GREAT SINGER’S MEMOIRS

Evening Star, Issue 20586, 11 September 1930, Page 11

GREAT SINGER’S MEMOIRS

M. CHALIAPIHE’S SUIT PARIS, August 25. A legal action has been brought by ;M. Chaliapine, the famous Russian singer, against, the official Soviet Publishing Department. 1 Ho alleges that the copyright of his half-written memoirs were. coolly sold by the Bolshevik Government to foreign publishing firms, and that the Soviet received a certain sum for French translation rights. During his last visit to Paris, M. Chaliapine was. surprised to notice in the window -of a bookseller’s shop a volume hearing the title, ‘ Memoirs of the Celebrated. Artist Chaliapine: Pages of My Life.’ He immediately ■ caused the sale of the book to be stopped on the ground that he had not ; authorised publication.. It is trite that the singer had begun to write'his memoirs, but these were not intended for publication during his lifetime, and the half-finished manuscript had been entrusted to a friend, who had locked it in his safe. Some time later) however, the safe and its contents were seized by the Soviet authorities and the manuscript handed over, without the consent of either the author 1: or his trustee, to the official Soviet Publishing Department, which holds the ‘monopoly of all' literary exports from Russia.