Adam Zagajewski at Harvard, 1984

Bear with me through the first graph of this remembrance of a talk by the great Polish poet Adam Zagajewski at Harvard University in the 1980s. It gets very physiological. As I was editing it (cutting out a few idiotic phrases and cleaning up some muddy attempts to be precious), I even considered pushing the paragraph to the end, or even getting rid of it all together. Then I hunted down a photo of Zagajewski taken more or less at the time I saw him speak. And, wouldn’t you know, it all comes together. I wrote these texts hoping to catch a freeze-frame image in time, and that actually is what happened here. Nevertheless, I’m happy to say that the rest of my impressions were somewhat more substantial. I’m also happy to see my professor of Polish language and literature, the poet Stanislaw Baranczak make a brief appearance. He was deeply beloved of all his students at Harvard, a true legend. I took Baranczak to a couple of Red Sox games at Fenway Park, events that are worth my remembering in more detail sometime. That’s a note to myself. 

Adam Zagajewski at Harvard
March 9, 1984
By John Freedman

The most immediately striking feature of the Polish poet Adam Zagajewski was the salt and pepper rim of coarse hair that hugged his face and head. He has a shapely, attractive forehead and pate, the latter of which sports a sparse tuft of white hair like an island in a sea of surrounding flesh. Both his facial hair and the hair on his head are trimmed so short that they accent, rather than hide, the actual contour of his head. He has a very solid hard look. I even caught myself thinking his head was muscular and in excellent shape. My attention then was drawn to his eyebrows. I happened to be sitting at a point from which I could clearly see just how far his left eyebrow extended from his face. I was impressed. His eyebrows, by the way, seemed almost entirely black, in contrast to the rest of his hair. The picture of the two black tufts hovering over his steady eyes surrounded by the hash of black and white on his chin and the back of his head was really an intriguing, and pleasant, sight. Then he turned so that I caught a glimpse of his face straight on and I was even more intrigued. It turned out that his eyebrows were jet black and bushy only as far as the outer-extremities of his eyes where the hair suddenly thinned considerably and turned almost pure white. As though he had four eyebrows which lay side-byside in pairs across the top of his eyes.

Zagajewski read his lecture in very slow, steady English. I was struck throughout by his almost indifferent tone of speech, something common among people delivering lectures in a language other than their native tongue, of course. What made his speech (approximately one hour long) stand out particularly, however, was the fact that it was, in the good tradition of a writer-in-exile, punctuated throughout with much rousing, patriotic, politically impassioned, artistically inspired passages. All of it was delivered in a very steady monotone. Simply listening to the sound and pitch of the talk one could easily be lulled into thinking he was reading a list of items to be picked up at the grocery. I looked forward to the question and answer period to hear what kind of emotion might creep into his delivery when his speaking would be less structured. However, once he set aside his typed text (on which I could see numerous corrections made in red pencil) and he began to speak extemporaneously, I was amazed to hear him continue in the identical measured cadence in which he had been reading for the last hour. It turned out that his English was quite good – he even seemed to have little difficulty deciphering the several obtuse, rambling questions that were directed at him from some of the academics in the audience. He smartly avoided trying to make many jokes and answered all the questions with a great deal of thought and seriousness.

His talk dealt in the main with the state of Polish literature under the communist system in the 1960’s, when he had begun his literary career, and in the early 1980’s when the Solidarity movement brought substantial change to all areas of Polish life. He spoke of how the main genre of the relatively free (by communist standards) 1960’s was the allegory. He discussed the shock which Polish writers suffered when they began to recognize another reality beneath the one which had been delivered signed and sealed to them as young people by the communist regime.

“It may not have been as profound a discovery of reality as that which Kant made,” he said, “but any human revelation about reality its a profound one, and all of us were astonished that there was actually a different way to talk about the world than in terms of Marxist Leninism.”

He spoke of the privilege and duty which every Polish writer carries before a readership that expects the poet to act as a teacher (his word).

“It is a great honor,” he said, “to know that thousands of readers back in Poland consume the words I write in Paris, but I know at all times that should I cease to give them the words they want and need to hear that my readership will drop drastically. This is also a great burden.”

The main thrust of his prepared talk indicated that he sees the duty of the contemporary Polish writer as one of shedding, at least to some degree, this imposed duty. The talk ended with the following words:

“Perhaps our task is to stop sneaking from ‘we’ and to begin speaking from ‘I.’ Perhaps it is my duty to cease speaking from ‘we’ and to begin speaking from ‘I.'”

In response to a question concerning the shared experience of Polish, Czech and Hungarian writers, he replied that it is characteristic of Polish writers to see themselves as isolated from their counterparts in Middle Europe (his words).

“We never thought of Prague or Budapest,” he said, “we thought only of London, Paris and New York.”

He said this acknowledging the short-sightedness of the attitude and explained that only now, in the aftermath of the events of the last few years, are Polish writers beginning to recognize their common concerns with other “Middle European” writers. In fact, and this was pointed out by one questioner, throughout his talk he only once referred to any other neighboring country – Bulgaria, and even then only in passing, using that country as a symbol to make a broad point, the gist of which was that Polish writers are more independent then any of the other writers of the other nations in similar situations.

Earlier in his talk he had said (in slight contradiction to his concluding point) that he had no intention of discarding politics and “flying off into heaven,” thus underscoring the inherent political nature of Polish literature.

Zagajewski proved to be an extremely articulate and very intelligent speaker. His well-chiseled appearance matched his well-chiseled approach to his role as a poet. His fluidity of thought well enables him to be considered an insightful observer of the Polish literary landscape. His reaction to the extended applause at the close of the afternoon was entirely dispassionate. It was difficult to say whether he was unmoved, untouched, or simply uncomfortable with his audience’s appreciative response.

Were one to look only at his hair, it would seem he must he a man of no less than 60 years old. Were one to concentrate only on his fine-featured face, it would be easy to imagine that he is little more than 30. In all, his appearance is quite interesting and even paradoxical, though not necessarily imposing as one might expect from a renowned poet. His personal demeanor is quite subdued, even lacking in great strokes of character, although that may well be attributable to the fact that he was functioning outside of his native cultural milieu. I did not have the opportunity to hear him read from his poetry, but I was told that his reading in Polish was very impressive (while his reading in English was characterized by a strict monotone).

He noted that the influence of the grand tradition of Polish literature did not play a primary role in the forming of the writers of the 1960’s. The influence, he said (in my paraphrase), was realized only when these writers returned to the past to seek roots, but it did not appear as a direct line stretching to them from the past.

Responding to Stanislaw Baranczak’s comment that Kazimierz Brandys’s recent diary may well be an indication that Polish literature is already moving closer to a more personal approach, a stance of the “I,” Zagajewski responded that he did not feel that Warsaw Diary was an “egoistic” (his word) work. It is, he said (in my paraphrase), actually an attempt to do what good and free journalism should have done all along – to fill in the gaps of events which were officially reported in truncated versions. In that sense, then, Warsaw Diary continues to fulfill the traditional social role of Polish literature.

In a related comment, Zagajewski noted that “the novel for me is dead. It has lost its power of describing the modern world. Poetry and the short story may never become as popular, but they are far for capable of defining the nature of modern times.”

Viktor Rozov at UCI, 1978

This meagre remembrance marks the first time I ever met a contemporary Russian playwright. Interesting, considering that I later would end up spending a great deal of my time and labors chronicling and supporting Russian playwrights. I wish there were more value to my recollections. There obviously wasn’t much life left in my thoughts by the time I got around to recording them. I saw Viktor Rozov (1913-2004) speak at the University of California, Irvine, in the fall of 1978. I probably wrote down what little I remembered between 1984 and ’86.
I pulled this photo of Rozov off the internet. It was taken in January of 1976, 2 1/2 years before I encountered him. 

Viktor Sergeevich Rozov
UCI Fall 1978, most likely recorded in the mid-1980s
By John Freedman

At best I spent two to three hours in the company of Viktor Rozov. I read two of his plays in preparation for the visit, From Evening Until Midday, and Forever Alive. One basic thought came to my immature mind at the time – Viktor Sergeevich had a great love of people. In my enthusiasm I told him so, but I can’t recall his reaction – if there was one. I remember that so clearly now, I think, because my gushing sounds so terribly like an excerpt from a Soviet introduction to an imaginary collection of Rozov’s works. But, indeed, he was a very kind and gentle man. This quality also came through in his plays.

Viktor Sergeevich told the story of the writing of his first play, Forever Alive, which later become the internationally successful movie, The Cranes are Flying. He told of being holed up in a snowed-in cabin in the winter of ’42 (it seems to me), where he did nothing but write. When he finished the play, he took it to the local censor who asked him to leave the play with him for a day or two so he would have time to read it. Rozov returned in a few days and asked, “Well, what do you think?” The censor replied, “It was absolutely wonderful! I couldn’t put it down, and I couldn’t help but cry. It can’t be printed.”

He told about the duties of a writer during the Second World War. He said, “Sure, I would have preferred more freedom in what I could write. Sure I would have preferred to write how I pleased about what I pleased. But our country was in mortal danger. Literature was necessary to help bring our people to the defense of the country and defeat an invading army. There was no one who would have refused to answer that call.”

It is an interesting observation, and when one considers the contributions that Anna Akhmatava and Boris Pasternak made in the war years – jumping at the first opportunity they had had to publish in many years – it rings of sincerity. Something, however, was a bit too smooth and sure in Rozov’s attitude toward the fact that his first play was “wonderful” but unprintable. I’m not sure I can define it. I certainly wouldn’t consider calling him a hack. From Evening Until Midday is a rather tame work, but it does include a moment or two of interest, and certainly Forever Alive is a fine piece of writing.

During his visit to UCI in the Fall of 1978, Rozov made a very pleasant impression on me, and ever since I had the opportunity to meet him I have made efforts to buy books that contain works of his. They are rather difficult to find.

Among other things, Rozov was in America to see the foreign premiere of From Evening Until Midday, one of his most recent plays. He told about seeing it performed by a university theater somewhere in the midwest (Kansas, I believe). Apparently it was quite successful, because he insisted that numerous spectators in the audience had “tears in their eyes” at the conclusion of the performance.

Naum Korzhavin at Harvard, 1984

This meager remembrance is what is left me of my encounters with the poet Naum Korzhavin (1925-2018), although I still kick myself over losing a real treasure. I was in Moscow in 1990 when Korzhavin returned to Russia for the first time in nearly two decades. He spoke in the large hall at Moscow University on Lenin (Sparrow) Hills, where, just a year before, I had lived in the dormitory. What an event that was! The place was packed to the rafters, people standing in every available space. They applauded and cheered wildly, laughing at his jokes. It was one of the most impressive public triumphs a writer could imagine. I had no idea Korzhavin was so popular with young Russians at that time; I rather suspect he didn’t know either. It was an amazing experience and I was so happy that I had a cassette recorder handy that I could record it all on. That tape was one of the prized possessions in my archive for several years. Then, for use in a TV show, I lent it to a friend. Big mistake. TV people, friends or not, don’t ever return anything. They are the black holes of journalism. Hopefully the tape itself is still out there somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered and enjoyed. Alexei Burykin, if you’re out there, you’re the one who had it last. If it does resurface, it will have to happen without my input.
Korzhavin was often around the Slavic Department at Harvard when I was there. His wife Lyubov’ Mandel’ (Mandel’ is Korzhavin’s real name) was a language teacher there. As I write below, the meeting described in these notes was arranged by one of my Russian teachers, Natalya Chirkova.
The photos above were pulled off the net. The uppermost one I picked because it’s a great shot. I pulled the one just above this text because it was taken more or less at the time I crossed paths with Korzhavin at Harvard.
See Masha Gessen’s excellent remembrance of Korzhavin in the New Yorker at the time of his death in 2018. 

Naum Moiseevich Korzhavin
Oct. 12, 1984 (Written Feb. 2, 1985 from notes of Oct. 12, 1984)
By John Freedman

I first met Naum Korzhavin October 12, 1985 at a meeting arranged by Natalya Grigoryevna Chirkova for Harvard students interested in sharing their impressions of experiences in the Soviet Union. Naum Moiseevich was seated at a samovar by his attentive wife Lyubov’ Mandel’, and was closely attended to by her throughout the evening. He is short, rumpled, and plump, an intense, good-hearted, sincere human being. He looked something like an old gnarled tree stump that has preserved the best memories and qualities of its former full-tree self. His active hands were plump, soft, and pliable. I never once saw the fingers clutch fully into a fist, perhaps because he was always holding them out, palm up, as though inviting and encouraging his interlocutor to go deeper into the topic of conversation. The always-open hands produced the impression of a very open man. They even looked as though they probably had an extra dose of tactile capabilities and probably felt more of everything they touched than the average man’s hands would. He was both hard of hearing and nearly blind. He wore thick glasses – the left lens being doubly thick – and squinted most all the time, trying to make out whom he is talking to.

This was organized as an evening for students to take center stage, and while they did so most of the time, Korzhavin felt himself a sort of honored godfather in the midst of the group. He frequently took control of the proceedings, making them more meaningful than they would have been without him. He asked probing questions, trying to find what these young people had gleaned from his home country, perhaps trying himself to remember something he was afraid he was forgetting. There was clearly a concerted effort on his part that evening to remember. And there was clearly an effort to make the students understand something about Russia that one gathered they/we could not grasp.

When he spoke, he was always out of breath. He unconsciously dominated the conversation, not because he wasn’t interested in other people, but because he was in such a hurry to communicate with them. He seemed afraid that if he should slow down, he might miss something or something might get away from him. When he did finally get a question out and his respondent began to speak, he listened intently and with obvious interest, frequently giving small signs of agreement, such as a nod of the head or a movement of his open hands.

The hostesses of the evening, Natalya Grigoryevna and his wife Lyubov’, treated him with a great deal of – was it deference? I hesitate to say it was respect, since they did not look up to him at all. In fact, they looked down on him – as would a grandmother at her favorite grandson, or as would a granddaughter at her crotchety, beloved old grandfather. Lyubov’ is clearly the loving mother-wife who gives his life the order it requires, and leaves him to sail along by himself in his own world of literature, philosophy, social criticism, or whatever may interest him.

Natalya Grigoryevna said later with a much pitying voice that Naum Moiseevich does little but sit around the house anymore and talk with people – either on the telephone, or with those who come to visit. Apparently he writes almost no poetry anymore, and only occasionally writes an essay on some subject near and dear to his heart. Nestled in the womb of loving comfort created by his wife Lyubov’, he is able to drift in which ever direction the wind blows him.

My talk with him after the evening had ended was short and inconsequential. We chatted about the evening, my studies, and the fact that he frequently showed himself to be a partisan supporter of Moscow over Leningrad throughout the evening. I teased him that I preferred Leningrad to Moscow, and he said, “l have nothing against Leningrad itself, it’s a very pretty city. But I am an enemy of Leningrad’s literary emigres.” He did not specify whom he had in mind. He encouraged me to come see him some time and talk about Pasternak (as I was writing two papers on BP at the moment). I fully intended to do so. Alas, foolishly, I never did. I was very impressed by Korzhavin’s warmth, kindness, and most of all, his intensity.

Bella Akhmadulina, Harvard University, 1987

 

For some reason I never wrote these notes up. Either that or what I wrote was lost. It wasn’t the only time. In this same basic period – spring of 1987 – Czeslaw Milosz visited Harvard and made a big impression on me with his talk. Alas, I have almost no record of that at all. All that remains is a comment I made a week or so later when Andrei Voznesensky visited town (posted yesterday). In my notes of that night I quoted something Milosz had said. My Akhmadulina notes have no date, but they are on the same piece of paper as my Voznesensky notes, and in that memoir I say something about Akhmadulina just having been there. She spoke in a classroom; I’m pretty sure it was Sever Hall, where I had classes on Russian drama with Professor Jurij Striedter. A hint that this is so is that my Akhmadulina notes incongruously have a lone note at the top – “Diderot – bourgeois drama.”
I prefer these raw notes to my attempts at turning notes into a narrative. There’s the same irritating, picky listener at work, but at least less of the jerk drawing silly conclusions afterwards. I do wish I’d been more attuned to things. There’s a nice little moment below that can pass by if you don’t think. (Something I did not do at the time.) I record that Akhmadulina made a pun on the word “poet” and the name “Poe.” What we forget, of course, is that Russians traveling to the US (or any artists traveling anywhere), are fascinated by the traditions of the places they visit. It is understandable that Akhmadulina would have had Edgar Allan Poe on her mind. It is natural that she would have thought of herself in relation to him in some way.
Another thing – nice to see Naum Korzhavin put in an appearance here. He often attended the readings and lectures of visiting Russian writers. He didn’t usually take part in any way, so he usually didn’t make it into my memories. I will post a remembrance of a meeting with him in the near future.
The photos are taken from a book, Bella Akhmadulina. Photographs. 1950s-1990s. They aren’t dated, but both were taken in New York, so it’s possible they were taken during the trip that brought her to Harvard. 

Bella Akhmadulina
March 1987
By John Freedman

• Haggard, drawn eyes.
• She has a glamour about her, if not classical beauty.
• Ghost-like, hollow, white, disconcerted, sad, frightened…
• Mouth pulls down at corners. It has the look of a mask of tragedy.
• Declaims in Russian tradition.
• Speaks quietly, but recites her poetry “in full voice” (vo ves’ golos).
• How real is this?
• Coquettish in a child-like way.
• Somehow corresponds to the stereotype of what one would expect a Russian poetess to be.
• One might think her highly affected if you didn’t think of the convention, the tradition.
• At the 25-minute mark there is a lag when public doesn’t realize a poem had ended. Silence before scattered applause. She gives a small smile and says, “No matter” (nichego).
• Puns on “poet” and “Poe-et.”
• I want to say she is much more fragile than I would have expected Akhmadulina to be, but maybe the “much” is an exaggeration.
• Hands constantly clasped behind her back.
• Somehow she is more what I would expect Tsvetaeva to be. She has an amazing vulnerability, but I can’t make up my mind – how real is it?
• Folkish-songish, a la Tsvetaeva.
• She actually sings the refrains.
• Naum Korzhavin applauds vigorously after every poem. He stands to see and hear her better.
• On occasion she forgets the words and stumbles, but you never get the feeling it’s a “forgetting,” but more that there has been for some reason a natural interruption in the stream of words.
• Sense that she is apart from the audience, from herself? As though she is reciting into a mirror or window, that her eyes are turned back into self to find the poetry – to escape the crowd?
• When she talks between poems (rarely – 3-4 times in first 70 minutes), she mostly mutters as though talking to herself and not to the audience.
• This incredible devotion to Russian poetry and poets is winning. Whatever doubt existed early about sincerity has to disappear. When she finishes by declaring her love for the crowd, one has to believe her.
• In response to questions – it’s as though she has difficulty expressing herself. Halting, disconnected. Then (talking about Vladimir Vysotsky) she sort of wakes up and takes off. “He knew he was loved by the whole country, but seemed to want to have official recognition, too. The absence of that caused a certain sadness in him.”
• “I’m difficult to translate because the sound and music are lost as you may have noted from my reading.” [A certain child-like warmth becomes more and more evident.]
• One senses her external “cover” is soft and vulnerable, but that her heart is a long way away.
• Recites a child’s poem for a little girl who had sat quietly for 1.5 hours.

Incomplete list of poems recited (aside from first two, not necessarily in this order):

• First is dedicated to Anna Akhmatova
• Second is dedicated to Iosif Mandelstam
• 5^thor 6^this dedicated to Alexander Blok
• “Joy in Tarusa” (Radost’ v Taruse)
• Another dedicated to Akhmatova
• Dedicated to Boris Pasternak (Pamyati B. Pasternaka)
• “On the Death of Vladimir Vysotsky” (Na smert’ V. Vysotskogo)
  A second poem dedicated to Vysotsky
• “I Swear” (to Marina Tsvetaeva) (Klyanus’)
• Dedicated to Bulat Okudzhava

Andrei Voznesensky, Tufts University, 1987

The jerk raises his head again – and I mean myself. Here I am again, trying too hard to be hip as I recall an encounter with a Russian writer. The date was March 26, 1987 and the place was Cabot Auditorium at Tufts University. I’m pretty sure I would have written this text up shortly afterwards, because it is filled with details I would have lost over time. It is an expansion of notes I took over the course of the evening (and which I also still have), but it’s done in a way that tells me my memory of the moment was still fresh. To the extent that there is value in what follows, that is the value. My inability to make up my mind about what I saw, my frustrations with what I perceived to be false, my desire to find reasons to overcome the frequent negative reactions I had – all of that gives these paragraphs the mark of a true-life encounter. I’m at my drop-dead worst when questioning Voznesensky’s motivation for discussing politics. It’s a shame I didn’t know at the time about a notorious Bob Dylan appearance in Moscow in 1985 (just two years before I saw Voznesensky). I might have gotten some information about that out of the Russian poet. Although maybe not. As I’ve written in another blog – https://johnfreedmanarchive.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/did-bob-dylan-shed-tears-of-rage-in-russia/  – Voznesensky was not very reliable in his tales about that encounter.
For what it’s worth, Voznesensky would have been 85 years old today.
I pulled the photos of Voznesensky off the internet. They were both taken in 1991, four years after I encountered him in Massachusetts.

Andrei Voznesensky at Tufts University. 3.26.87.
By John Freedman

When Andrei Voznesensky first approached the stage in Cabot Auditorium at Tufts University, I was shocked by how old he looked. He looked feeble; he is losing the sharp facial features and the hard expression that he shows in the photos on his books. Something looks sickly about him – his lips are transparent. His open-necked knit shirt with a French scarf folded around his neck looked awful.

While he was being introduced (interminably) by David Sloane he stood as if disinterestedly and half-hidden behind a curtain sucking on a drink from a styrofoam cup.

When he took the stage he spoke in English. While his English is not perfect, he spoke fluently; admirably so, despite the errors: ‘I didn’t expect to read ‘Goya’, but they raped [sic] me to do it. So I do it for you.” His voice is very gentle. I did not expect this. The English translation is read first; quietly and pleasantly. Voznesensky steps to the microphone and chants/cajoles/whispers his Russian original. The effect is enormous. As Hallie White said to me afterwards, Voznesensky may not be a great poet, but he has written some great poems. “Goya” is certainly one of them, and his delivery is stunning. Unlike the traditional Russian delivery of an unrelenting chant – as though the poet has gone into a mystical trance – Voznesensky actually performs his poems. He snaps his fingers at key moments, waves his hands, flails his arms, touches his face, leans forward, leans backward, shouts, whispers, talks, teases, growls. His performances – even when the poem is second rate – are always striking. As he recites “Goya” I happen to glance at the young woman who had read the English version. She was smiling and shaking her head; she obviously realized the impotence of the English version and her delivery of it. She must certainly have been thankful that she had gone before Voznesensky and not vice versa.

After “Goya” he chats for awhile (as he does in between the reciting of each poem). He talks at some length in good English about the “shame” of Chagall’s lack of recognition in the USSR and about his own efforts to open a museum in Vitebsk. Chagall’s widow has promised to donate some paintings if a museum is opened there. “Can you understand my jet-lag English?” he inserts. “I came home at six this morning after drinking gin and vodka all night with Norman Mailer.”

Introducing a new poem he says, “I’ve changed the biblical phrase ‘man does not live by bread alone’ to ‘man lives by sky alone’ – no borders, no iron curtains” [he says with a significant glance at the crowd]. Talking about “glasnost” he says, “Russia is changing – it hasn’t changed yet.”

It begins to strike me that all his “shames,” “iron curtains” and “Norman Mailers” are a bit too much. I feel as though someone is trying to lead me to a well and make me drink. I must admit I’m becoming resistant.

And yet I am unable to resist a genuine warmth and charm which emanate from this man. The expansiveness, openness, forcefulness associated with him is still to be seen in part. (Primarily when he is reciting, I would say – less so when he is chatting). One can tell it once was there in full force. An edge seems to be gone from what I presume once was there – except in his voice, which still has the spellbinding quality for which he is famous. He employs proper Moscow stage pronunciation: Tchaikovsky is pronounced “Tchaikovskoy.”

He proceeds to his new poem about the robbing of mass graves in [Georgia?]. He talks of the horror of the incident that prompted him to write the poem. “Terrible, terrible,” he exclaims. But, I can’t help but wonder, what has this to do with poetry? I can’t help but think of what Czeslaw Milosz had to say just a week earlier; “I have a feeling that poetry is popular in so far as it appeals to political passions. This is not a good recommendation for poetry.”

Voznesensky continues. “I want you to know there are crimes not only before, but now, too.” Why is it that such pointed challenges to elements of Soviet society sound awkward here? What is the point of parading these “terrors” before his American audience? Is this a sore Dostoevskian need to put one’s errors on public display? is he trying to endear us to him with his boldness? Or is he sincere?

The paradox is heightened by the fact that he is such a good performer. When he is reciting his poetry he makes a very obvious – and successful – effort to communicate with his listeners. A listener cannot remain indifferent to Voznesensky’s poetry. Whereas Bella Akhmadulina seems to take part in some private ritual when she recites her poetry – it is for the listener to take from her what he can – Voznesensky actively goes out after his listener’s ears and heart. But perhaps what makes his poetry so effective is also that which makes one wonder about the motives behind the open criticism of his chatty interludes.

He talks about the Pasternak incident. “It was terrible then. And it is now, too,” he explains. Pasternak was his greatest hero, he tells us. And so, with what excitement he accepted Boris Leonidovich’s personal invitation to attend a performance of Pasternak’s translation of Romeo and Juliet at the Vakhtangov Theater. Yury Lyubimov was performing the role of Romeo. At one point, relates Voznesensky, Lyubimov’s sword breaks and the broken tip flew through the air and landed at his feet. “We Russians are mystical,” he says. “I felt that was a sign of my future.”

“I’m so happy you know the names of Pasternak and Lyubimov, but I hope you know Stalin’s name too.” [l am annoyed at myself for doubting the sincerity of such a comment. After all, haven’t we Westerners been complaining for decades that Russians are too silent? Why don’t I feel an instant respect for this man who seems to be so forthright and open? What is it in his manner that makes me feel as though I’m being plied?]

When the poet introduces a poem written the day of the Chernobyl accident I am again struck by an inexplicable falseness. Is this cheap or is it in the best Russian tradition of social literature? Speaking strictly about the merits of the poem at hand, the poem is bad. But what about the intent? As for the performance, it is marvelous; even of this 3rd rate work. On occasion his rumbling, rolling delivery leaps into a shout and startles his listeners – they jump – even if this isn’t good poetry, it is brilliant performance. If poetry at least in part is a condensed attempt to communicate, then Voznesensky is a master of at least this facet of his art.

He introduces a poem by talking about his meeting with Picasso in Paris, and then of a later incident when he stayed with the painter’s widow. “I slept in the very bed in which the great man had slept.”

An introduction to the poem “A Conversation in Rome:” “In Italy I was invited for a conversation with the Pope. There were just the two of us in the Vatican library. We talked of Berdyayev, Shestov and Rozanov. I wanted, to know something special from him. I asked, ‘Do you believe in UFOs? The Pope replied that he did not.”

As I listen to Voznesensky recite his poetry I wonder whether he doesn’t work too hard to achieve striking images. When his images work they are startling (as in “Goya”), but far too often they fail and then they are simply silly. In the worst cases he sounds hardly better than an amateur working for effect.

After the performance he fields questions from the audience.

His comment, “I was the first Russian poet to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters,” elicits a question about Joseph Brodsky: “Brodsky is a poet. I have my way, he has his way. But after all Brodsky is a poet.” Despite making his personal opinion known ironically, he is good enough to be gracious and non-judgmental. I can’t help but respect him for that.

In response to a question about what is being done for writers neglected by Soviet publishers, Voznesensky says, “I can help Khodasevich, Pasternak, Nabokov – they’re dead. They can’t say anything. As for Brodsky, I don’t know. He must ask to be published. He must submit his work to some publisher and then a decision will be made by an editor. I personally don’t think his poetry is political.”

“I want you to know how important the newspaper is in Russia. I wrote an article in Literaturnaya gazeta about Viktor Sosnora. He came to me and thanked me afterwards. He said, ‘I couldn’t publish in Leningrad, but now they say that since I am loved in Moscow, I can publish in Leningrad.”

A marvelous response to someone’s equating Voznesensky to Yevtushenko: “When you talk about Yevtushenko, talk about Yevtushenko. When you talk about me, talk about me.”

“Yesterday I was in Yoko Ono’s house.” [This comment brings forth a rumble of chuckles from the audience. I cannot say whether it is in response to Voznesensky’’s continual name-dropping or whether it is in response to the specific name which is dropped. Speaking for myself, both are laughable].

He talks some about the high quality of rock ‘n’ roll in the Soviet Union. He feels there are two or three groups that could compete on a world scale. He mentions Aquarium from Leningrad.

Someone asks him to compare the present with the Thaw of the 1950s. “The Thaw cannot be cornpared at all with the present.”

One worked-up, angry member of the audience begins to bait Voznesensky with questions about the war in Afghanistan. “50,000 people have died,” he says, “what are you doing to stop it? The Vietnam war tore the United States apart in the ‘60s, why aren‘t you protesting?” [The actual question was much longer and much more offensive in both tone and language. The audience for the most part was made very uncomfortable by the questioner’s rudeness, and rightly so]. Voznesensky, by and large, side-stepped the question with a good deal of grace. He responded that he felt the war was “terrible” and he hoped it would end soon. Another questioner came to the rescue by asking, “Why do you write poetry?” Voznesensky responded well, albeit somewhat unoriginally, “Why do you breathe and eat?”

Afterwards, I accompanied him to his car. He had abandoned his stage presence almost completely. He looked even older, but somehow more handsome. He looked even softer and gentler than he had before the reading began. I mentioned that after such a performance (close to 3 hours) one must be very tired. He replied yes, and he looked it. “These performances drain a tremendous amount of energy from you. You have to produce and expend enormous amounts of it.”

His manner was harsher, blunter, yet quieter and calmer. The charm which he worked so hard to cultivate during the performance, and which I saw him display during a short interview with a reporter from the Boston Globe, was almost entirely gone. He was more natural. Perhaps in part because he was speaking Russian now. Short answers, straight talk.

In the car on the way to Vida Johnson’s house he talked about the man who had heckled him about the war in Afghanistan. “He’s just stupid – you saw his face – he was a totally ordinary person. He wanted to chase me into a corner and trip me so that the whole audience would want to rise up and kill me. He wouldn’t understand my answer if I gave him a real one. He wasn’t worthy of getting my answer.” I suggested the man was one of those people who know the answer they want before they ask their question, to which Voznesensky replied, “No. He knows no answers. He has no answers.” I must say that Voznesensky’s response to this incident was admirable. He does not betray any real anger, and he does not seem to have taken any great offense. One gets the impression that he is used to handling such incidents.

All in all, I am left with a positive response. I found his habit of hame-dropping to be incredibly abrasive; as though we are to consider him a great man because he knows a lot of people who have great names. I was unable to explain satisfactorily his penchant for open criticism of the Soviet Union. I do not recall that he made any substantial defenses of his country. He did speak well of Gorbachev, but he also made it clear that he did not know him well. “I am not a personal friend of Gorbachev.” I felt that somehow he was working to purchase my respect (as a member of the crowd) by offering the type of criticism that he expected an American audience would want to hear. And yet, there was also a certain sincerity – usually in the poetry itself – that I could not deny.

The only moments in which he seemed to loom genuinely large, as a figure of importance, was when his marvelous performance merged with a genuinely great poem. He is clearly at his best as a performer. How far his performance goes beyond his poetry, I cannot say. Otherwise, he seemed to vacillate between two poles of being simple yet sincere, and at times downright obnoxious. This is in no way intended to be severe criticism. I left him feeling that he possessed a certain inner integrity. That he is a man who must live up to an image of himself which is greater than he is. That he has bought into that image, that he has accepted that image as at least a certain part of himself, and that he sees it as his duty as a person and a citizen to fulfill the expectations put on him. That is a task which has crushed men of greater stature than Voznesensky. It is to his credit that it has not crushed him.

Carlos Fuentes, Harvard, 1984

This memory, another of the texts I wrote about encountering important cultural figures at Harvard in the 1980s, is fairly self-explanatory. I will only add that if anyone is inclined to distrust my characterization of Fuentes as a “real spell-binding” speaker – I was hardly alone. The Harvard Crimson ran a long piece about Fuentes in 1983 when he was named commencement speaker for that year. It quoted Claudio Guillen, Harvard professor of Comparative Literatures and of Romance Languages and Literature as saying, “He’s the most fantastic lecturer you’ve ever heard, a sparkling speaker.” I pulled the photo from the website of the Michigan State University where Fuentes once spoke. I’m guessing that this photograph is more or less a contemporary of the time when I encountered Fuentes.

Carlos Fuentes
(Written 2.2.85)
By John Freedman

In the fall of 1984 I had the pleasure of attending a series of lectures offered by Carlos Fuentes at Harvard on the theme of “History and Fiction in Spanish America.” I was immediately struck by  his loquaciousness, erudition, and ability to twist a yarn. He was a masterful speaker – a real spell-binder – who was capable of giving his every lecture a spontaneous structure, just as though he were writing a story or novel. Every lecture’s end was met with genuine and prolonged applause by the usual audience of 100 – 150 people. Fuentes is a strikingly handsome man, with dark skin, hair turning silver, a rough-hewn face, and bold, masculine gestures and movements. He always dressed sharply.

He was surrounded by a large circle of sycophants, each trying to outgush the other. All were women. They were members of the Romance language department who were heading the discussion sections of his course. It later became know to me that Fuentes’s position was wreaking havoc in the Spanish division of the Romance language department. Factions had split into “for” and “against.” His arrogance – for he apparently is possessed of a healthy dose of arrogance – had turned many people off. Apparently many of the scholarly egos in the department could not withstand the eclipse he had caused, and held it against him as a personal affront. On the other hand, others had the desperate hope that by tying their star to Fuentes’s, they might rise in the firmament. Such, I guess, is the catty nature of academia.

My first reaction to such stories was to disregard them entirely, so impressed was I by Fuentes’s ample powers as a speaker and thinker. He seemed a veritable fount of wisdom — his command of philosophy, literature, and history from medieval times to the present was impressive to say the least. After the rush of the first impression began to wear thin, I did begin to notice he was repeating himself an awful lot, and phrases which seemed at first to be gems dropped from intellectual Valhalla, now began to sound rather formulaic. Perhaps there was something to the catty department jealousies after all. In the final analysis, however, I reject that theory. Perhaps Fuentes’ wide-ranging knowledge was not always spontaneous and original, perhaps he was frequently dependent upon others’ interpretations in order to build his own, but there can be no doubt of his capability to incorporate others’ findings into a clear and coherent idea of his own. I think his habit of academic name-dropping is absolutely to be forgiven him. After all, he is not a scholar, but a writer – a novelist. And he structured his lectures as he would novels, replete with digressions, minor climaxes, side-stories, denouements, and a final major summing climax that was frequently followed by a short- but-sweet glimpse at what was to follow at the following meeting. Whatever the irritations of tis personal character may have been – egotism, arrogance, brusqueness – he was a superb lecturer and an impressive intellect.

One day en route to one of his first lectures I fell in step with him, since it appeared he was lost. I offered to get him to Sanders Theater, where the lectures were held. I mentioned that I found his lectures particularly interesting since he so frequently stressed the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin. He replied: “l feel Bakhtin is the clearest, most successful of all the theorists today. His theories are capable of encompassing and treating everything that may appear in a novel.” (Frequently in his lectures, Fuentes maintained that the novel, as practiced in Spanish America, is the most important literary genre of modern times). He also spat out, “I hate all these reductionists who reduce everything to categories.” He was curious to know a little more about Bakhtin’s personal fate in the USSR, and I told him what (very) little I knew. I then mentioned that he looked strikingly like Vasily Aksyonov, and I asked whether he had ever met him. He laughed and said he had heard that many times. “There are a trio of writers who everyone says look alike — Aksyonov, myself, and Styron. So they can send anyone of us three to lecture and no one will know the difference.” Further in reference to Aksyonov, he said, “I met Aksyonov in 1963 in Moscow at a writer’s conference. We took a boat trip down the Volga together. I liked him very much.” Fuentes remained very detached and aloof during our short chat, but was at all times polite. I clearly didn’t interest him a great deal, but then why should I have?

Vasily Aksyonov, early 1980s

This is another of the memory pieces I wrote in the mid-1980s about interesting people I’d met. I was a student of Vasily Aksyonov at George Washington University in D.C. in 1980/81. He had just arrived in the U.S. after being kicked out of the Soviet Union, in part for his work putting together a huge miscellany called Metropol, which by-passed the censor. That was too much for the authorities to take. I think it’s fair to say that the Metropol incident was a significant brick thrown at the Soviet Crystal Palace. Just five years later the country began to undergo drastic changes that led to it collapsing altogether. I’ve written a few things about Aksyonov that can be read here on this site, as well as on another site I keep. This particular text is disappointing to me. I must have been feeling lazy that day. I could have written so much more at a time when the experience of hearing and getting to know Aksyonov would have been so much fresher. For some reason I limited myself to a few quotes and anecdotes that I evidently had jotted down. It’s a shame that I squandered a fine opportunity. I probably put this little memoir together sometime between 1985 and 1987, when I wrote several other texts like it. I pulled the photo off of a site called photofeast.ru. It more or less shows Aksyonov as he would have looked when I first met him. 

Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov
By John Freedman

Vasily Pavlovich has short, fat, stubby fingers, and an odd way of speaking that is similar to a lisp, although that’s not what it is. He is charming, handsome in a rugged, appealing way, and very kind. He also harbors a good deal of animosity for anyone who ever crossed him, or anyone he thinks may have crossed him. Vasily Pavlovich’s tongue is dipped in silver and poison.

He is one of the most interesting speakers I have ever had the pleasure to hear. He has a great sense of humor which he will turn on himself as quickly as anyone else. He is opinionated (“There is no such thing as ‘village writers,’ it’s all a scam hyped up by the literary bosses to force all writers into something they see as ‘fundamentally Russian,'” or, “Vasily Shukshin was a poor excuse for a writer,” or, “Valentin Rasputin has a good line now and then, but he basically can’t write. There is something phony about his idyllic descriptions of nature”).

Having developed during one of the most stormy artistic periods in Russian history, Aksyonov was necessarily formed in part by the scars he wears from those battles. Perhaps his opinion of Rasputin refers more to the following incident than it does to his abilities as a writer: “After Yevgeny Popov came under fire for his participation in the Metropol miscellany, he was walking down the hall at the Writers’ Union one day. Rasputin, who had helped him along early in his career, walked toward him. Popov stopped him and asked if he would be willing to offer some defense from the attacks. Rasputin replied he would love to, but didn’t have the time.”

There are a number of writers from the “old guard” whom Aksyonov holds in high regard despite tarnished reputations. First among them is Valentin Kataev. Kataev gave Aksyonov his first shot as a writer in the late 1950’s. He tells the story how he took his first story to the editorial offices of Yunost’ magazine, where Kataev was the editor, and sheepishly handed the famous writer his story. Kataev glanced through a few pages, stopped, and said, ‘I like this word here, we’ll print it,’ and handed it back to Aksyonov. Later in the early ’60s, Kateev, Aksyonov, and Yevtushenko wanted to start up another journal aimed at a youthful market (both in terms of readership and contributors), and Kataev was actively supportive of the idea, lending the prestige of his name to the idea. The venture was eventually nixed by the Writers Union, but that was not due to a lack of effort on Kataev’s part. Aksyonov speaks of Kataev as one of the few “pure writers” in the Soviet period: “He was a born writer who wrote a lot of trash, but was always able to pull out a brilliant piece of writing whenever he wanted to.” Kataev later betrayed Aksyonov’s trust during the difficult mid-60’s, but the younger writer still says, “he was a bastard, but I love him anyway.”