Solzhenitsyn Speaks Out

They decided to suffocate me. The plan is to either drive me out of society or out of the country, throw me in a ditch or drive me to Siberia, or have me dissolve in an "alien fog."

Despite the intensity of a campaign of vilification by Soviet authorities, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russia's Nobel-prizewinning novelist, for years refused to discuss with foreigners the charges against him. His best-known works (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward, The First Circle) deal mainly with the victims of Stalinist terror. Last week, in a dramatic departure from his earlier reticence, Solzhenitsyn talked with two Western newsmen about his own precarious existence under an increasingly hostile regime. Said he: "A kind of forbidden contaminated zone has been created around my family."

As the writer spoke to the Washington Post's Robert G. Kaiser and the New York Times's Hedrick Smith in the Moscow apartment of his attractive second wife, Natalya, 32, he frequently consulted with her about whether to answer certain questions. She, in turn, often glanced at the ceiling, to indicate that electronic listening devices were undoubtedly recording the conversation. During the interview, the couple's 15-month-old son Yermolai played happily on the floor.

Ominous Charge. Over berry juice and a homemade fruitcake, Solzhenitsyn complained that, among other things, he was continually being spied upon, that his visitors were harassed and intimidated, and that his wife had been fired from her post as a mathematician at the Institute of the International Workers Movement. He also declared that his efforts to collect research for a new book called October 1916 were handicapped by officials. "You Westerners cannot imagine my situation," he said. "I live in my own country; I write a novel about Russia. But it is as hard for me to gather material as if I were writing about Polynesia."

Solzhenitsyn's decision to hold his first major interview ever with Western correspondents was undoubtedly caused by his fear of a Soviet propaganda campaign against him, which has grown stronger in recent months. The most ominous charge made is that he collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. According to Solzhenitsyn, this slander has been repeated by agitprop lecturers at closed meetings in schools, government offices, factories and military units throughout Russia. "Behind closed doors you can make a gullible people believe any lie," said Solzhenitsyn, a former artillery captain who was decorated three times for bravery. "They say, 'Solzhenitsyn gave himself up to the Germans--no, he surrendered a whole battery. Even better, he worked right in the Gestapo.' "

Undaunted Spirit. Now the Soviet authorities are making the charge public, perhaps as prelude to criminal proceedings that might lead to Solzhenitsyn's arrest or his expulsion from the Soviet Union. In a recent review of his latest book--August 1914, which deals with the start of World War I--a critic writing in Moscow's Literary Gazette asserted that Solzhenitsyn had desired a Nazi victory in World War II. More important, at week's end the big trade union newspaper Trud, which often reflects the views of Alexander Shelepin, former chief of the KGB (secret police), charged that Solzhenitsyn despised his homeland and sympathized with German militarism.

Solzhenitsyn, whose patriotism is perfectly apparent in his writings, apparently decided to counter these absurd charges by calling worldwide attention to the slanderous campaign against him. He candidly told the American newsmen that "times have changed. They can't abuse people any more without its becoming known." That was an obvious reference to the growth of informed Russian public opinion through the circulation of samizdat (literally, self-publishing) news letters and broadcasts by Radio Liberty and other foreign stations. Solzhenitsyn said he was jotting down the most striking charges against him and the names of his detractors. "Perhaps the day will come in our country when they will personally answer for them in court."

He added that, despite the pressures, creativity in Russian literature had not been extinguished. "It really never occurs to them," he said, "that a writer who thinks differently from the majority of society represents an asset to that society, and not a disgrace or a defect."

Solzhenitsyn spoke out only one week before he was to receive the medal and diploma of the Nobel Prize from Dr. Karl Ragnar Gierow, the secretary of the Swedish Academy. Gierow was to fly from Stockholm to hand them over to Solzhenitsyn in a modest ceremony in a private apartment in Moscow. It was a carefully arranged compromise: Solzhenitsyn had refused to go to Stockholm in 1970 to receive the award for fear the Soviets would not let him return, and Swedish Ambassador Gunnar Jarring later refused to allow a public presentation ceremony to take place in the Swedish embassy in Moscow for fear of offending Soviet leaders. Only a few days after Solzhenitsyn made his remarks, the Soviets rejected Gierow's application for a visa. But the refusal only heightened public concern abroad for Solzhenitsyn, who, seemingly undaunted, sent a telegram to the Swedish Academy. "Dear Gierow," he cabled. "The refusal of a visa means a ban against the presentation. Do not be sad. We can postpone it for many years. It is a shame, but not ours. I embrace you."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.