Volume 7, Number 9 · December 1, 1966
Witch Hunt
By Helen Muchnic
On Trial: The Soviet State versus "Abram Tertz" and "Nikolai Arshak"
translated, edited, and with an Introduction by Max Hayward
Harper & Row, 183 pp., $4.95
In 1960 two English translations from the Russian, an essay and a novel, roused speculation in the West about the identity of their author, who called himself 'Abram Tertz.' The essay, 'On Socialist Realism,' was a brilliant analysis that showed up the absurdities of the official doctrine; the novel, The Trial Begins, was a satiric fantasy, clearly based on the notorious 'Doctors' Plot' of 1952. These were followed in 1963 by a collection of stories, Fantastic Stories, and in 1965 by another novel, The Makepeace Experiment. In 1962 a short story, 'This Is Moscow Speaking,' appeared under another pseudonym. 'Nikolai Arzhak.' All these works were marked by a lightness of touch, a sharp intelligence, a bright, satiric wit, a creative fancy which one had learned not to expect from the USSR. They were said to have been smuggled out. What, then, was going on behind the Iron Curtain? Either the whole thing was a hoax, or else the exposure of Stalinist frame-ups and the campaign against the Cult of Personality were having a salutary effect on thought and art, for although the works in question could hardly be called anti-Soviet or anti-Communist, they did display unusual detachment and a capacity to penetrate below the surface to the ethical meaning, the broadly human significance, of events and doctrinal assumptions. Was it becoming possible for Russians to see their country in a critical light? Of course, with the Pasternak episode still fresh in mind and the more recent fuss about Evtushenko's Prococious Autobiography, one hoped that the identity of 'Tertz' and 'Arzhak' would remain a secret for as long as this was necessary to save them from persecution.
Review, 2478 words
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