publication How can I sign a contract for something I haven't written7" He is living primarily on the proceeds from Babi Yar Turning to more political matters, I asked Anatoli if he had followed the proceedings of the 24th Party Congress last March "I was glad that for the first time m my life I didn't have to follow them,' he said What course did he think future developments would take in the USSR7 "We can't expect much good to happen there Things may become slightly better or slightly worse, but not much better or worse I don't know how their experiment will end I would have stayed if I had seen some real hope for improvement The Soviet regime is a tenacious, accommodating system Since 1917 people have been predicting its downfall—in a few days, a few months, then a few years The question facmg us now is not 'Will the Soviet Union survive until 19847' but will the world survive until that time7" How did he feel about the criticism that had been leveled against him9 "In the Soviet Union we believed that in the West people knew and understood us This is not the case When I defected I expected tons of dirt to descend on me from the East but not from the West" There was a tinge of bitterness m his voice He was particularly concerned by the charge that in coming to the West he had abandoned his family and his allegedly pregnant secretary "My wife left me long before 1 left the USSR " As far as the secretary was concerned, he asserted that during his last months m the Soviet Union he was basically alone, he was planning to leave and was trying to avoid all possible entanglements He is sure the accusation was fabricated by the Soviet government "In the West, a person is considered innocent prior to being proven guilty But I must often prove to people that I am innocent " Several critics have pointed out discrepancies in the reconstructed text of Babi Yai, published last year in the United States and Great Britain, with different typefaces indicating the parts of the novel censored in the Soviet Union These critics note that some of the passages printed in boldface—to show they were previously cut—were actually mcluded m the Soviet edition of the book How would Anatoli answer this7 In response to this question, he asked me to read his introduction to the Russian-language version of the reconstructed novel issued m Frankfurt by Passev There he explams that in the fall of 1966 Babi Yar was serialized m the Soviet magazme Yunost (circulation 2 million), and that later a hardcover edition of 150,000 copies was published Although the book encompassed 30 more typewritten pages than the magazine version, he decided to use the Yunost version as the basis for reconstruction because that was where most people had read Babi Yar It was the Yunost serialization that was used for translation, too Consequently, sections which appeared in the Soviet book but not in the magazine were printed in bold in the "complete, uncensored" edition published in the West How the additional 30 typewritten pages got into the Soviet book is itself a curious story and is also explained by the author m the Possev edition Anatoli writes that shortly after various publishers abroad decided to translate Babi Yar from Yunost, letters from the translators started to pour in, asking for clarifications of certain events and personalities m the novel that simply did not make sense In the chapter titled "Profession—Fire-Raisers" there were no fire-raisers, and m another part of the book there was a baffling reference to a young man playing the harmonica Inquiries like these made it evident to the Soviet editors that m places the manuscript had been censored in a negligent manner The young harmonica player, for example, appeared twice in the manuscript but was cut only the first time, thus making his appearance later in the book something of a mystery To correct such oversights, the clarifying episodes were added to Western translations of Babi Yar and afterward included in the Soviet book The new material added up to 30 typewritten pages Anatoli did not attempt to indicate any of this in the reconstructed English-language editions of Babi Yar, thinking it would only add unnecessary complications to an already confusing text printed m three different typefaces He subsequently realized that the omission was a mistake Besides the personal and literary censure he has encountered in the West, Anatoli told me, he has often been misunderstood and misquoted in interviews Some of these problems were undoubtedly a result of his dependence on translators Observations made in Russian were sometimes translated literally mto languages in which they took on varying shades of meaning And a number of interviews printed in English were then retranslated into Russian for the emigre press, compounding the inaccuracies In an effort to avoid such misunderstandings in the future, Anatoli said, he was going to be exceedingly careful about using "big words" and making "profound" statements "I'm not a politician, I have my own concerns my literature and my imagination " Anatoli was self-castigating when discussing his past, particularly his association with the Soviet secret police "In the Soviet Union I was a scoundrel and I will be first to say so But now I just want to live and learn and write in freedom I join those who seek humaneness ' After uttering the last sentence he asked me to make certain that I would translate it correctly, he was speaking not of humanity (a big word to be avoided) but of "humaneness," the compassion of one human being for another I asked him one more question How do you feel7 He was quick to answer "I am a student once again and feel happy Also, here m London I have met many people who have shown humaneness toward me " Ludmilla Thorne, a translator of Russian poetry, reviewed Anatoh's Babi Yar in our April 5, 1970 issue...