The Wives: The Women Behind Russia's Literary Giants (43 page)

Father Andrew Tregubov, a local Orthodox priest of Russian descent, taught them divine law; in addition, Natalya read the Gospels with the boys. Every morning, the children came to their father’s cottage to pray in the pine forest. They would kneel down to recite their prayers, including one Solzhenitsyn had himself composed, that God would let them return to Russia. He told the boys that a rock on their estate was a bewitched Pegasus and that one day it would carry them all to their homeland.

Natalya’s mother, an important household member, was the family’s driver, photographer, and expert cook. Ignat, whom she drove to private music lessons, recalls her as their good genius: she was a uniting force in the family, and their childhood and youth were unthinkable without her. (The sons were educated at Harvard and in private schools in London; Ermolai became a Sinologist, Ignat—the music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Rostropovich once visited the family in Cavendish and was the first to discover Ignat’s musical talent. Stepan,
the youngest, became a civil engineer and architect as well as Solzhenitsyn’s translator and editor.)

In 1981, five years into their stay in America, the couple qualified for US citizenship, but decided against it, even though they had no citizenship at all. Natalya applied only in 1985, to simplify travel. On June 24, she wrote in her diary that she was heading to the citizenship ceremony “with a heavy heart, utterly miserable.” Afterwards, she switched off the phone for several days so as not to receive congratualtions: having to swear allegiance to the American government was a necessary sacrifice.
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The year 1985 marked the beginning of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms, which the Solzhenitsyns, paradoxically, did not welcome. In December of 1986, Gorbachev telephoned Sakharov, terminating his internal exile; he was soon reinstated in the Academy of Sciences. Unlike Sakharov, who considered the defense of civil rights and openness to be the bases of society, Solzhenitsyn assigned them “only a secondary importance,” believing religion should play the key role. In his memoir, Sakharov outlines Solzhenitsyn’s views, strikingly different from his own, which became more apparent during glasnost:

Solzhenitsyn’s mistrust of the West, of progress in general, of science and democracy, inclines him to romanticize a patriarchal way of life … to expect too much from the Russian Orthodox Church. He regards the unspoiled northeast region of our country as a reservoir for the Russian people where they can cleanse themselves of the moral and physical ravages caused by communism, a diabolic force, imported from the West.
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It would be later written that if Solzhenitsyn had returned during perestroika, when hardliners opposed the reforms and the support of influential people like him was needed, the country would have given him a hero’s welcome. Instead, he chose to wait until the time for his homecoming was ripe and his conditions were
met. His major condition was publication of
The Gulag Archipelago
in the Soviet Union, which at the start of perestroika was almost unthinkable.

In 1986, in Cavendish, the couple celebrated an anniversary of
The Red Wheel:
fifty years had passed from the day Solzhenitsyn first decided to produce a comprehensive account of the 1917 Revolution. The couple had worked indefatigably on this project, but recently Natalya had been feeling crushed by its weight. Her tremendous resilience began to wane, and she complained it was difficult to go on working sixteen hours a day on Russia’s catastrophe and the Bolsheviks’ intrigue and betrayal.
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Solzhenitsyn, unwilling to terminate the saga, was yet to discover that the public would ignore his ten-volume Bolshevik history. Living in cultural isolation, he may not have realized that his readers, on both sides of the Atlantic, had little interest in the topic.

Solzhenitsyn described Gorbachev’s perestroika as a “murky” phenomenon and remarked in his diary that “the temperature” of the change remained low.
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Meantime, Soviet literary magazines were publishing revelatory works which could not come out during seventy years of political censorship, each publication advancing glasnost one step further. In 1988,
Novy Mir
approached Solzhenitsyn for permission to produce
Cancer Ward
, an event in itself since the novel was only published abroad, but he insisted that
The Gulag Archipelago
, his major work about the repressions, must go first. However, the old guard fought furiously against it, and Gorbachev was afraid that the novel would tip the delicate balance. When despite Gorbachev’s refusal the editor of
Novy Mir
decided to take it on, Natalya wrote in her diary that even an attempt at publication was a victory.
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Despite their misgivings,
The Gulag
appeared in this popular magazine in 1989, at the height of glasnost, when circulation of
Novy Mir
exceeded one million copies.
The Gulag
was printed in one million six hundred thousand copies.
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At the end of the year, Soviet authorities indicated that Solzhenitsyn’s citizenship would be restored if he applied. Natalya described
this offer as “shameful” in an interview with
The New York Times
, explaining that Solzhenitsyn had been kicked out and now would not “ask permission to enter.… We’ve waited a long time. We will wait until they become wise.”
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In 1990, still under Gorbachev, citizenship to Solzhenitsyn and to Natalya was restored. But the couple remained unconvinced. While refusing to support Gorbachev, calling his reforms “a myth,” they met the fall of the Soviet Union with joy. In August 1991, the Solzhenitsyns were watching on the news the removal of Dzerzhinsky’s statue on Lubyanka Square. The fifteen-ton monument to the founder of the Bolshevik secret police was dismantled to cheers from the crowd. Natalya wrote in her diary that Solzhenitsyn felt proud and happy for the Russians but also wondered whether the change was permanent. The writer, in his diary, called the event the greatest day in his life.
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The following month, Solzhenitsyn received official rehabilitation and an apology from the Russian government, along with President Yeltsin’s assurance that the country was taking a new path.

In spring 1992, Natalya went to Moscow to arrange for their return. She met with President Yeltsin and the Moscow mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, obtaining their welcome and support. The Moscow government promised to return Natalya’s former downtown apartment for headquarters of the Russian Social Fund, which at last could be registered. She acquired a city apartment where the family would reside temporarily and, because Solzhenitsyn needed his solitude to go on writing, also sought country properties. Eventually, with the mayor’s special permission, Natalya purchased 10.7 acres of land to build a house in Troitse-Lykovo, a historical area of Moscow. Before the Revolution, this place belonged to a number of prominent aristocratic families, beginning with Peter the Great’s uncle. In the twentieth century, it accommodated a sanatorium for the Soviet government where Lenin convalesced in 1922. Solzhenitsyn’s fascination with Lenin, whom he had portrayed in
The Red Wheel
, apparently did not end with the epic.

In 1993, Mike Wallace interviewed the couple, still in Cavendish, for CBS. He found Solzhenitsyn self-absorbed: “Everything in life
was business, everything was hard work. His days were numbered, and he had very important work to do.” In contrast, Natalya was “extremely attractive, interesting, indeed fascinating; a woman of immense intelligence; the ultimate protector and keeper of the flame; his handmaiden.”
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Aside from her other responsibilities, Natalya handled Solzhenitsyn’s public affairs. That year, while preparing for their return to Russia, she had to keep the media in the dark about their itinerary; the exclusive rights to film Solzhenitsyn’s homecoming would be sold to the BBC.

Their departure was scheduled for May 25, 1994. Two months earlier, Natalya’s son from her first marriage, Dmitry, died of a heart attack at thirty-two. The pain of having to bury her son was overwhelming and would not be assuaged over the years. Dmitry’s father, Tiurin, flew in from Moscow for the funeral in the Orthodox Church near Cavendish. All this took place in the middle of daunting preparations for the move. Natalya had to oversee shipping Solzhenitsyn’s enormous archive and library, for which she needed four hundred packing cases. The move was so well organized that Solzhenitsyn was able to work almost to the day of their departure. He was traveling to Moscow through the Far East, landing in Magadan (a symbolic center of Stalin’s gulag). From there, he would make a two-month journey on a special train, which the BBC had hired and in which the family had two private coaches. The Russian media were often sarcastic in their depiction of Solzhenitsyn’s journey. One newspaper wrote, “Solzhenitsyn is returning to the country, which he does not know and where he is practically forgotten.”
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The Solzhenitsyns’ dislike of the press was well-known. When an army of Russian journalists and cameramen closely followed the couple in Vladivostok, Natalya snapped at them, “You press people are the world’s second oldest profession.”
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(The remark was reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn’s, upon his arrival to the West, when he shouted at the paparazzi that they were worse than the KGB). Unhappy with the coverage of Solzhenitsyn’s journey by the Russian media, Natalya deemed it disrespectful.
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She left the
tour after a few weeks and flew to Moscow, leaving Solzhenitsyn with one of their sons.

Natalya had told
Izvestiya
that Solzhenitsyn intended to become a unifying force upon his return.
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But he clearly failed in this goal. While still in Cavendish, he wrote an article, “How to Revitalize Russia,” discussing Russia’s future after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 1990, the article was published in millions of copies by two national newspapers, but it was deemed offensive by other nationalities. Solzhenitsyn referred to Ukraine as “little Russia,” the term used in the 19th century, and described Kazakhstan as “Russia’s underbelly.” With ethnic tensions running high, one of the newspapers containing his article was publicly burned in Kazakhstan and in Ukraine.

In the fall of 1994, invited as a special guest to the Duma, Solzhenitsyn attacked Yeltsin’s privatization program and market reforms. His speech was broadcast on television and later published in full, but his ideas had little impact: none of the factions would want to make Solzhenitsyn their own. Later, his book,
Russia in the Abyss
, became widely seen as “apocalyptic.” The book appeared during Russia’s fiscal default in 1998, and some readers misinterpreted the title as Solzhenitsyn’s prediction of Russia’s economic collapse. In fact, the book was discussing the country’s spiritual decline. Solzhenitsyn’s deliberate use of archaic words in this book and during his public performances created ambiguity, becoming partly responsible for his disconnect with the audiences. After their return, when the press attacked him, Natalya served as a buffer between her husband and the outside world.

In spring 1995, the couple moved to their new country residence where Solzhenitsyn resumed his secluded life, with regular hours for writing. Natalya guarded his peace and handled his extensive correspondence. She was also engaged in public life. That same year, the Russian Social Fund, of which she was president, along with YMCA-Press in Paris and the Moscow government, opened the Russian Abroad Foundation Library. The numerous émigré
manuscripts the Solzhenitsyns had shipped from Vermont formed the heart of the collection.

After their return to Russia, Natalya told an interviewer why she had wanted to marry Solzhenitsyn: “It was very clear to me … what I wanted to do for him.… To share—struggle. To share—work. To bear and raise worthy descendants.”
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She kept all her promises, but believed their struggle was ongoing and their work lifelong: Solzhenitsyn’s mission as a national writer carried a heavy load, which they pulled together over the years.

Her new task was helping Solzhenitsyn recapture his readership. In the 1990s, subscription to his works had plummeted, reflecting Russia’s default, general impoverishment, and decrease of interest in classical literature and history. Solzhenitsyn’s books were no longer banned and, as someone remarked, reading them was more interesting when one could be arrested for this. During perestroika, numerous works about Stalin’s repressions were published and the market was saturated. In addition, intellectuals, who had supported him in the past, turned away from Solzhenitsyn, disappointed with his anti-Western stance. During this time, Natalya looked for alternative ways to promote his works, even describing
The First Circle
as a political detective story.

When Solzhenitsyn began his last monumental work,
Two Hundred Years Together
, a two-volume study of Russian-Jewish relations, Natalya was once again assisting him with research. True to her remark that “every book needs to be nurtured,”
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she sifted through piles of material, edited, and annotated the volumes. But the work would not add to Solzhenitsyn’s glory. The topic of Jewish influence on Russian history was sensitive and Solzhenitsyn, a staunch defender of Orthodoxy, could not avoid bias. Upon its publication in 2001–2002, Natalya shielded the work from charges of anti-Semitism, brushing them off as ludicrous.

In 2000, the Solzhenitsyns acquired an unlikely ally in the new Russian president, Vladimir Putin. In September, Putin and his wife Lyudmila met the couple at the Solzhenitsyns’ country residence behind closed doors. After the visit, Solzhenitsyn told “Vesti”
television that Putin impressed him as a man concerned primarily “with Russia’s destiny, not his personal power.”
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In turn, Natalya described Putin as a dynamic, well-functioning leader, working to solve the country’s problems.
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A photograph of her accepting a bouquet from Putin appeared on the Internet. No longer dissidents, the Solzhenitsyns had emerged as a politically powerful couple. Sakharov’s widow, Elena Bonner, told
The Evening Moscow
that the alliance between the former KGB officer and Solzhenitsyn was fascinating to her and worthy of Dostoevskys’ pen.
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Although Putin would reveal himself as a corrupt leader, would endorse the KGB, and would crush political freedoms and democratic institutions, the couple did not criticize his presidency.