Volume 26, Number 17 · November 8, 1979
On Voznesensky
By Ilya Levin, Reply by Clive James
In response to Voznesensky's Case
(August 16, 1979)
To the Editors:
In his "Voznesensky's Case" Clive James states, "Poetry is not just facts, but it can't start without them." Well, it might be good to get one's facts right before writing a review. Khrushchev's attack on "the young artists" took place not in 1963, as Clive James thinks. If what he refers to is the notorious Manege exhibition, it was in 1962. Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide not in the "Elabuga concentration camp" but in the house she rented in Elabuga. In fact, Tsvetaeva had never been in a concentration camp at all.
These are fairly obvious facts that are familiar to anyone with but a modicum of knowledge about Russian cultural history. But the review written by Clive James is an example of how lack of elementary erudition can be combined with erroneous judgment. According to James, Soviet poets Yevtushenko and Voznesensky are no good as poets not because of the empty rhetoric and pseudoprofundity of their verse but because their poetry avoids "open discussion of the historical facts." "If [Yevtushenko] had written a poem about, say, Kolyma," writes James, "it would have been a real literary landmark." James is wrong. It would not, not with Yevtushenko—as a matter of fact (the fact which is again unfamiliar to Clive James) Yevtushenko did write "a poem about Kolyma" which was part of his Bratskaya GES cycle, published in the Yunost magazine in Moscow. So what? It did not make Yevtushenko a better poet, to say nothing of becoming a literary landmark or something equally impressive.
I do not think that I shall convince Clive James that Yevtushenko and Voznesensky are bad poets not because Yevtushenko (in James' opinion) fails to write about Kolyma and Voznesensky in his poem about Akhmatova does not state that Akhmatova's books are censored by the Soviets. I also think that they are bad poets—but my reasons for thinking so are different from James'. I think that they are bad poets because they write bad poetry and not because their poetry is not about the right things, as James is inclined to believe. But this, after all, is a difference of taste and approach. As a Russian saying goes, "Some people like the priest's wife, while others prefer his daughter." But James is positively wrong when he states that there is no poetry in Russia except that produced by Yevtushenko, Voznesensky, and other "official writers." Does James know anything about the so-called "unofficial poetry" which he condescendingly refers to as "a brave try…but not really a substitute [for what?!]"? I wonder if James ever heard of Brodsky, whose poems have been published, among other places, in the NYR. Brodsky is, perhaps, the best-known representative of the "unofficial poets"—but there are others whom James ought to have familiarized himself with before pronouncing his judgment on contemporary Russian poetry. James gives us to understand he knows Russian—has he read anything by Dmitry Bobyshev? by Henry Volokhonsky? by Elena Schvarts? by Oleg Okhapkin? by Viktor Krivulin? I could name many others, but obviously no name would ring a bell for James who, as it is plain from his review, has never heard about the collection Apollon-77 (Paris, 1977) or about any of the literary journals published in the West which regularly print "unofficial poetry" Kontinent, Vremia i My, 22, Ekho, Kovcheg.
Ilya Levin
Department of Slavic Languages
The University of Texas, Austin, Texas
Clive James replies:
In my review I cast no aspersions whatever on Voznesensky's moral courage. It is as clear to me as it must be clear to him that he is risking his life even by talking evasively. That he is unable to talk directly even in his "unofficial" poetry, I several times suggested, is not his fault but the fault of the Soviet system of government. This point was so elementary that I blushed to make it. After three years of learning to read Russian I hope I have made some progress but it has undoubtedly been slow. I still feel like an amateur and was diffident about venturing an opinion in this matter. Having now seen the low level on which some of the professionals venture their opinions, I begin to feel more confident.
Harrison Salisbury need not be so astonished that I have managed to "like and dislike" Voznesensky's poetry both at the same time. As I tried to make clear (as I did make clear, but Mr. Salisbury had trouble comprehending), it is possible to admire Voznesensky's talent while lamenting that it has not yet been put to its full use. Once again I was careful to point out that the blame for Voznesensky's gift not coming to complete fruition must be placed squarely at the door of the Soviet system of government.
S. Frederick Starr seems to share Mr. Salisbury's difficulties in reading plain English. I did not charge Voznesensky with civic irresponsibility. I charged the Soviet Union with civic irresponsibility for doing the very sort of thing Mr. Starr talks about—i.e., intimidating poets whenever they say something which is open to the wrong interpretation. Mr. Starr's understanding of Soviet society must be even more elementary than mine if he thinks that a Soviet artist can practice "quiet diplomacy" without feeling, at least to some degree, that he has been forced to gag himself. Russian writers are necessarily involved in a moral dilemma whatever they do. This is one of the constant themes of dissident literature, as Mr. Starr, during the course of his advanced studies, might perhaps have noted.
William Jay Smith must strive to be less self-important. The subject of my review was Voznesensky. Allusions to William Jay Smith were all in passing. But it is never nice, when we know as much about somebody's work as Mr. Smith seems to know about mine, to find him being dismissive about our own efforts. To soothe Mr. Smith's ruffled feathers, let me assure him that he does not write as badly as he reads. To his question "who can doubt that in 'Old Song'…he is writing eloquently of his revulsion at the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia?" the answer is "anyone who does not ponder the possible implications of the appended date." The poem is all about the depredations of Turkish janissaries and bears out my point exactly.
I published the article to which Mr. Smith refers in May 1977. Nowadays I still need a dictionary but it does not fit in my pocket. The article was attacked by Literaturnaya Gazetta across seven columns. My opinions, it was said, closely echoed those of Goebbels and the CIA. So I have had a fleeting taste of what it is like to have the heavies breathing threats at you. Even safe in London I felt daunted enough. If I had ever before doubted how much courage it takes for a Soviet writer to publish an unpalatable opinion, I have certainly never doubted it since. The suggestion that Auberon Waugh is a judge of poetry would be greeted with much merriment in his homeland.
Mr. Smith and Mr. Levin both have a point about Tsvetayeva. Having only just got round to reading her systematically, I took a few things on trust. On the matter of her death I followed Tamas Aczel and Lazslo Tikos of the University of Massachusetts. In their introduction to Poetry from the Russian Underground (1973) they refer to "Tsvetayeva's suicide in a Soviet concentration camp" and "Yelabuga, the camp in which she committed suicide." I now see that I made a mistake in taking these for accurate statements, and can only plead that when one comes late to a big subject like Russian literature one cannot hope to master all the details at once. But I think it is worth pushing on, if only to ask the innocent questions which more sophisticated students might have forgotten need answering.
Mr. Levin is out to score debating points, I think. He has the ghost of a point about Yevtushenko, although it can scarcely be said to offset the glaring fact that Yevtushenko's biggest and most famous poem about atrocity is about a Nazi atrocity. "Dachau's ashes burn my feet" is a typical opening line from Yevtushenko. Once again there is no point blaming the man when the system is at fault. I didn't mean the Manege exhibition, I meant the second session of the Conference of Young Writers which was held in the Kremlin on March 7 and 8, 1963, the latter day being the one on which Khrushchev did his number.
Mr. Levin can stop wondering whether I have heard of Brodsky. It is news to me, though, that Brodsky is an "unofficial" poet in the generally accepted sense. I had the impression that Brodsky was now in Western exile, and pursuing a concentrated, fruitful, and above all free literary career of the kind which, it seems to me, has become impossibly difficult to further in the Soviet Union.
I am sorely aware that Voznesensky's present position is not easy. Attacked from within his own country by the vile enforcers of official policy, he must feel that insult is being added to injury when he is attacked from without. But really I have not attacked him. I have paid him the compliment due to his abundant talent by pointing out what I think are the reasons why that talent has been held down. In the Soviet Union all the arts have been trivialized. Poetry is no exception. There is nothing surprising about this. It suits the State well that gifted poets should waste most of their time fighting for the right to speak. What we are witnessing, thankfully from afar, is a tragedy, not a romance.