Solzhenitsyn refused divorce petition

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33121, 11 January 1973, Page 9

Solzhenitsyn refused divorce petition

(N 7. Press A k.lactation—-Copy?tght I MOSCOW. January 10. Close associates of the Nobel Prize [ winning Russian novelist, Alexander Sol zhenitsyn. say that he has lost his 11-month long legal battle to divorce his first wife, although he has lived with another woman i for the last three years.

Mr Solzhenitsyn, who is, 54. has been living with Natalya Svetlova, an attrac-j tive scientist about 20 years' ' younger than he is. They 1 have two sons, Yermolaii anil' • Ignat. The sources say that the! !; Soviet Union Supreme Court, ;in an unusual decision last! !month, upheld an appeal by' : his first wife against a [divorce granted him by a 'court in Ryzan. where they jused to live. The Court ruled that the novelist’s first marri'age was still valid, and that 'he could not live in Moscow, (as he had claimed, because he lacked the required residence permit. According to his friends, I the authorities are apparently | unwilling to see Mr Solzheniitsyn free to remarry because 'this would give him the right |to join his second wife perimanently in Moscow Soviet Union citizens reIquire a police permit to live fin Moscow, Leningrad, and 'other large cities. The most icommon ways of obtaining ;the document are by marryling a resident or by finding a job there. Mr Solzhenitsyn has now begun a new attempt to divorce his first wife. Natalya Reshetovskaya, through an lout-of-court settlement. Married women in the I iSoviet Union do not have to take their husband’s named Divorce is usually easy to. obtain, and even a contestedcase is usually settled within a year. Mrs Reshetovskaya became Mr Solzhenitsyn’s first i

i;wife before he left to fight in i the Second World War. and [their separation continued in [1945, when he was arrested for writing a letter critical 'of the Government and 'served eight years in a (labour camp and exile. ; By the time of his release, (she had divorced him, but

ishe later left her second husband and rejoined him. 7h<|couple separated again in the I late 19605. Mr Solzhenitsyn’s last known residence was a small cottage at a country villa out | side Moscow owned by the cellist. Mstislav Rostropovk h