Attack on Solzhenitsyn

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33424, 4 January 1974, Page 9

Attack on Solzhenitsyn

(N Z.P..A.-Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, January 3. The Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, appears to be under the threat of official prosecution after a bitter attack on him by the Government - controlled news agency, Tass, because of. the publication in the West of his latest book.

Tass accused Mr. [Solzhenitsyn of sending the! [book — about Russian prison; (camps — for publication! (abroad as “a New Year preIsent to the enemies of his! (motherland,” and alleged that! (the Nobel Prize-winning, author hated the Soviet’ Union and the Soviet people. The volume itself, “Gulag’ Archipelago: 1918-56,” was ■ “an anti-Soviet political ! lampoon,” the news agency (declared in language reminisIcent of its descriptions of the works of the writers, Andrei Sinyavsky, and Yuli Daniel, ••who were imprisoned in 11966. They were accused of activities against the State, • one of the main charges (against them being that they (had sent their works abroad (for publication. Both are (now free, and Mr Sinyavsky (was allowed to emigrate to France last year. A Tass commentator, ‘Sergei Kulik, said that Mr .'Solzhenitsyn’s latest book (was being used by “the (enemies of detente” to try Ito revive the cold war and ! mistrust between the peoples ■of the world j The commentator also

compared Mr Solzhenitsyn to Herostratus. the Ancient Greek who is reputed to have burned down the Temple of Diana at Ephesus to win for himself a place in the history books.

“Solzhenitsyn has gone further than ever before in slandering the Soviet system by praising the prerevolutionary rule of the Russian Tsars ancj claiming that the Germans'were kind to the people of Eastern' Europe during the Second; World War,” the commentary! added. All these accusations seem! [likely to be included in any; (formal charges which may be preferred against Mr ‘Solzhenitsyn, although some ‘political observers in Moscow (doubt whether the authorities will go as far as to begin criminal proceedings against ‘him.

; There is, however, strong!' ‘(speculation that a bid mayil ■‘be made to charge him with! ..violating the new Soviet;. J Union copyright law, under' i'which literary works can be .(sent abroad for publication)] i : only through an official , ‘agency in Moscow. •’ The law was clarified in iunmistakeable terms in a ([special Government decree' ((on the eve of the publication( I [in Paris last week of “Gulag ' .Archipelago.” ri' > orkis revived The Government has issued • new. and limited, editions of [works by the poet. Osip [ Mandelshtam, who died in a, : [Stalinist camp, and bv Mik-; J hail Bulgakov, the novelist! Land playwright who died ini ’•1940 after vears of struggle against censorship. )i Although the print-rua isi

small, and the books are not available to the general publie, publication of the two authors’ works is in itself a literary event in the! strictly-controlled Soviet; Union. . Mandelshtam, considered by some experts to have been. the greatest Russian poet of: the modem period, was [ arrested for the final time in 1938. and died in a prison’

camp. He got into trouble in! ( 1934, when the K.G.B. i(obtained a copy of a poem in (which Mandelshtam referred to Stalin as “the! murderer and peasant’ (slayer.” Bulgakov is best known •for his savagely-satiric [ [novel, "The Master and; ; Margarita,” a story about a • visit by the devil to Moscow Jin the 19305.