Word: kuznetsov
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Repressive Climate. Kuznetsov is the most important literary figure to defect from the Soviet Union since the end of World War II and the best known personality within Russia to flee since Svetlana Stalin left in 1967 and wrote her recollections in Twenty Letters to a Friend. Along with Yuri Kazakov and Vasily Aksenov, he ranks as one of the most widely read authors in Russia. Noted for his sparse, evocative style, he has written numerous short stories and four novels. His 1966 documentary novel, Babi Yar, which recounts the Nazi massacre of thousands of Russian Jews outside the author...
Despite the Soviet Union's increasingly repressive intellectual climate, Kuznetsov remained in good standing in official circles. Unlike Novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose works are banned in the Soviet Union, or Poet Andrei Voznesensky, who is forbidden to travel abroad, Kuznetsov seemed to enjoy the privileges and prerogatives that come to an obedient Soviet writer. He has been a member of the Communist Party since 1955. Only last month, after Poet Evgeny Evtushenko and two other liberals were purged from the editorial board of Yunost (Youth), a big Soviet monthly, Kuznetsov was given one of the posts...
Secretly, Kuznetsov was desperately unhappy. For him the final blow was the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, which, he says, turned Russia's intelligentsia against the Soviet regime. He began planning his escape. His pretext for traveling abroad was perfect. How could Moscow deny a Soviet writer the opportunity to research a book on Lenin's stay in Britain? Kuznetsov transferred his Russian royalty payments to his wife and nine-year-old son. After photographing the pages of his unpublished works, he sewed the 35-mm. film into the lining of his coat. Into his suitcase Kuznetsov crammed copies...
Arriving in London on a two-week visa, Kuznetsov made it his first task to win the confidence of his traveling companion. Since Kuznetsov speaks no English, the Moscow Writers' Union had provided a translator, Georgy Andja-pazidze, a postgraduate student in English who is a Communist youth-club officer at the University of Moscow. Kuznetsov felt certain that Andjapazidze was what Russians call a mamka (nanny), a secret-police agent who was supposed to keep an eye on him. During the first four days, Kuznetsov behaved like a model Communist. On the fifth evening, during a tourist...
Whislced Away. Free of mamka, Kuznetsov immediately dashed for the nearest British government office. A civil servant telephoned a Russian-speaking journalist, David Floyd, the Daily Telegraph's Soviet expert. Floyd instructed the defector to take a cab to his home. Since the evening was warm, Kuznetsov had left his coat in the hotel. He insisted that they return to his single room in the Apollo Hotel to get his film-laden coat and documents. Kuznetsov also retrieved his typewriter ("my old favorite") and some Cuban cigars ("They are so cheap in Moscow"). Then the two men rushed...