In honor of the death of the great patriot for freedom, I wanted to tell the story of the time I tried to smuggle his book The First Circle into the former Soviet Union.
Solzhenitsyn's death today reminds me of my (very brief) experience with Russian censorship. In 1990, when I was seventeen, I was part of a student exchange program that traveled to, among other places, the Ukrainian City of Lvov. Today Ukraine is an independent republic but, at that time, it was still part of the Soviet Union. And in 1990, glasnost or no, the Soviet Union still practiced censorship. Before we entered the Country we were given a list of rules to follow. Stuff like: don't trade dollars for rubles, don't have a good time, don't expect to shower, you will eat chicken at all meals, don't smile, that sort of thing. In addition they gave us a list of books we couldn't bring in. At the top of the list -- any book by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
There were only two problems with that order:
First, I only had two books with me: The Collected Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (blurg) and The First Circle, Solzhenitsyn's critical novel about Stalin's political gulags. I was sick of the Hemingway and hadn't yet finished Solzhenitsyn's book (sucker was hard). I didn't want to give it up.
Second, I was the kind of little punk who thought disobeying orders from the Supreme Soviet was "funny."
Those two facts -- and about forty-two healthy doses of Rocky IV -- compelled me to "fight the man."
Of course I needed a plan if I got caught. The details are a little foggy now but I recall it involving me raising my arms in a posture of surprise and saying something insincere like "how did that get in there!?" This is the kind of gambit I'd successfully pulled in the past with my Mom ("that's not water in your vodka bottle, that's condensation!") and in school ("some wise-guy taped a cheat sheet to my hat brim!"), so I figured it'd work with the Russians too.
As we crept closer to the border my bravery began to erode. I started to fidget and sweat. I talked nervously about my plan. I started to formulate alternative plans, like sticking the book in "sleeping kid's" bag. Or eating the book (which, in hindsight, would have been preferable to Lvovian cuisine). Ultimately I consoled myself with the fact the book was buried deep in my bag and wouldn't be found.
At the checkpoint soldiers boarded our bus. Armed soldiers. (As Colonel Jessup might have said: "Is there any other kind?") It was then that they told us to do something I hadn't contemplated: Take our books out of our bags and hold them over our heads.
Uh-oh.
At this point I had two choices: pretend the book wasn't there (and risk some serious repercussions if they found it in my luggage) or stay true to my "oops, I did it again" gambit. Petrified with fear I chose the dumber of the two options: I held the book up high over my head and tried to inconspicuously conceal it's bright red cover behind some travel guides and that damned Hemingway crap. Not good.
At this point all bravado was gone. I was petrified. My fear of the "secret police" was such that if a secretly-emigrating Solzhenitsyn was sitting next to me I'd have been the first to rip off his fake beard (used to conceal his real beard of course), and hand him over to Big Brother. I would have given the long-dead Lenin CPR. I would have willing eaten borscht. I was desperate.
Four minutes later the ordeal was over. No books were confiscated. Frankly it seemed the "scary Russian soldiers" were more interested in the cute American girls on our bus than they were the skinny little jerk doing his part for perestroika. It took a solid hour for the cold sweat on my back to dry.
The Soviet Union is gone now -- replaced by oil men and rampant, unabashed "capitalism" -- so it's easy to underappreciate the bravery of a Solzhenitsyn. A man who risked his life for freedom and free thought. Who stood up to the harshness of Soviet control.
But we can't. As my stupid little escapade shows, words alone -- though important -- aren't enough. To change a nation, its thoughts, a people, their feelings, and the system it takes guts, bravery, and fortitude.
Solzhenitsyn had them all.
*****
From ImperfectUnion.com