A WOMAN IN RUSSIA

Otago Witness, Issue 3995, 7 October 1930, Page 10

A WOMAN IN RUSSIA

Of course, Comrade Demidof and I missed each other at the station (says Ambel Williams-Ellis, in an exchange). I waited at one bookstall and he waited at another.

“ No, you can’t take the next train and go down by yourself,” said the friend who.had been interpreting for me. As you’ve missed Demidof I shall come with you.” So he came.

The next train for the Rest House for Writers ran at 2.0, and by the time we got to the end of the railway journey it was nearly dark. When we got out to the station yard and saw the jumble of little sledges, big sledges, shouting drivers, ramshackle motor cars, litle boys on skis, and barking dogs, “ Thank goodness,” I thought, “ I have got someone with me who can speak Russian! ”

Would we drive out the seven or eight miles in a hired sledge of our own? Perish the thought! We would go as other people went to their villages, in a sort of covered bus-sledge, packed in with five or six other people. What would be more amusing? It was too. Once more I was glad of my escort, for the Drunk’s indignation at foreigners being in the bus could not have been turned by me. My skilful companion persuaded him that we were all right, so, needing an outlet, the Drunk decided to let the Communist Party have it. For seven or eight miles we heard what people who have not been to Russia never believe you hear, but what everyone who has been knows you hear till you are tired of it —a violent lecture on the wickedness of the Government The Drunk was more particularly down on Agricultural Collectivisation, Authority’s dearest pet at the moment. Thumping an enormous bottle on his knee, he told us what he thought of commissars, and chairmen, and presidents, and trades union officials, and he” challenged four rabbit-like young men who were interested in their own concerns to deny his assertions.

I had formed no picture of what a rest house for writers would be like. In Moscow someone had told me vaguely—- “ Very much like one in England.” I did not argue. It would have been no good to tell him we had no such thing in England.

When the bus had set us down we walked through a snowy coppice till we saw lighted windows. We had arrived at a large chalet, in which Tchekov had once lived. It proved to be set in the midst of country that is very unusual in Russia. Little valleys, coppices of alder, birch, and poplar, streams with plank bridges, and medium-sized fields all made up a landscape that but for straight roads and onion-domed churches is very like England. The chalet was simply furnished, each writer had a room which (like all Russian rooms) served both as bedroom and living room, and there was besides a good-sized communal dining room. The whole thing was kept deliciously warm by big white china stoves. The meals succeeded one another with agreeable frequency. Besides my introducer, Demidof, we found four or five authors. There was one big young man with good-humoured face fringed with a semi-circle of black beard. He was a Communist, and he complained that the party seemed to think he could attend meetings and do his work at one and the same time. Another author, who had brought his secretary, was Voronof Priboi, who is a very popular writer, and almost unique in Russia in that he writes sea-stories.

I had been tearing about Moscow seeing schools and clubs and law courts. It seemed wonderful to be in the country. We passed three days there, days spent out of doors, ski-ing or walking in the woods, in brilliant sunshine. The evenings were spent in true Russian style, with the help of balalaikas, folk songs, tea, and interminable discussions. Being writers, these discussions ranged from the abstract and aesthetic," such as the form of the novel, to the practical and the pecuniary, such as the habits of publishers. I was hoping to get two books of my own translated, and so was very anxious to hear about terms. The general opinion seemed to be that at the moment “ Gosisdat ” and “ Zif ” and its offshoot “ Academia ” were the important publishers in Moscow. Two years ago 1 was told that many of the smaller co-operative publishers were favoured, but to-day, publishing seems largely to have centralised itself in these concerns. Zif publishes novels, both Russian and in translation, Academia handles reprints and “ definatif editions,” while Gosisdat, though it also publishes novels, specialises in children’s books, and books on such subjects as economics, medicine, philosophy, natural science, and so on. An unknown author with a first book will, I was told, yery often not go to a publisher in the first instance, but will take his MS.. to the Federation of Authors. There it will be looked over, and he will be given advice.

Editions in Russia seem to us large, and 5000 is almost a minimum printing. There is no royalty system, but the author is paid so much for each edition. I found it difficult to translate rates of pay into English, as Russians calculate

length either by the “ lif,” whose length I have never properly understood, or by the “ letter.” Minimum terms for about 40,000 letters would be about 125 roubles. I should say this would work out at about £2 10s a thousand words. If the book went into a second edition, a second payment of £2 10s would be made, while the author reserves serial rights just as in England. An author of reputation whose books were printed in large editions would 'expect to get something over 200 roubles for 40,000 letters, whilst I was told that 400 roubles would be a top price. The habit in Russia is to pay the author 40 per cent, or 50 per cent, when he delivers his MS., and the rest on the day of the publication. This I proved, for Zif paid me an instalment when I handed in part of a book of short stories. I was told that some authors manage to get paid as much as 25 per cent, when they sign the contract, even if the book only exists in the form of proposals. A smaller point which pleased me was that authors’ corrections as well as all other proof charges are the affair of the publisher. Moreover, instead of six he is given 20 free copies of his own book.

There were no dramatic authors at that particular moment at the club house, but I was told two years ago that they often make a great deal of money. Bulgatoff, the author of a play called “ The Days of the Turbines,” had already made £3OOO quite early in the run of his piece. I saw a play called “ Armoured Train 1467,” by Evanoff, when I was in Moscow two years ago, and in March this year it was still being played on an average once a week during the theatre season. I was told that its author makes £2O out of every performance.

Back in Moscow, three days later, with the snow and woods of the writers’ club house a pleasant memory, I was asked to give a lecture on present-day literature in England, and found, as I did two years ago, how difficult it was to des-

cribe the English world of books to a Russian audience. For instance, every Russian author seems quite clear where he stands as to his politics, his subject matter, and his method. For example, my benefactor, Demidof, ranks as a peasant writer. That is to say, he writes as a rule about the effect of the revolution on the village, or the effect upon a villager of contact with town life. He travels all over Russia, and is planning what sounds as if it might be a very fine romance about the forests. As to method, he is not particularly interested in innovation, and finds the present form of the novel and of Russian prose quite satifactory. He has, in short, a niche almost as definite as W. W. Jacobs. ’ .

The young man of the black beard belongs, 1 gather, to a school whose technique is much more to the left. He is a party member, and writes, I fancy, only about town- life. There is a group in Moscow of Constructivist poets, and two hotly disputing schools of literary criticism. Here I was told by Miss Bertha Malnick, who is making a special study of what young Russia is doing in the literary world, extraordinarily good work is being done. I will not attempt to describe the two schools or what they hold, but I understood from her when we talked in Moscow that something is likely to emerge in the way of literary criticism that may largely supersede current methods. Talking to a Russian audience, it was hard to convince them of the- lack of interest in politics of the average young writer and novelist in England. They knew"that I knew a good many of the writers of the present day; they could not understand that I could often not even guess where this one, or that, stood politically. Politics have so often been a matter of life and death in Russia that it seems to them incredible that any man or woman of ideas should not have definite views and probably play a definite part.

One modern current which touches the English world of letters at the moment has apparently not reached Russia yet. Russian imaginative writers have not understood,> I fancy, as English writers have, the new importance of science in the world of ideas. Mr H. G. Wells was the first, I suppose, to react, and Mr Sinclair Lewis and Mr Aldous Huxley, and a number of other young writers have been stirred and refreshed by the same current. How a character ranges himself or herself in the controversies of science will, I imagine, soon matter in the English novel much as his or her attitude to religion mattered to the late Victorians. The new Mrs Humphry Wards will conduct the new Robert Elsmeres through a labyrinth of electrons and colloids. ■' The orthodox heroine will refuse the hero because she suspects him of Neo-Lamarkianism.

As we talked half in joke about these new motions I felt glad that England had something new to contribute. For literature is? brilliantly alive and challenging in Russia to-day.