Anatoly Kuznetsov
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Anatoly Vasilievich Kuznetsov (Russian: Анатолий Кузнецов;
August 18, 1929, Kiev–June 13, 1979, London) was a Russian
language Soviet writer who described his experiences in
German-occupied Kiev during WWII in his internationally
acclaimed novel Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel. The
book was originally published in a censored form in 1966 in the
Russian language.
Career in the USSR
Kuznetsov was born to a Russian father and a Ukrainian mother,
his passport stated that he was Russian. He grew up in the Kiev
district of Kurenivka, in his own words "a stone's throw from a
vast ravine, whose name, Babi Yar, was once known only to
locals." At the age fourteen, Kuznetsov began recording in a
notebook everything he saw as a witness and heard about the Babi
Yar massacre. Once his mother discovered and read his notes. She
cried and advised him to save them for a book he might write
someday.
Before becoming a writer, Kuznetsov "studied ballet and
acting, tried painting and music, worked as a carpenter, road
builder, concrete worker, helped build the Kakhovka
hydroelectric power plant on the Dniper river, and worked on the
Irkutsk and Bratsk hydroelectric power plants in Siberia." In
1955, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Eventually, he began "studying to become a writer" and enrolled
at the Moscow Gorky Literary Institute.
In 1957, literary magazine Yunost featured his novella
entitled Continuation of a Legend. Kuznetsov described his first
experience with publishers as follows:
"I wrote the novella ‘Continuation of a Legend’ and offered
it to Yunost magazine. It tells the story of a young man, who
came to work in Siberia with a solid youthful belief in
something better, in some ultimate good, despite all the
hardships and poverty. The Yunost editors liked the novella very
much but said they couldn’t publish it: the censors wouldn’t
allow it, the magazine would be closed, and I would be arrested
or, in the worst case, barred from literature for life. Above
all, Western propagandists might pick up this story and run with
it: ‘See, this is proof of how terrible life in the Soviet Union
really is!’ Experienced writers told me that the novella could
be saved, that at least a part of it must be brought to the
readers’ attention, that they would know what came from the
heart and what I had to write for form’s sake, and that I should
add some optimistic episodes. For a long time my novella
gathered dust without any hope of being published, but
eventually I forced myself to add some optimistic episodes,
which contrasted so sharply with the overall style and were so
outrageously cheerful that no reader would take them seriously."
The novella was turned down, but eventually was published in
a heavily censored form and without author's approval. It was
this version that earned him a countrywide fame. He graduated in
1960 and was admitted to the USSR Union of Writers and, by
extension, to the State Literary Fund. In the 1960s he became
famous as one of the country's most talented and progressive
writers, the father of the genre of confessional prose.
He married Iryna Marchenko and was preparing to become a
father. Soon he and his pregnant wife moved to Tula.
The novel Babi Yar, published in Yunost in 1966[2], cemented
Anatoly Kuznetsov's fame. The novel included the previously
unknown materials about the execution of 33,771 Jews in the
course of two days, September 29-30, 1941, in the Kiev ravine
Babi Yar. The uncensored work included materials highly critical
of the Soviet regime. Working on it was not easy. Kuznetsov
recalled: "For a whole month in Kiev I had nightmares, which
wore me out so much that I had to leave without finishing my
work and temporarily switch to other tasks in order to regain my
senses." In a recently published letter to the Israeli
journalist, writer, and translator Shlomo Even-Shoshan dated May
17, 1965, Kuznetsov commented on the Babi Yar tragedy:
"Before September 29, 1941, Jews were slowly being murdered
in camps behind a veneer of legitimacy. Treblinka, Auschwitz,
etc. came later. Since Babyn Yar murder became commonplace. I
trust you know how they did this. They published an order for
all the Jews in the city to gather in the vicinity of the
freight yard with their belongings and valuables. Then they
surrounded them and began shooting them. Countless Russians,
Ukrainians, and other people, who had come to see their
relatives and friends “off to the train,” died in the swarm.
They didn’t shoot children but buried them alive, and didn’t
finish off the wounded. The fresh earth over the mass graves was
alive with movement. In the two years that followed, Russians,
Ukrainians, Gypsies, and people of all nationalities were
executed in Babyn Yar. The belief that Babyn Yar is an
exclusively Jewish grave is wrong, and Yevtushenko portrayed
only one aspect of Babyn Yar in his poem. It is an international
grave. Nobody will ever determine how many and what
nationalities are buried there, because 90% of the corpses were
burned, their ashes scattered in ravines and fields."
A shortened version of the novel was republished in 1967 in
Russian by "Moloda Gvardiya" publishing house in shortened form
without the authors permission.
After defection
Soon after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Kuznetsov
defected from the USSR to the United Kingdom. His pretext for
traveling abroad was to do research for his new book on Lenin's
stay in Britain. He managed to smuggle 35-mm photographic film
containing the uncensored manuscript.
He arrived in London on a two-week visa, accompanied by
Georgy Andjaparidze, a suspected KGB "mamka", a secret police
agent. Kuznetsov managed to trick Andjapazidze by saying he
wanted to find a prostitute and instead ran for the nearest
British government office. There he was connected over the phone
with David Floyd, a Russian-speaking journalist and the Daily
Telegraph's Soviet expert. Risking being caught, Kuznetsov
returned to the hotel to pick up his manuscripts, his favorite
typewriter and Cuban cigars.
Home Secretary James Callaghan and Prime Minister Harold
Wilson decided to grant Kuznetsov an unlimited residence visa in
the UK. Shortly after the public announcement of the British
decision, Soviet Ambassador Mikhail Smirnovsky demanded the
author's return, but Callaghan refused. Two days later,
Smirnovsky called on Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart and asked
that Soviet diplomats be allowed to see Kuznetsov, but Kuznetsov
refused to meet with his countrymen. Instead, he wrote a
declaration of his reasons for leaving and three letters: one to
the Soviet government, another to the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, and a third to the USSR Union of Writers.
Sunday Telegraph published David Floyd’s interview with
Kuznetsov, who spoke about his ties with the KGB, how he was
recruited, and how he had formally agreed to cooperate in order
to be allowed to leave abroad.
Babi Yar was published in the West in 1970 under pseudonym A.
Anatoli. In that edition, the censored Soviet version was put in
regular type, the content cut by censors in heavier type and
newly added material was in brackets. In the foreword to the
edition by the New York-based publishing house Posev Kuznetsov
wrote:
"In the summer of 1969 I escaped from the USSR with
photographic films, including films containing the unabridged
text of Babi Yar. I am publishing it as my first book free of
all political censorship, and I am asking you to consider this
edition of Babi Yar as the only authentic text. It contains the
text published originally, everything that was expurgated by the
censors, and what I wrote after the publication, including the
final stylistic polish. Finally, this is what I wrote."
During Kuznetsov's emigre years, he worked for Radio Liberty,
traveled a great deal, but did not write anything for ten years.
Kuznetzov died in London in 1979 from his third heart attack.
