Russian Literature Teacher in New York Sells Rare Books to Pay Immigrant Students to Study in the US
'07.02.2023'
Nadezhda Verbitskaya
Russian Yakov Klots is a teacher of Russian literature in New York. For more than 10 years he has been studying tamizdat - books published outside the countries of the social bloc and illegally distributed on their territory. Klotz also has a project dedicated to emigrant and literature banned in the USSR, - Tamizdat. At the end of January, the teacher decided to help pay for tuition at American universities to students from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus affected by the war and repression - and launched the campaign fundraising, informs "Jellyfish".
Klotz sells rare tamizdat editions and books by more than a hundred contemporary authors. Among them are Svetlana Aleksievich, Linor Goralik and Boris Akunin. Meduza spoke with Yakov Klots about what Soviet and Russian banned books have in common. And also about the future of self- and tamizdat in conditions of censorship.
How Tamizdat works
The project has been running for over three years. This is a digital platform where I collect an archive of banned books not only from the Soviet Union, but also from the countries of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War - from 1956 to 1991. I study how book manuscripts were smuggled through the Iron Curtain and published in the West. How did the emigration react to them, and how did the foreign reader. Also, how did they get back home?
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I am very interested in this topic, because not only artistic techniques are imprinted in books. Not only in the content of the book, but also in the paper, the cover, the binding captures what was once important for people. It seems to me that all this is just as important today.
And Tamizdat began with one typo in the text of Varlam Shalamov, which my student accidentally discovered. In the first edition of "Kolyma Tales" in the New York "New Journal" in 1966, it was written: "What a bore, the legs are long." Naturally, "the nights are long" were meant. But this misprint began to wander from edition to edition, from translation to translation. I managed to find the Novy Zhurnal archive and the correspondence between editor Roman Gul and the Slavist from Princeton Brown, who received the manuscript of Shalamov's Kolyma Tales from the writer and Osip Mandelstam's widow Nadezhda Mandelstam in May 1966. Then I began to collect rare paper editions of tamizdat and electronic versions of books, to study all this literature - this is how this project appeared.
And as soon as it seemed to us that tamizdat was yesterday, the project became relevant again. We realized that the phenomena of the past, related to censorship and freedom of speech in the USSR, are directly related to today, if we talk about Russia and Belarus. Although, of course, none of us wanted the popularity to return to tamizdat at such a price.
How did the idea to support students come about?
It appeared both with me and with the volunteers of Tamizdat (they are students themselves) in the first days of the war. It was quite obvious that tens of thousands of Ukrainian students would not be able to continue their studies at their universities because their country was being bombed. And after some time it became clear that many Russian students were also losing the opportunity to study and speak their minds at universities whose rectors signed letters in support of the war.
As a teacher, I could not stand aside, otherwise I would have lost in my own eyes the right to continue doing my job. We are trying - and we are sure that we can really help.
Our idea is that previous waves of emigration - not only those who left a hundred years ago, but also myself, many of my friends and colleagues who moved relatively recently - should help those who were forced to find themselves in a foreign country after the start of the war. . And even though many representatives of previous generations of emigrants are no longer alive, we have their books. And through books, these people will support students—those who someday may write their own books. In other words, our task is to give students a chance to write their books in the future, to become scientists or writers.
How much money has already been raised - and how much is planned
On January 30, at exactly 10 am New York time, we launched an auction on the Betterworld.org online platform. And we have already managed to raise more than eight thousand dollars. We did not expect such generosity and are very grateful to everyone who bid and donated.
And I did not count on such a response from modern authors. Virtually no one refused to sign their books. Nobel laureate Svetlana Aleksievich, Linor Goralik and Boris Akunin took part in the project, and Noize MC signed Mandelstam's collection. The writers felt they could really do something.
The auction will run for two months. And during this time we would like to collect the amount that would be enough to pay for the studies of at least 10 students. Much depends on which universities they will study at. There is no free education in America and the cost of studying at different universities is very different. For example, at City University of New York, where I work, a semester for international students costs over $18 a year. And at Columbia or New York University - five times more.
At the end of the campaign, we will ask all contemporary writers who donated their books to our initiative, which of them would like to help which student - from Ukraine, Russia or Belarus. When the proceeds are distributed, we will definitely provide information about this.
This is definitely not the last action. Now it is difficult to imagine that we will again become an exclusively scientific project. And we plan to combine the academic direction of work with the public one. Let's see how they will intertwine and merge into one channel of our activity.
What happens in Slavic studies after the start of the war
This discipline is changing from within. Judging by what I see and what I talk about with colleagues in America, Slavic studies are now being decolonized. Scientists have realized that this science has always been dominated by Russian studies. And now almost all departments are trying to balance the study of Russian culture and language with Ukrainian, as well as other cultures of Eastern Europe.
In New York, I do not see a decline in interest in the Russian language and literature - rather, on the contrary. I don’t know whether to rejoice or not, because this is a bit like the Cold War period, when it was customary to study the language and culture of the “enemy”. Although, of course, today this is not entirely true, because the state practically does not finance the study of Slavic studies.
How the war changed Russian-language literature
I think even the people who are now creating this literature do not know the answer. According to my observations, there are a lot of new texts, especially in poetry. It is enough to read at least the first issue of Linor Goralik ROAR magazine. The poetry presented in it is something completely new, the like of which I have never read before.
Two anthologies of anti-war poetry have appeared. One, Witnesses and Witnesses, was published by the Babel bookstore in Tel Aviv. The second - Yuri Leving in St. Petersburg at the Limbach Publishing House. There are a lot of new authors in these books. But it is more important to think not even about the number of poets, writers or anti-war anthologies, but about how exactly new literature is being created now. Of course, it will be thoroughly studied - but later.
We often discuss with colleagues what a new publishing house could do that would inherit the traditions of tamizdat. In my opinion, in addition to publishing texts in Russian and translating them into English, it could and should have translated Ukrainian literature into Russian. Now the Russian reader, who does not know Ukrainian, does not have the opportunity to follow modern Ukrainian literature. At the same time, books written in Ukrainian are translated into English and other languages.
What do Soviet and modern Russian banned books have in common?
It is probably not quite right to talk about some kind of continuity. The ban on books by "foreign agents" writers is more symbolic than practical. This is not so much about the text as about the representation of the book itself as an object. Those who need it will buy these books. Or you can easily find them on the Internet - they will still be read. Yes, someone will definitely shy away from a book in a cellophane shell, like from leprosy. From the point of view of propaganda, such a presentation of printed materials should tell the reader: “Do not touch, it is dangerous, you will become infected with something harmful.” But someone, on the contrary, will only be more interested.
If there is continuity, then it is definitely not linear. One did not flow smoothly into the other. There were nineties when it was possible to print anything. And then readers migrated to the Internet. It used to take months or even years for those involved in tamizdat to publish a manuscript. And then, at the risk of their safety, distribute it on the territory of the USSR and the countries of the social bloc. These journeys of the books were detective stories in their own right. Today, all this can be done at the push of a button.
It is important that after the ban the content of the book does not change. It changes how the reader perceives it.
Literature may not always reflect reality, but it participates in it. If we talk about Russian or Eastern European literature, they traditionally performed not only their direct functions, but also social and political ones. In America, this is much less. Here the writer is not a prophet, but simply a person who writes books.
In wartime, the need for books with a sociopolitical message in Russia is growing. This was the case not only in the XNUMXth century, but also in the XNUMXth century. The publishing houses that print nonconformist literature in Russia today are doing something very important. Against the backdrop of propaganda and lack of freedom in the classrooms of Russian universities, books that can still be read in a non-public, private space play a huge role. One way or another, war and dictatorship give a strong impetus to the cultural production not only of literature, but also of other types of creativity.
How modern forbidden and official literature will be studied
Let me give you a historical example. As much as Western audiences loved to read anything dissident during the Cold War, socialist realism was also read and studied. At the same time, much of what was popular then has already been forgotten. Solzhenitsyn, of course, is being studied. But it's hard for me to imagine a person who reads The Gulag Archipelago or Ivan Denisovich before going to bed in bed.
Of course, talking about Prilepin with American students today is a rather radical pedagogical practice. Although not so long ago, at a scientific conference, I happened to listen to a report. In it, the author analyzed Prilepin's texts from a non-ideological point of view.
After all, scientists and students are not without human reflexes, a live reaction to something that you want to stay away from. Now the author can cause disgust, so he is not studied. And then the emotions will pass and scientific interest will come in their place.
Can real literature be a weapon
Previously, books were able to destabilize the minds of people who do not even know that there is some other literature, other topics and phenomena. During the Cold War, there really was a secret program Book Programfunded by the CIA in hopes of using books to fight communism. So, books were dumped into the Polish waters of the Baltic Sea so that local fishermen would accidentally catch them and bring them home.
The book during the Cold War filled in the information gaps.
And there were so many on both sides. That in the USSR people did not know how people in the West actually live, so in the West they did not represent the reality of life in the USSR.
Today there is no lack of information. The only question is whether people want to know what's going on. If you want, then everything is possible - thanks to the Internet.
The fate of today's sam- and tamizdat is predetermined by technology. Previously, the number of readers was determined by the number of copies typed on a typewriter. Today it makes no sense to talk about quantity - it is virtually limitless. I can’t imagine that someone will print “Summer in a Pioneer Tie” at home on a printer and pass it from hand to hand, as it was in the Soviet era.
