Expulsion from the USSR & Leningrad Writers Unions
- 17-1. Lydia Chukovskaya
- 17-2. Vladimir Voinovich
- 17-3. Dismissal of Yefim Etkind
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The well-known Soviet scholar Yefim Grigorevich ETKIND is a literary critic, D.Sc. (philology) and a professor. He is a secretary of the Leningrad section of the Writers’ Union [1].
Etkind is author of the following books: Poetry and Translation (1963), On the Art of Being a Reader (1964), A Seminar on French Stylistics (1965), French Verse in the Translations of Russian Poets (1969 and 1973), A Conversation about Poetry (1970), Bertold Brecht (1971), and Russian Poet-Translators from Trediakovsky to Pushkin (1973).
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We reproduce extracts from a summary of a document entitled:
A Memorandum from the KGB
“Etkind came to the notice of the KGB in 1969; he has known Solzhenitsyn for over ten years, met him frequently, given him practical help, and kept libellous works at his own home, including The Gulag Archipelago.
“He knew Voronyanskaya through Solzhenitsyn … Voronyanskaya testified at an interrogation: ‘Solzhenitsyn came to Leningrad in 1971; he handed two copies of The Gulag Archipelago to Etkind, and later Etkind personally brought them to me at my home’ … In the summer of 1970 Voronyanskaya stayed at Etkind’s dacha.
“… At the beginning of April this year the KGB initiated a criminal case concerning the circulation of anti-Soviet libellous documents [this issue, ‘Case No. 15’, CCE 32.6]. Searches took place at the home of Maramzin and Kheifets, who had published a five-volume edition of Brodsky’s verse in samizdat; a preface for it written by Kheifets was discovered at his home … Etkind’s review of the preface, which was also confiscated, contains an approving response to the political aspect of the preface. When interrogated, Etkind testified that he was the author of the review and that he had never concealed his attitude to the events in Czechoslovakia. Kheifets testified that Etkind maintained close relations with J. Brodsky.
“In March 1964 Etkind’s conduct at Brodsky’s trial was discussed at a meeting of the secretariat of the Writers’ Union, but Etkind would not recognize the harmfulness of his views then either.
“Etkind’s ‘Letter to Young Jews Seeking to Emigrate’ also testifies to his harmful activity; it contains appeals to Jews not to leave for another country but to fight for their freedom and civil rights here.
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“… It has been established that Etkind uses his professional position in society to get views that are alien to the Soviet system published in his works … This is how prominent Soviet scholars appraise them.
“D.Sc. (Philology), Professor P. S. Vykhodtsev: “Etkind’s views on poetry … in no way coincide with Marxist-Leninist principles.”
“Author E. Serebrovskaya, Cand.Sc. (Philosophy) says about his book A Conversation About Poetry: ‘In Etkind’s work there is no class consciousness, there are no words like ‘Motherland’ and ‘patriotism’, no ideological evaluation of poetry.’
“Writer A. N. Chepurov writes about the political harmfulness … of the article ‘Paul Wiens as a Translator of Soviet Poetry’ … and of the book about Brecht …
“… In 1949 Etkind was dismissed from the Leningrad Institute of Foreign Languages for methodological mistakes in his Cand.Sc. dissertation …
“… In 1973-4 various measures were implemented regarding Solzhenitsyn and his circle. However, Etkind did not draw any conclusions for himself.
“Over a long period Etkind has consciously conducted ideologically harmful and hostile activity. He has operated as a political double-dealer.”
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This ‘Memorandum’ was read aloud at a meeting of the Academic Council on 25 April 1974 by the rector of the Herzen Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad, A. D. Boborykin. This was not the first time, he noted, the Academic Council was engaging in a discussion about Professor Etkind.
In 1968 the Academic Council cautioned Etkind in connection with a political error he had committed. In an introductory article to the two-volume Masters of Russian Verse Translation Etkind had written:
“Deprived of the possibility of complete self-expression in their original creative work, Russian poets — especially between the 17th [1933] and 20th [1956] Party congresses — conversed with the reader in the words of Goethe, Shakespeare, Orbeliani and Hugo.”
Etkind did not attend the meeting, as he was ill. But his letter to the Academic Council was read out.
In the letter Etkind recalled that he had been at the Institute for 23 years, engaging in teaching and working as hard as possible. Etkind writes that he has handed in his resignation, but asks it to be taken into consideration that the “main line of my conduct cannot be illustrated by two or three tactless phrases written in private letters and on private matters — yet it is precisely from documents of this type that the incriminating expressions have been extracted.”
Then the question of Etkind’s removal from the post of professor was discussed:
“Etkind is an anti-Soviet renegade and double-dealer … He has not left for Israel but conducted his politics more subtly … He should be expelled from the Institute and deprived of his academic title and degree” (Prof. A. I. Domashnev, dean of the faculty of foreign languages, head of the department of German philology).
“… What we have heard today is an expression of Jewish nationalism turned inside out …” (A. Merzon, a woman philosophy teacher).
“… an ideological saboteur … an inner Solzhenitsyn … Etkind doesn’t have two different stools: he sits in a single chair — Solzhenitsyn’s chair …” (P. L. Ivanov, professor, philosophy department).
“… Etkind should be advised to take himself off after Solzhenitsyn …” (Prof. Kulba, head of the department of inorganic chemistry).
“… He has become the spiritual father of young anti-Sovietists, the distributors of samizdat, … there is no place for him among Soviet pedagogues …” (Prof. I. S. Eventov, department of Soviet literature, member of the Union of Writers). ,
“… There is no place for the ideological saboteur Etkind in our ranks … Etkind has been giving a course on French literature … the question of whether to give this course at all must be discussed …” (Prof. R. G. Piotrovsky, head of the department of French language).
“… These are the tactics of an enemy. He has held firmly to his position for a long time, beginning in 1949 and ending in the 1970s when evolution inevitably united him with scum like Solzhenitsyn. Kheifets, Brodsky and others … On the basis of the new directives of the Higher Degrees Commission we have the right to deprive Etkind of the academic title of professor …” [2]
“As for his academic degree, that is a matter for the Academic Council which awarded the degree to decide …” (Prof. Yu.V. Kozhukhov. corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, pro-rector for research work, department of USSR history).
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In summing up the debate, Rector Boborykin noted that an accurate evaluation had been given and that emphasis had been put in the right places.
The proposal to dismiss Etkind from the post of professor at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute was put to the vote. There were 57 for, not a single one against, and no abstentions.
The proposal to urge the Higher Degrees Commission to deprive Etkind of the title of professor was put to the vote. There were 57 for, not a single one against, and no abstentions.
On the same day Etkind was expelled from the Writers’ Union.
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Yefim Etkind (1918-1999)
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On 3 May 1974 Etkind wrote a ‘Statement for the Press’. He says:
” . . Yes, I know Solzhenitsyn.
“Yes, I did speak as a witness at the trial of Joseph Brodsky [3] and to the best of my ability helped the young poet to publish the translations which supplied him with a crust of bread.
“Yes, I did write books and articles in which I tried to express my views on French literature, Russian poetry and German drama.
“I did all this in the firm conviction that I was promoting the growth of my country’s culture, for which I live. In devoting myself to the theory and history of artistic translation I was quite sure that I was promoting friendship between the nations who speak Russian, French and German …”
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“… My generation remembers well the meetings of the year 1949 [4].
“At that time the best professors, our teachers, were driven out of the universities, and the best writers out of literature. I am not comparing myself with them.
“But my generation will not forget till their dying day the bloodthirsty unanimity with which orators at such meetings branded Zhirmunsky, Eikhenbaum, Azadovsky and Gukovsky and demanded their immediate removal from Leningrad University …
“… A revival of the year 1949 might seem impossible.
“Alas, it is not only possible but as easy as anything!
“Professors, writers and poets have known their colleague for many years, but they are told that their colleague is a political criminal and they hasten to believe it … They are told that he committed ‘methodological errors’’ in 1949 and they do not ponder what an absurdity they have been told: they don’t hear the date ‘1949’, only the habitually frightening words about errors, and they agree to his civil execution … And they perform the execution unanimously. Unanimity was a necessary condition of the proceedings in that distant age as well.
“But, one would think, a quarter of a century later a new public consciousness should have developed, a civic self-awareness should have been cultivated in people. Is it possible that we can be thrown back 25 years so easily?
“Is it possible that people don’t accumulate historical experience? That they have been taught nothing by. at least, Novy mir, if by nothing else? That they have forgotten the poetry by Tvardovsky, the repentant articles of Simonov, the suicide of Fadeyev, the rebirth from the ashes of Bulgakov, Babel, Mandelstam, Akhmatova and many others? Is it possible today, in 1974, to utilize the arguments used then, and provoke general approval by making references to the year 1949?
“No, I believe in progress, in a new public consciousness, in the growth of civic self-awareness. I believe that no one will succeed in throwing our country back 25 years. And also, I still believe in the democratic forces of the contemporary world.”
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NOTES
- The materials of this section appear at their full length (9 pp.) in CHR 1974 (No. 9).
↩︎ - For details of these 1972 directives, see CHR 1973 (No. 5-6, section 3) where the case of the scientist A. P. Fedoseyev is discussed.
↩︎ - See Etkind’s defence of Brodsky at his trial in the condensed transcript in Encounter (London, (September 1964); the full transcript in Russian is in R. N. Grynberg, ed., Vozdushnye puti – Almanakh IV (New York, 1965).
↩︎ - 1949 … ///
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