Originally Posted by
Nabludatel'
In April 1934 Osip Mandelstam recited his "Stalin Epigram" to Pasternak. After listening, Pasternak told Mandelstam: "I didn't hear this, you didn't recite it to me, because, you know, very strange and terrible things are happening now: they've begun to pick people up. I'm afraid the walls have ears and perhaps even these benches on the boulevard here may be able to listen and tell tales. So let's make out that I heard nothing."
On the night of 14 May 1934, Mandelstam was arrested at his home based on a warrant signed by NKVD boss Genrikh Yagoda. Devastated, Pasternak went immediately to the offices of Izvestia and begged Nikolai Bukharin to intercede on Mandelstam's behalf.
Soon after his meeting with Bukharin, the telephone rang in Pasternak's Moscow apartment. A voice from The Kremlin said, "Comrade Stalin wishes to speak with you." According to Ivinskaya, Pasternak was struck dumb. "He was totally unprepared for such a conversation. But then he heard his voice, the voice of Stalin, coming over the line. The Leader addressed him in a rather bluff uncouth fashion, using the familiar thou form: 'Tell me, what are they saying in your literary circles about the arrest of Mandelstam?'" Flustered, Pasternak denied that there was any discussion or that there were any literary circles left in Soviet Russia. Stalin went on to ask him for his own opinion of Mandelstam. In an "eager fumbling manner" Pasternak explained that he and Mandelstam each had a completely different philosophy about poetry. Stalin finally said, in a mocking tone of voice: "I see, you just aren't able to stick up for a comrade," and put down the receiver.
According to Pasternak, during the 1937 show trial of General Iona Yakir and Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the Union of Soviet Writers requested all members to add their names to a statement supporting the death penalty for the defendants. They demanded Pasternak's signature as well, but he refused to give it. Vladimir Stavski, the chairman of the Union, was terrified that he would be punished for Pasternak's dissent. The leadership of the Union travelled to Pasternak's dacha at Peredelkino and severely threatened the writer, who refused to sign the statement and returned to his dacha. Hearing this, Zinaida Pasternak, who was pregnant, was terribly upset, accusing him of risking the destruction of their family. Pasternak went to bed. He and Zinaida expected to be arrested that evening. They later learned that an NKVD agent was hiding in the bushes outside their window and wrote down every word they said to each other.
Soon after, Pasternak appealed directly to Stalin. He wrote about his family's strong Tolstoyan convictions, which he still held dear. He declared that his own life was at the Leader's disposal. He said that he could not stand as a self-appointed judge of life and death. Pasternak was certain that he would be instantly arrested, but he was not. Stalin is said to have crossed Pasternak's name off an execution list during the Great Purge. According to Pasternak, Stalin declared, "Do not touch this cloud dweller" (or, in another version, "Leave that holy fool alone!")
Although Pasternak was never arrested by the Soviet secret police, his close friend Titsian Tabidze fell victim to the Great Purge. In an autobiographical essay published in the 1950s, Pasternak described the execution of Tabidze and the suicides of Marina Tsvetaeva and Paolo Iashvili as the greatest heartbreaks of his entire life.
Ivinskaya wrote, "I believe that between Stalin and Pasternak there was an incredible, silent duel."
Re: России нужен Сталин
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