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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 96-2-200
TITLE:             Nekrasov in Italy and America
BY:                r.c.
DATE:              1963-2-22
COUNTRY:           (n/a)
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  USSR

--- Begin ---

Radio Free Europe/Munich
Non-Target Communist Area Analysis Department
Background Information USSR

22 February 1963

NEKRASOV IN ITALY AND AMERICA

Victor Nekrasov is a 51-year-old Soviet writer who has
recently been attacked in the Soviet press for his outspoken
travelogues on Italy and the United States which were published,
respectively, in the November and December issues of Noviy Mir.
Nekrasov's account of his trips to the United States in I960
and Italy in 1962, entitled "On Both Sides of the Ocean", are
noteworthy for their relatively unbiased appraisal of the West
and for their critical approach to several aspects of Soviet
Wife. Whereas Solzhenitsin's Ivan Denisovich and Stadnyuk's
People Are Not Angels conform to the Party's aim of exposing
the evils of the Stalinist past, Nekrasov directs attention
to certain ludicrous aspects of life under Khrushchev--the
Party-induced practice of "citizen arrests", the destruction
of churches, the restrictions on cultural exchange with the
West, the conservatism of the Soviet Academy of Art, and the
paternalistic KGB chaperoning of Soviet tourists abroad. On
the other hand, Nekrasov expresses enthusiasm for Western
modern art (excluding the purely abstract, however), films,
and architecture. He also points out the progressive features
of the Catholic Church, the economic upsurge in Western Europe
and Japan, new forms of capitalism in the West, and the
importance of America's role in World War II, including military
and economic aid to the USSR.

Nekrasov's travelogues were published none too soon.
The campaign for cultural orthodoxy, sparked by Khrushchev's
1 December descent on the Manezh exhibition of modern art,
has included ominous attacks on Nekrasov and Noviy Mir which
may well cause editor-in-chief Tvardovsky to refrain
temporarily from publishing such controversial works. Similar works
will undoubtedly continue to be written, but may be confined
to the desk drawer until the current storm subsides.

The most violent attack on Nekrasov's "On Both Sides of
the Ocean" appeared as an editorial comment in the 20 January
Izvestiya. Accusing Nekrasov of "proclaiming, peaceful
coexistence in the sphere of ideology--an exceedingly dangerous
matter", Izvestiya presented the distorted picture that,
according to Nekrasov:

"...one may equate the battle of the Volga with
American pork stew (i.e. canned food provided to
the Soviets during World War II--r.c.), and the
sketches of Le Corbusier with the silouettes of
cities of the Communist future. No, we cannot agree
with this!"

[page 2]

Nekrasov is further chastized for failing to see the
"striking social contrasts of American life and the war psychosis
kindled by imperialist circles", and for "defaming much of what
is sacred to every Soviet man. Not to speak of the author's
tactless and insulting attitude toward his traveling companions".
Such views "lead to bourgeois objectivism and to thoughtless
descriptions which distort reality". On 31 January both Izvestiya
and Komsomolskaya Pravda carried the attack to Noviy Mir's
editor-in chief, Aleksandr Tvardovsky. The latter newspaper complained
that "recently the reader has had more and more often to be
puzzled by things that are printed in this journal (Noviy Mir--r.c.)
from time to time." The reader of the following selections by
Nekrasov will find these charges distorted and absurd. The
editor Of Noviy Mir, however, is likely to consider them more
seriously--for a time.

The first selection of excerpts is from Nekrasov's
American tour and appeared in the December 1962 Noviy Mir.

Nekrasov on KGB tourist chaperone:

"Our most dear Ivan Ivanovich most of all feared any
kind of digression from the schedule and routine. Being in
a state of perpetual strain and nervousness, he was constantly
recounting us like chickens, and the most frightening thing
for him was to have someone say, 'But I don't want to go to
the National Gallery, I'd rather go to the Guggenheim Museum
or simply take a stroll on Broadway'. This 'simply take a
stroll' particularly scared him.

"On our first day in New York, after our visit to the
United Nations building, at the entrance he organized our first
'letuchka' (a short meeting--r.c.). Having requested Tadeusz
Osipowicz (the American Express tour guide--r.c.) to stand
aside, he gave a short lecture on discipline, the duties and
obligations of a small Soviet collective on foreign soil,
mentioning the fact that certain people had been late for
dinner on the first day and, having separated themselves from
the collective, were required to take a taxi, and this mustn't
happen again, otherwise he would have to take corresponding
measures, although lie didn't explain what measures. We, like
school children, stood beside the wall of the enormous building,
silently listened to him, then the guilty ones began to make
excuses, voices gradually were raised, arguments arose, and
Tadeusa Osipowicz stood to the side, observing us ironically.
I was rather ashamed.

"Poor, poor Ivan Ivanovich. Somehow I understood him
and felt sorry for him. He was, after all, responsible for
all of us and we were twenty, and he didn't know any of us;
we had known each other not more than a day and were not at
home, but in the city of the Yellow Devil, where there were
gangsters, and policemen, and the FBI...How could one not feel
sorry for him? But nevertheless our most kind Ivan Ivanovich
had forgotten one thing--the fact that people are drawn to us

[page 3]

Soviets, thirst for contact with us and we have no right to
fence ourselves off and shut ourselves up in a shell. Our
every movement is observed, every word is listened to, and
therefore we should behave completely naturally and be ourselves.
Excessive caution--let's call it that--does not bring people
together but repels them.

"But all the same, in spite of the strict schedule and
routine, we managed to learn something about America. Not much,
but something."

On America's Role in World War II:

"The whole world knows about America's contribution to
the struggle against fascism. The name of Franklin Roosevelt
is respected in all corners of the globe. The United States,
it is true, did not suffer the horrors of occupation, the
destruction and the barbarous bombings, but American soldiers
were killed at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines, in the
Persian Gulf and in the Himalayas. Three hundred thousand
Americans will never return home again. Americans knew not
only the exultation of victory, but the bitterness of defeat--
the same Pearl Harbor, the tragedies of Corregidor and Bataan,
the frightening days at the beginning of 1942 when it seemed
that Japan was about to reach Australia and the very shores
of America. The situation in those days was much more
difficult for us, and we are in no way inclined to underestimate
our own contribution in the war, but nevertheless we Russians
will never forget the assistance which was given us in those
difficult days--the Sherman tanks, the Cobras and Studebakers,
and the pork stew, and that which we didn't see at the front
but which our industry received."

On Dali and Surrealist Painting:

"Salvador Dali is one of the most celebrated artists
of the West. He is a Spaniard, but he has been living and
flourishing in the United States for more than twenty years.
Therefore, although I take care not to categorize him as an
American artist, I should like to say a few words about him.

"Salvador Dali is a surrealist. This is not a new
movement, it is no less than forty years old. Its better known
representatives are André Bréton (he is known as the 'pope' of
surrealism), Hans Arp, Max Ernst, Miro, André Masson, Yves
Tanguy and Réné Magritte. But, of course, the most famous,
most sensational, most tumultuous, most extravagant and, I
would permit myself to say, the most talented among them is
Salvador Dali.

"He is approaching sixty, but he is full of energy. He
has a most effective prickly mustache, almost like the one of
Wilhelm II, which is known to the whole world because Dali

[page 4]

loves to be photographed. He willingly grants interviews,
considers himself a philosopher and even has written two books:
The Secret Life of Salvador Dali and Fifty Secrets of Magic Art.
He loves sensations and all kinds of stunning pranks. I don't
remember exactly--it isn't really important--but somewhere in
Italy at some kind of performance, he sat in a box and blew
gold powder out over the hall. While working, he wears a
paper over his nose because his nose, he says, disturbs his
working. At one of his exhibitions in New York he put in the
show window a bathtub lined with wool in which a beautiful
girl reclined; then he climbed into the show window, upset
the bathtub and broke the window glass.

"But all this is relevant. I simply swallowed the bait
of the American newspapers which have such a weakness for
sensations and for the various eccentricities of celebrities.
Speaking seriously, Dali is an artist who possesses a highly
sensitive fantasy, and excellent craftsmanship and, looking
at his works one can see how much great and difficult work is
put into them. This is no slipshod work, no "Sunset on the
Adriatic" of the well-known ass, this is labor.

"If one is to believe the Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsyclopedia
(vol. 41, the article "Surrealism"), then 'the well-known
representative of surrealism--the painter Salvador Dali--paints
pictures extoling atomic war'. This is succinctly and expressively
stated, but unfortunately it does not quite correspond to the
truth. Dali does not extol any kind of war, and in general he
neither extols nor passes judgment on anything. Salvador Dali,
as is true of all surrealism, is a considerably more complicated
phenomenon, although both are completely in conformity with the
development of Western art. I don't intend to examine in detail
the essence of this phenomenon, the ancestor of which is
unquestionably Freud and his cult of the subconscious. I would
only like to consider why museums and exhibitions which display
abstract art are almost always empty, whereas there are always
large crowds in front of Dali's paintings..."

On American Architecture and Modern Art:

"The Guggenheim Museum does not resemble anything (although
one of our tourists said it looks like a steamship and others
said a sewing machine). It is an enormous white reinforced
concrete spiral, which expands upwards, resting on an extended
horizontal base. The other bases supplement and stress the
basic one. This enormous spiral is in fact the museum. One
ascends by elevator to the top floor and, following the spiral--
which is nothing more nor less than the gallery--one walks
down. It is 1200 meters long. I have never in my life seen
a more conveniently and rationally constructed museum--both
for the viewer and for the exhibits. The pictures are hung in
a single row, at eye level. Properly speaking, they are not
hung, but are fastened to the wall with brackets which creates
the illusion that they are floating in air against the
background of the white wall. There is an abundance of air and

[page 5]

light (both natural and artificial, but these are somehow
cleverly blended together), much greenery, and even a pool
with a small fountain.

"The museum's collection is rich and varied. Cezanne,
Modigliani, Leger, Picasso, Paul Klee, Kandinsky, Chagall,
the sculptures of Lipszic and Brancusi--in a word, everything
that has been most interesting in the West since the end of
the nineteenth century. And one must say that the fusion of
the architecture and the exhibited works is absolute. The
pictures and sculptures are placed in an atmosphere of ease
and spaciousness. They are at home."

. . . . . .

The following excerpts are taken from Nekrasov's account
of his 1962 trip to Italy and appeared in the November 1962
??viy Mir.

On Soviet Destruction of Churches:[1]

"The Cathedral of St. Sophia (in Kiev--r.c.) has also been
renovated--the meticulous restorers worked hard on it. But,
if one turns one's back to the cathedral, on the opposite side
of the square one sees indescribable fences and roofs. There,
at one time, towered the gold-domed St. Michael's Monastery.
Bow it is no more. It was torn down in 1937. It was demolished
in order to build in its place an administrative building
which has never been built. And the monastery of the XI
century is gone--only fences and roofs remain.

"I would not be recalling this deplorable incident of
twenty-five years ago if also today there were not people, on
whom the fate of this or that architectural monument depends,
who imagine that any church or ikon is "opium for the people"
in the first place, and a work of art only secondarily. About
??year or a year-and-a-half ago in one of the more influential
Kiev newspapers there appeared an article which said it was
necessary to demolish certain churches and synagogues of the
XI and XII centuries. You see, they spoil the landscape.
Convincing, isn't it?"

Italian Reaction to Soviet Literatures:[2]

"He spoke about his grudges against Soviet literature.
In his opinion it is too sentimental. (Italians, themselves,

------------------------------

[1] Prompted by Nekrasov's visit to the preserved mediaeval
town of San Giminiano in Italy.

[2] These views were expressed to Nekrasov by the 40-year-old
Italian writer Pier Paulo Pasolini, who, according to Nekrasov,
"occupies one of the first places in Italian literature today."

[page 6]

are a sentimental people, but they do not tolerate any kind
of sentimentality whatsoever in art.) He was referring to
A Ticket to the Stars by Arsyonov, to Yevtushenko's poems,
and to the film Ballad of a Soldier. 'The representatives
of Soviet literature', he said, 'during the difficult period
of crisis which we are watching with great anxiety and
sympathy, are trying to escape from a 'cul de sac'--a consequence
of the Stalin era--and are trying to overcome what we would
call the experience of decadence. But in attempting to
overcome this experience of decadence they are finding, in a
certain sense, that which preceded its romanticism, understood
as innocence and purity. This romantic, sweet, good-natured
air, which is saturated with humor and is at its best
classically innocent and pure, can no longer fully satisfy us. The
situation which took place in the Soviet Union and which has
an effect on the situation in our country, because we are
closely connected with one another, requires something
different. The Stalin period was a real tragedy for us all.
In its turn, the technical progress in Russia together with
the awakened feeling of extraordinary optimism places serious
problems before all mankind: the rocket which was sent to
the moon, besides being the source of great pride to the
Soviet Union, at the same time compels us, I should say, to
take a new look at the suffering, ignorance and poverty on
earth. Therefore the position is not an easy one. We are
waiting for Soviet writers to create a truly tragic work, a
work which is bitter and even cruel, if necessary, in which
all this would be said.'"

Nekrasov on the Stalin Period and Contemporary Soviet Literature:

"We are talking about the tragedy not of just one, two,
three, ten, a hundred, well even of a thousand men--we are
talking about the tragedy of the people as a whole. And if
our literature has thus far not been able to speak of this
complicated, bitter and contradictory subject which is
connected with what we now call the cult of personality period,
then this is only a question of time, Soviet literature,
with its great desire to confirm life (perhaps particularly
because of this desire), simply cannot avoid the tragic
happenings in our life. It cannot, because as Tvardovsky said
when concluding his speech (i.e. the editor-in-chief of
Noviy Mir in his speech to the Writers' Congress in Italy--r.c),
'in art. and in literature, as in love, one can lie only for a
time--sooner or later comes the time to tell the truth.'"

On Economic Upsurge and New Forms of Capitalism in the West:

"At the present moment Italy is experiencing an economic
upsurge. This phenomenon is characteristic not only of Italy.
A similar upsurge is occuring at the present time in West
Germany and Japan, that is, in countries which suffered defeat in
the last war. The standard of living in Italy has become

[page 7]

noticeably higher--during the past five years the wages of
workmen have considerably increased, the number of unemployed
diminished, building of living quarters has increased on a
large scale, and the products of Italian industry are appearing
on the world market more and more. What is the reason for all
these developments?

"The reasons are many. Here are the principal ones.
First, as a result of the war the country's industrial
equipment was almost entirely renewed. The rather difficult
process (under normal conditions) of removing old equipment and
replacing it with new took place, so to speak, not because of
the good life, but because the greater part of factories and
plants had been destroyed. At the present time, the technical
equipment of Italian production is of a very high standard.
Second, the defeated countries lost colonies and therefore
the burden of colonial wars. And, finally, there is a
comparatively low military budgets there is no necessity to spend
money on rockets since these are kindly offered by America
through NATO.

"All this is what has brought about the economic condition
which is now called in the West the 'economic miracle'. It
is necessary to add further that capitalism in its present stage
is compelled to seek various new forms of mutual relationship
between the producer and the working man ('neocapitalism,'
'national capitalism,' 'social partnership,' Olivetti's
paternalism), but this, however, requires special research for
which there is no place in these essays which by no means
pretend to be scientific research.

"Where will it go from here? I prefer not to answer
this question either. I think that, as far as Italy is
concerned, it depends less on what occurs within that country
itself than on what happens beyond her borders. The world
is in a state of fever. And the future of the Turin worker,
the Roman schoolboy and the farmhand from Lucania depends to
a great extent on what happens at the moment in the streets
of Algiers, at the Brandenburg Gate, at Cape Canaveral and in
the halls of the Hew York Stock Exchange."

On the Catholic Church:[3]

"The power and the influence of the Catholic Church are
great, I know, and the forms taken by religious manifestations
in Italy are often ugly (remember the church scenes in the
film Nights of Cabiria, which were considerably cut in our
country), but compared with what I have seen in Zagorsk, the
Sunday meeting with the Pope seemed to me simply a happy

------------------------------

[3]This commentary follows remarks by Nekrasov on the
persistence of religious obscurantism in Russia.

[page 8]

spectacle or like one of the numbers in the tourist program
of the Grandi Viaggi company.

"Incidentally, the 'modernism' of the contemporary Catholic
Church is, to a certain extent, also its weapon. Forms of
influence on parishioners are changing. Even the Pope has
also become different. It is said (I am judging on the basis
of what the Italian newspapers write), that the
eighty-year-old John XXIII is very democratic, that he sits at table
and even drinks wine with his chauffeur. The Pope is an
advocate of peaceful coexistence. After the launching of
"Vostok-3" he arranged that a special service be held in his
summer residence of Castel-Gondolfo in honor of Nikolaev.
Everything is in flux, everything is changing..."

r. c.

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