Two Russian Writers Attacked

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30958, 14 January 1966, Page 9

Two Russian Writers Attacked

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) MOSCOW, Jan. 13.

Two Soviet writers who have published anti-Soviet stories abroad came under vitriolic attack last night in “Izvestia,” which dubbed them “werewolves” and “renegades.”

The writers, Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, both aged 40, were little known outside literary circles until their detention about four months ago was widely reported abroad. But last night’s attack in the Government newspaper was the first official mention of the two here. It was also the first Soviet confirmation that Sinyavsky used the pen-

name Abram Tertz and Dan-; iei wrote under the name of] Nikolai Arzhak. Both of them wrote disres-] pectfully of Vladimir Lenin,, leader of the Russian Revolu-i tion and founder of the Soviet State, Izvestia said. “Into what bottomless bog of filth must a so-called writer sink, to blacken with his hooligan pen a name which is hbly for us,” it declared. The two had placed themselves “outside our literature, outside the community of Soviet people,” “Izvestia” said. “They are immigrants of a special type: internal immigrants. They shrunk into their rotten little world. There their evil passions simmered. “There they dipped their pens in poisoned inkwells. There they lived, imagining that this was life.” “Izvestia” gave no hint of

[whether the two writers would ! be tried or whether they were still detained, but the article was clearly intended to discredit them thoroughly in the leyes of the Soviet public. ] “Izvestia” accused Sinyavsky, who is better known in Moscow as a critic than writer, of trying to create the impression there was antiSemitism in the Soviet Union by using a Jewish pseudonym. Western propaganda had not failed to make use of them, it said. “The enemies of communism found what they were looking for: two renegades, foi whom duplicity and shameless ness became symbols of belief.” The two writers were “nol simply morally depraved people, but active stooges oi those who stoke the furnace of international tension, wh<

d want to turn the cold war into e a hot one, who have still not e parted with the harmful dream of raising their hands e against the Soviet Union.” Sinyavsky, who wrote the; /- story “The Trial Begins” unn der the pen-name of Tertz, had! n “squeezed” into the Writer’s e Union although he was a i-1 critic, “Izvestia” said. n] Describing one of Daniel's i.l works, “Moscow Speaking” it it said it was “flavoured with i,] solid portions of vulgar erotica, drunken debauchery, ini' corrigible amoralism and mise anthrophy.” ir] In the story, Daniel, who s- works as a translator, recoun-e-'ted the public reaction to a fictional Government an>t nouncement that a certain day d would be “public murder day” if iwhen every citizen had the :ei right to kill whoever he liked, io with certain exceptions.