Interview with Natalia Solzhenitsyna
Published 09 April, 2008, 18:09
RT caught up with Natalia Solzhenitsyna at a book launch of her husband, writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's latest biography. This is the full version of the inverview.
Russia Today: Could you tell us about a period prior to your expulsion from the USSR?
Natalia Solzhenitsyna.: Even now those days are still a painful memory. For Aleksandr and me it was one of the most difficult periods of our lives. Our children were too young to remember anything. But for him and me it was clear that clouds were gathering. We realised that we would have to part soon. We thought that Aleksandr would be arrested and sent to prison or a labour camp at best or get killed at worst. We had no doubt that things would develop according to that scenario. We discussed which of Alexander’s books should be published first if the worst came to the worst. Everything was ready for that in the West. In fact, Aleksandr was issuing instructions with regards to how I should deal with his literary heritage. We were absolutely calm and unemotional when we discussed those arrangements. We understood that it was a fate which he and I must accept. The last words Aleksandr said to me when he was arrested in our apartment and was being taken away were: “Take care of the kids!”
At that time, neither he nor I thought that we were going to see each other again quite soon. We reunited six weeks later. Aleksandr was arrested on February 12 and was stripped of his Soviet citizenship on February 13. Then he was expelled from the country. And it took me six more weeks to secretly dispatch his archives abroad without which he would have been unable to survive. He writes that without his archives he would have been a person with a dead soul and piece of flesh torn out of his body. That’s exactly what would have happened to him if all his work had been stopped. So I had to find ways to send the archives to him. My foreign friends helped me a lot. Most of them were ordinary journalists and not diplomats with immunity. So each time they left our apartment loaded with books (they put the manuscripts in their inside pockets), they were running great risks to be caught. Any of them could be stopped, searched and then expelled from the country. And they liked working in Russia. That job was prestigious and interesting. So, I would like to thank them all once again, we still consider them to be our brothers.
RT: Natalya, you settled down in Vermont. Why did your family choose that place? Could you tell us about your new neighbours and their attitude to your husband? And also about your friends whom you had and are still having there?
N.S.: Well, why did we choose Vermont? We spent the first two and a half years of exile in Switzerland. And we are very grateful to the Swiss for their almost loving attitude to Alexander. They were very attentive and they didn’t intrude on our privacy. They let us live and work how we wanted to. They never interfered or took much of our time. But Switzerland is in the heart of Europe and Zurich is in the middle of Switzerland and a street in which we lived was close to the city centre. All the roads lead to Zurich, especially in summer when tourists come to Switzerland from all over the world, and also in winter when many go mountain skiing. That is why every five minutes someone would ring our doorbell with a single purpose of shaking hands with Alexander. Just to shake hands and tell my husband how much they respected him.
Despite our comfortable life in Switzerland, it was impossible for Aleksandr to work there. Therefore, we decided to move to some remote and secluded place. But there are no such spots in Europe. We tried to find a secluded place in the Swiss Canton of Jura but nothing came of it. That is why we decided to move to Canada. In 1975 we crossed Canada by train. It was a fantastic journey and splendid views! I would recommend everybody who can afford it to go to Canada. But we didn’t stop there. Canada was too lethargic for us. It had the effect of a sleeping pillow. I hope the Canadians will forgive me. Their country is beautiful. Simply, we thought that we would feel better in New England. But we didn’t find anything suitable in 1975. It was Aleksandr who did all the searching. I was looking after our children who were still too young at that time. In 1976, we found this place in Vermont. It could have been any other state in New England. Vermont suited us down to the ground.
American writer Salinger was our neighbour. We never met because he lived in total seclusion. So we respected his seclusion and he, in turn, respected our privacy. The people of Vermont are very nice. They are full of dignity, they have their own Irish-Polish (many of them are of Irish and Polish origins) understanding of what friendship and good-neighbourly relations are. It was nice in Vermont, very nice. The local people respected Aleksandr and eventually proclaimed him to be a true resident of Vermont which is almost improbable even for an American who lives in a different state. They have funny books about the true Vermontese. In one of them they wrote that Solzhenitsyn was a true Vermontese even though he was a foreigner. That appraisal came after when we already had left Vermont.
RT: Natalya, could you tell us a few words about the Red Wheel novel – the main achievement of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s life?
N.S.: No, I cannot. If I could say a few words about a novel which took twenty years to be written, it means it shouldn’t have been written at all. A five-minute speech would have been enough.
RT: O.K, Natalya, but how did you decide to return to Russia?
N.S.: We didn’t have to take that decision. This is how we felt from the very first days of our exile. When I was leaving the country to join Aleksandr abroad, I kept saying that we would return one day, although at that time I could hardly imagine when and how that would happen. I was absolutely sure that we would return to Russia. In 1974, Aleksandr received his Nobel Prize award in Stockholm. He told a news conference after the award ceremony that he saw himself returning to Russia. “I can see how exactly it’s going to happen,” he said. But all those present regarded his words to be revelations of a lyrical and romantic person who was speaking about unrealistic things. In 1983, Aleksandr repeated the same thing in an interview with well-known British journalist Malcolm Magridge. He asked Aleksandr if he thought that his books would return to Russia. It was in 1983 in the midst of the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan. And Aleksandr replied: “I believe that not only my books but I myself will return to Russia alive. Not earlier than my books, of course. I will just follow them.” And again no one believed him. So, we didn’t even have to take any kind of decision to return. We did that as soon as we got the first chance. We were ready to return to Russia.
RT: Could you describe your feelings upon your return? We spoke about that just a few minutes ago. The happiness of hearing the Russian language again and the bitterness because life in the depth of Russia was so hard? Could you tell us more about your emotions?
N.S.: Well, just try to imagine the emotional state of a person who is returning home after twenty years in exile. Those feelings were absolutely natural for us. But the same is true of our children who grew up in the United States. My youngest son was 18 months old when we left the USSR. I carried him in a basket when I was boarding a plane on my way abroad, the oldest son was 11 and the third one was three. They grew up abroad. Of course, we spoke Russian in the family. Thank god they remember the Russian language. But when they came to Russia for the first time in 1992 – at that time we hadn’t yet finally returned to live in Russia but we were looking for a place to return- they were absolutely fascinated (they were 17 or 18 at that time) to see Russian signboards. “Look,” they would say to each other walking down the street, “there is a word milk or bread written in Russian over there.” It was just amazing. Everybody around us was speaking Russian and all the signboards were in Russian. My children had never seen Russian signboards before. They spoke Russian with each other and with us but there was an ocean of English around them in the United States and of German when we lived in Switzerland. Of course, it was a very pleasant emotional shock. And we, like any grown-up people, who find it hard to fully assimilate in a foreign country, (they can, of course, but only due to some unlucky circumstances), had always wanted to live in our home country if there was a chance.
RT: Tell us briefly about the story of the Order of Andrey Pervozvanny.
N.S.: It’s a short and obvious story. While the entire country was starving he suddenly received an honour from the hands of the individual whom Aleksandr considered to be mostly responsible for the country’s troubles. Salaries were not being paid to teachers and doctors. The country was ransacked. And this very person rewarded Aleksandr with the highest state Order. Aleksandr didn’t want to accept rewards from such a person. He warned Mr. Yeltsin: “Don’t give me that Order! I will not accept it. I don’t want to cause a public scandal. I’m asking you: don’t do it. Let’s avoid this situation.” Discussion lasted an entire night but eventually they decided to give that order. Well, that was their decision.
RT: What about Aleksandr and today’s Russia? Does he agree with its way?
N.S.: He’s said many times that we’ve chosen the worst, the most crooked and the most unfair and ineffective way to get rid of communism. It’s his pain and his concern. He writes about it all the time. All of his works during the recent 14 years have been full of hope that we would finally straighten our paths in some ways, and full of sadness that we’ve chosen an extremely irrational and ineffective way. And our country will be paying for it for a long time.
RT: Here is my last question. Aleksandr has an amazing and incomparable sense of his own destiny. He can see the future. Do you think he’s correct in his feelings?
N.S.: This is a very mysterious issue. It’s difficult to reason upon it. During many years of living with him I sometimes had a very clear feeling that he perceived reality in slightly different ways than the rest of us did. He does experience a certain communication; a certain way of a more profound understanding of the reality. Sometimes he cannot even explain it. His return, for example: I’ve believed in it together with him for many years. When the war in Afghanistan started in 1980 and when all the remaining people here were imprisoned or killed, I staggered somewhat. My faith failed. So I told him that a total darkness was all around. And he replied with a guilty smile: “I just don’t know how to explain it; I don’t know how things could change but I just really see our return”. That’s how it was happening.
RT: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn remains a polarising figure abroad and especially here in Russia. Do you think this book published here in Russia does any justice to your husband’s life and work?
N.S.: You see, Solzhenitsyn’s life was extremely volcanic, with many twists and turns. His early period of writing fell under huge pressure of Soviet power. And he’s always been a fearless man. Because of all that he’s always provoked polarised feelings in others. He’s never left anyone indifferent to him. People became either his passionate admirers or furious adversaries. Moreover, the KGB also made its large input by intentionally distributing false information about him. These so-called “lousy legends” are assembled in a book of documents, “The Kremlin lynch”. It was published in English as well after Perestroika. It includes many of those falsified publications about him in Mass media, lectures and so on. The book on Solzhenitsyn’s biography written by Saraskin is extremely accurate and detailed, with every fact being verified by cross-testimonies. So this biography is expected to play a really positive role in this sense. Its principle is not to abandon all those lousy legends but to examine every condemnation. Was there any truth in them, how did they come about and by whom were they said. All those lies are examined in this book. I believe it would bring some clarity to this situation.
RT: When people hear about your family’s destiny and when people read Solzhenitsyn’s writings, Russia emerges as this very dark grim place. Do you feel comfortable here now?
N.S.: Comfortable or not, we are happy here. We’re happy to be surrounded by the Russian language and by our friends. We did have many friends in the west as well, among Russians and westerners. But we’ve always felt that we were in exile, and it was difficult. Here we are very saddened by many bad things that we disagree with. But as Anna Akhmatova said, as that time I was with my nation there, where my nation unfortunately was. It is better to share the unhappiness with our nation rather than to live comfortably somewhere else. You know, we’ve really suffered during those 20 years abroad, even though our life there was very comfortable.
RT: Where is Russia heading and does your husband feel that this is the right way?
N.S.: Of course, the country is yet to face some really difficult times. These past years have been very difficult too. Aleksandr and I both believe that absolutely irreversible changes have already happened. All the fears expressed now that the country may go back to totalitarianism and Stalinism are absolutely unjustified. It is absolutely impossible in Russia. In a country where the internet and computers are so widely spread and where people travel abroad freely without any limitations, a return to a totalitarian past is absolutely impossible. But the ways to the future may vary. My husband also criticises many ways that things are being done today. Having studied the Russian history, he strongly supports local self-government.
Moreover, living in Switzerland and in Vermont has proved to us the benefits of self-government. We observed many things there as we participated in that life. We were the taxpayers and we had the voting right at the local meetings. I never missed them. It was an exceptional lesson of the so-called small space democracy. The local residents decided how to spend the taxes, whether to fix a school roof or to repair a road or to employ new teachers. This system is still non-existent here but we really need it. Until we are able to decide how to manage our own lives at places, no real democracy would exist in Russia. It is impossible to manage everything from above in such a country. The power’s vertical is necessary in such a geographically large country. But the self government has to grow towards it from below. They both have to meet and one has to control the other.
We do criticise today’s ways but unlike others we believe that many critics in Russia and in the west alike make improper claims towards Russia. Democracy, or even just a way to democracy has existed in Russia for 15 or 17 years. But they demand Russia to show examples of true democracy. In Switzerland the history of democracy is 800 years! In England it’s long too. We cannot avoid serious detriments which have to be considered and corrected. They should help rather than blame Russia for being non-democratic and for returning to Stalinism. We believe in a proper future for Russia but it will definitely require a lot of hard work.
RT: Final question. As a wife and a mother, have you ever thought that Aleksandr should’ve given up everything and chosen a safer way of living?
N.S.: What are you talking about, no way! From the very first time when we were not married yet worked close to each other, our partnership had been a combative one. It’s natural for my character. I’ve always supported him in his most uncompromising decisions. When he asked me: “What do you think I should do?” I replied, “You have to hit hard!” Thinking rationally, in the most dangerous situations the best defence is to attack.
RT: Thank you very much.
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