TO VALENTINA IVASHEVA

A professor of English Studies at Moscow University, Ivasheva was one of Graham’s close friends in the Soviet Union. She wanted to interview him for a profile she was writing. As a protest against the trials of Sinyavsky and Daniel he was refusing to visit the Soviet Union.

19 March 1968

My dear Valentina,

I am sorry about all this. A book usually is worse in translation than in the original and to me Sinyavsky’s books have great quality and are not in any way an attack on the Soviet Union. I was glad to see that my old friend Kim Philby in an interview agreed that the trial had been a mistake! We Catholics have had a great experience of literary censorship. The argument for the inquisition was that there was only one true religion and it was the duty of every man to defend it. I can’t help feeling that your censorship is rather like our censorship two hundred years ago. Now we realize there is no absolute truth and that people must be allowed to express their criticisms and opinions. The danger is suppression and not liberty of expression in the long run.

I agree, of course, that the Sinyavsky case is a very small thing compared with what the Americans are doing in Vietnam, but I think it is one’s friendship for the Soviet Union that makes one criticize anything which seems to go against the constitution. As you know I am organizing a big protest by members of the American Academy of Letters against the Vietnam war,¹and I would feel that I had less right to speak up on this point if I didn’t speak up on the smaller case of Sinyavsky. There is a meeting of protest in London at the end of next week at which I intend to be present. No doubt this will offend some of my friends in the Soviet Union, but it does not mean that I have ceased to be on your side if the world has to choose between America and Russia. But I want my side free from any easy criticisms.

I am sure that I shall be coming and staying in your flat before long when we can treat this whole matter as a thing of the past.

Affectionately,
Graham

P.S. If only you would send me material on the case I would be happy. I have pre-judged nothing – except as my opinion S. is a very good writer.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 648