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| Natalia Solzhenitsyn |
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| Yekaternia Svetlova |
This week we recognize a mother and a daughter. However,
either woman is remarkable in her own right. Natalia Solzhenitsyn, the wife of
the Nobel Prize author and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and her
mother Yekaternia Svetlova,
lived in Cavendish from 1976 until their return to Russia in 1994.
Together these women worked behind the scenes, at times
putting their own lives in jeopardy while living in Soviet era Russia. When
Solzhenitsyn was stripped of his Russian citizenship and sent into exile, the same
fate was handed down to Natalia and Mrs. Svetlova. However, in the short
interim between when Solzhenitsyn was deported and their own exile, they worked
at break neck speed to not only smuggle Solzhenitsyn’s writings and research to
him in the West, but to also destroy materials that could endanger the lives of
others.
When they arrived in Switzerland, neither woman spoke
German, and two years after that, when they made their home in Cavendish,
neither spoke English. However, while Natalia studied English and became quite
proficient, her mother never did. Yet, she managed to do the shopping and other
daily chores, and for many was the face of the Solzhenitsyn family.
Mrs. Svetlova died in 2008. Natalia lives in Russia and is the president of the
Solzhenitsyn Foundation and editor of an edition of 30-volumes of her husband’s
collected works. She also serves on the jury of the Solzhenitsyn Prize, awarded
annually to recognize writers living in Russia and writing in Russian.
Prior to their
leaving Cavendish in 1994, mother and daughter, along with two of Natalia’s
sons, participated in an oral history project. While the full text and pictures
of this conversation will be available at the Cavendish Historical Society
(CHS) museum this summer, excerpts are included below.
Natalia
Solzhenitsyn: When Natalia met Solzhenitsyn, she was a mathematician
working on her doctorate at the University of Moscow. She had been previously
married and had a young son, Dmitri.
With a love of literature, Natalia secretly read forbidden
writers. Eventually she would become a “soldier for the samizdat,” which
involved the typing and distribution of literature banned by the state. As one
activist described it, "Samizdat: I write it myself, edit it myself,
censor it myself, publish it myself, distribute it myself, and spend jail time
for it myself. It was through samizdat that Natalia would meet her future
husband.
In the New Yorker
article by David Remnick, Aug. 6, 2001, he described her life as follows, While Solzhenitsyn wrote, often staying in
his study for days at a time, she ran the household, raised their three sons (a
son from her previous marriage, Dmitri, died in 1994), carried out research,
typed and retyped manuscripts, edited a series of volumes on Russian history, administered
a fund for camp veterans using the proceeds from “The Gulag Archipelago,” organized
the family archives, and planned their move home. In Vermont, Natalia was
Solzhenitsyn’s liaison with the world; she retains that function here, dealing
with publishers, reporters, readers, harassers.
Why
Cavendish Vermont: “My husband initially had wanted to settle in
Canada, and we traveled all over Canada in 1975. In Canada we had taken the
train, but in America, starting from California we took a car. We drove all the
way from California back to the east coast. Happily for the whole family I was
able to convince my husband, and he became convinced himself, that although
Canada is a most beautiful country, it is somewhat like a pillow. It is a
little too boring, and it is too far removed both geographically and in terms
of culture. So together we decided that the best place for us to settle would
be New England, particularly northern New England.
Criteria for the House: “It
should be quiet, that it oughtn’t to be to easy to find us, that there would be
some water nearby, which there is. That it just wouldn’t be too close to other
people, so it wasn’t standing in a row of houses. All the other conditions
would apply to almost any place in Vermont, because there were things like:
four seasons, clearly defined, snow. In general, one has to say that the nature
here is quite similar, not so much to the area around Moscow, but to southern
Urals. In any case, when we arrived here and my husband first saw this place, he
loved it at first sight, and he has loved it since.”
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| 1982 Cavendish, VT |
Life in Vermont: “First
of all, we worked always. And this is in no way a good quote, or an
exaggeration. This is really a fact. Literally when we were not working, we
were eating or sleeping.
As far as whatever time there was for
recreation right there, we would swim and play tennis. ..But, of course, we
spent a lot of time together doing other things. ..We’ve always lived very
intensively together.
My husband, my mother and myself, we worked
together always. But in addition to that as soon as children became somewhat
grown, and this happened very early, we were able to include them in our work,
through many different facets and ways. For example, very early on, we were
able to ask them and to show them how to do certain elementary research in
encyclopedias and books, and so on, find necessary quotes and such. We had and
still have a very large library with all the necessary reference materials.
Because, after all, we are quite far from Boston or New York, where such
material would be more readily accessible. And so we were able to use child
labor, as little researchers. We taught them all very early how to type. This
was half play and half work. And no matter how many children we might have had,
we still would never have enough to do all the typing that was necessary.”
“We spent much time talking about what is
going on in the world. Usually at mealtime, you know, in order to save time. We
always attempted to involve the children in everything that was interesting to
us and important to us. We never felt that they were too young to understand.
..The earlier one can involve the children, children in general, in what is
important to the parents, the better able they are to assimilate that and
understand. And, of course, the children also would share with us their
impressions from school and from their friends.
We taught the children. We taught them
Russian language, Russian literature, history, geography, world history and
later mathematics and algebra. We taught them first of all because it was
crucial that their Russian would be proper, properly learned, and would be
their first language, and that it would be a well learned, rich language for
them. And in fact they were able to learn to read, and read very complicated
books, much earlier than they read it in English.
Yermolai started reading Russian when he was
five years old, and Ignat at three and a half, because he could not possibly
allow that Yermolai should be able to do something that he could not. Yermolia
was taught how to read, Ignat was not, because he was too young, so, he taught
himself. Incorrectly.....Stefan learned at five. This was also done in the
family way, because every day I would spend time with them, and so would my
husband, and also my mother. But one has to admit that we never were able or
indeed wanted to take a vacation and go somewhere as a family, as most families
do. That simply never happened. We never had time for something like that.”
“We went to concerts quite a lot and because
we usually couldn’t have the time to go very far, we usually went to concerts
in Vermont. And one has to say that in the south Vermont there is a very strong
musical center around Brattleboro, because Rudolf Serkin had lived there for so
many years. We have very close connections with the Brattleboro Music Center
and the whole area. And of course, I am sorry to say that isn’t Vermont, but we
have again a very close contact with Hanover, New Hampshire. “
Thoughts on Life in the West: For
us, as for our children, life in the West has been a very rich experience. In
particular life in Vermont and in New England, where, what might be called
archaic methods of self-government, but what are in reality really wonderful
ways that grassroots democracy works. Being able to see how this works and how
decisions are brought to life, and its actions. We feel this is an extremely
valuable experience. It was not new to us.
This type of self-government, of strong local
government had existed in Russia in nineteenth century, and it was called
“zemstvo.” And it seems to us that it is a very healthy thing, and my husband
feels that the hope for Russia’s future is very strongly connected to this type
of life and this type of local self-government.
But you see, it is one thing to know this as
an abstraction, as a part of Russia’s history, for example, and quite another
to see how it actually happens, for example in New England.
We were not able to attend the town meeting
here often, but we knew exactly what was going on, because we had friends with
whom we talked about it, we gossiped about it, if you like, but we knew what
items are on the ballot, what is being voted for, what is being discussed, why
certain motions have faltered and why others have gone through, so although we
were not personally involved, other than paying taxes of course, yet we were
quite interested in what was going on, and we knew what was happening here.
This part of our experience is extremely
valuable for us and we are taking it back with us to Russia. It has been very
important for us to confirm our belief that it is impossible to have a true
citizen without having private property.
A person respects himself when he is
responsible for his own life, for his work, for his family, for his property.
When he is not waiting that somebody from the top will tell him to do something
this way or another way, when he is making decisions on his own, or a local
community makes a decision on its own for its goals. Once again, this is very
valuable and we take the memory of this back with us to Russian.
And finally, we are also taking with us the
memory of how this is a very beautiful and simple land.
On Being a Wife, Mother and Exiled: Simply
I just do whatever is required of me. And, of course, a lot is required. We
have been here pretty much alone, in a sense, although, once again, we have
very cordial relationships with Vermonters, but they have not been involved in
our work. Our work is connected integrally with the Russian language, with the Russian
history and so on.
So it is clear that one must help one’s
husband as much as possible and I’ve done that. It is also clear that when one
is exiled from one’s country and in one day everything from your past is cut
off, your friends, your life, your property, and language, then from that
moment on one feels, perhaps mistakenly, one feels that one’s children have
been punished, that they have been deprived of everything. And then a mother,
as I imagine, any mother, because of her nature, becomes a “mama bear,” becomes
a lioness, who must protect. And this gives one great strength, the feeling
that one must replace for one’s children everything they might have lost. To
replace their lost environment, to fill the home with the sounds of the
language of which they were deprived. Because, of course, at home one could
even turn on the radio and hear one’s own language, but here no. To create for
them
We must say that we, the adults, felt here
for many years very lonely. And I have though that perhaps my children feel the
same way. So I did all I could do to prevent them from feeling this loneliness.
And it is interesting that literally until the last year or so, I always
thought that my children had somehow an unhappy or unbalanced childhood.
Because they were deprived of what would have been their normal development in
Russia. And I was absolutely ecstatic during the last year, when by pure
accident I happened to talk about this with two of my children Stephan and
Ignat. I just mentioned it, in passing, and suddenly I got a startled reply
back: “Do you think that we had an unhappy childhood? No, not at all. We had an
incredibly happy childhood.” It is impossible as a mother to reap a higher
reward. Because I did try very hard and as it happens it did work.
So you see, to sum up, when one finds himself
in an extreme situation of one sort or another, and clearly our exile put us
into such a position for many years to come, then simply one no longer has a
choice one simply must overcome the situation and do everything one can do to
make some semblance of a normal life. And if there is a secret to it, when one
is thrown into the water, one must swim.
Yekaternia Svetlova: For many Cavendish residents the
Solzhenitsyn brothers and “Mrs. Svetlova,” were the face of the Solzhenitsyn family.
Mrs. Svetlova could be seen daily picking up the mail, going to the post
office, driving her grandsons to and from school, or shopping at local stores.
Even though she spoke only Russian, her smile did the talking for her. The postmaster
at that time, Sophie Snarski, spoke Polish and some Russian. Sophie described
how they communicated, “I’d try Russian, then she’d try Polish, and when all
else failed, we drew pictures.”
An aeronautical
engineer in Russia, Mrs. Svetlova lost her job for being the grandmother of
Solzhenitsyn’s child. Considered a formidable intellect in her own right, she
had excellent organizational skills. Like the rest of the family, she helped
with the publication of her son-in-laws books.
Compared to Switzerland, where we only lived
for two years and four months, Americans, and Vermonters in particular could
understand you very easily in any language. So if I ever spoke to anyone, let’s
say in the store, in Russian, my grandchildren would always ask me,” Why are
talking to them in Russian? They don’t understand’ And I would say, ‘You see
they are doing exactly what I am asking them to do.’ ..I had relations with all
kinds of people, all over the place, especially in the same grocery store, down
at Grand Union in Ludlow, at Singleton’s, all the tellers at the bank. They
always wave to me, they call me by name when I come in, and although my vocabulary
may be all of ten words or so, may be a little more, I always seem to be able
to get across what I want to say, it is always a joy to do. No one ever gets
irritated at all. So, I feel really comfortable here. Very much at home.”
In Cavendish, Mrs. Svetlova not only handled various
household chores, but she also helped in preparing her son-in-law’s books for
print by painstakingly turning English letters into Cyrillic script. Her eye
for detail would prove to have a very important application when a bank robbery
happened in Ludlow. I arrived at the
Vermont National Bank in Ludlow almost at closing time. So I come in at about
4:30 in the day. I came up to the first teller window, I wanted to cash a
check, so I giver her the check and turn around and at the window next to her
is a tall blond man in a hat, kind of a cowboy hat, and in his hand was a gun.
We were the only customers in the bank. I looked at the tellers, saw their
pale, stunned faces. Perhaps because it was the end of the work day, most of
the money had been stored away already. So they what they had in any case, in a
little bag, and gave it to him. He took it and left. So I came up to the door,
behind him, I opened the door, and looked where was going. In any case, I
cashed my check. ..Actually a person had come up at that point and she showed
the person, that is where he went. So, later on I was asked to describe him to
the police, which I also did, so I was able to be of some help. And I was a
hero there for at least a full year.”
Within the family, while a good story, they weren’t surprised by
Mrs. Svetlova’s actions. As her daughter noted “We always knew that she was a hero.”
Many people that
visit the CHS Museum ask if Solzhenitsyn was happy in Cavendish. It is through the
efforts of Natalia and Mrs. Svetlova, that he was able to make the following
comments upon his leaving Cavendish. Purely
for my work, the eighteen years in Vermont have been the happiest of my life.
Simply put, over eighteen years I have not had one creative drought. Seven days
a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, without holidays or
vacations, I worked, and that’s all there is to it. Such conditions, from this
point of view, in terms of books and writing and just day-to-day life, I had
never had before and will never have again. This was the richest period of my
creative work. The New Yorker Feb. 14, 1994, The Exile Returns David
Remnick
Lovely.
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