Word: rostropovich
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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Suffering for Truth. On the day of Amalric's trial in Sverdlovsk, the voice of another brave and gifted Russian was heard in Moscow. In a 1,000-word open letter, the world-renowned cellist Mstislav Rostropovich asked: "Is it really possible that the past has not taught us to be careful not to crush talented peopleor anyone for that matter?" Rostropovich continued: "Every man should have the right to think and express himself independently, and without fear, about the things he knows, believes personally and has lived through." The cellist was speaking of his beleaguered friend...
Evidently fearing that Solzhenitsyn will be prevented from journeying to Stockholm on Dec. 10 to accept his Nobel Prize, Rostropovich ridiculed the Kremlin's wildly fluctuating attitudes toward the award. He noted that when it was given to Boris Pasternak in 1958, and to Solzhenitsyn this year, it was regarded as "a dirty political game." But when Stalinist Novelist Mikhail Sholokhov was honored in 1965, it was seen as "a just recognition of the world significance of our literature." About Solzhenitsyn's banned novels, Rostropovich said: "He has suffered for the right to write the truth...
...Rostropovich's letter, now circulating from hand to hand in Russia, was addressed to four major Soviet newspapers. All refused to print it. By writing and distributing it, in fact, the cellist risked being forbidden to perform...
...hero of Russia's growing dissident movement and a symbol to those of his countrymen who yearn for greater artistic freedom. Even as Solzhenitsyn, 51, and his wife Natalya celebrated the award with friends at a party outside Moscow in the little wooden dacha of Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, hard-lining Soviet literary bureaucrats were preparing an attack on him. Under the heading "An Unseemly Game," the Soviet Writers' Union, which reflects the Kremlin's views, issued a statement that denounced the award as deplorable and stated that Solzhenitsyn's works gave Western reactionaries ammunition for criticizing...
Friends like Rostropovich represent crucial moral and practical support for Solzhenitsyn. Well-to-do writers and other intellectuals have contributed to Solzhenitsyn's support since his income ceased with the ban on his works. But friends are finding it increasingly dangerous to rally round the beleaguered writer. Only eight out of the 6,790 members of the Soviet Writers' Union were fearless enough to protest formally Solzhenitsyn's expulsion. Two of them were promptly expelled from the union. Solzhenitsyn's protector and publisher, Alexander Tvardovsky, was forced to resign as editor of the magazine Novy...