C.Kunin "Has anyone ever
speculated, by the way, as to what kind of soviet writer Nabokov would have
made?"
V.Fet: "none, or a very
dead one. No speculation required: V. D. Nabokov's resume alone (as one of
the leading CD figures) would be enough to deny his son all and any civic
rights, above all to be published in the USSR -- provided the family would
survive the concentration camps.After almost 100 years, many Western/American
intellectuals are STILL harboring a soft spot for Lenin's terrorist 'proletarian
State' along with all the 'creative powers' it allegedly 'released' in the
1920s...
Stan K-Bootle: The quick
answer is a MURDERED Soviet writer, like Mandelstam and Babel.[...]Adding to
Victor Fetıs comment on the Sovietıs brutal attack on artistic freedom and
creativity, I see a new book ...ENGINEERS OF THE SOUL, In the Footsteps of
Stalinıs Writers, by Frank Westerman. Westerman reminds us of the romantic novel
under Soviet Socialist Realism: Boy meets Girl, Girl meets Tractor. He tells of
Akhmatova reduced to writing poems in praise of Stalin to try and get her son
released from the camps.And who dare blame her for that? ³Stalin corralled the
liriki to match the efforts of the fisiki, to serve the breakneck
industrialization of the 1930s.²..Westerman seeks new ground,covering
lesser-known writers, especially the "hangers-on" who suffered but
survived."
C. Kunin:[to Stan]I would
prefer a less quick answer. Let's try to think it through a little more.
It's hard for me to liken Nabokov to Mandelshtam...They did go to the same
gymnasium...the one to which Nabokov was driven by the family chauffeur...I also
don't see Nabokov as being like Babel in any way ...Are you saying that
Nabokov would have been incapable of bowing to authority?What I am saying is,
did Nabokov have the right to criticize those who stayed behind?
JM: Was Stan's answer too quick
and not well thought thru? I don't think so.
Like Fet, Stan avoids rancorous conjectures
about what might have passed through Nabokov's mind and emotions (anyone can do
that and everyonde shall fail), or his failures. They chose to dwell on
the wider scenery of "soviet art" and on the artists who stayed
behind in their homeland, and those who gained expression
abroad.
Nabokov endured great losses and fought against more enemies than those
who, at first, had forced him to become an "emigré writer." He was a menace to the Soviets, but also to
any utopian "Republic"and tyrannies, because his loyalties
were to the Russian language (not to a
nation-state), and its cultural traditions as related to a more
abstract word, "civilization." He is dangerous because he values
the freedom of the individual and the expansion of
consciousness. There are various ways to silence a voice, like Nabokov's,
independently of his being murdered by the State and seeing his works
burned in an "auto-de-fé," including an excessive preoccupation with his
(like any other human's) weaknesses, to cast a shadow on what he achieved
as a writer.