Essay: Would I Move Back?

Look at Gorbachev's Soviet Union through the eyes of Andrei Sinyavsky, and prepare to be astonished. As a literary critic in Moscow, Sinyavsky for years secretly published bitter, moving short stories in the West under the pseudonym Abram Tertz. When Soviet officials discovered Tertz's real identity in 1965, they arrested Sinyavsky, along with his friend Yuli Daniel, another underground writer. Convicted of "anti-Soviet acts" in a celebrated trial that for the first time drew the world's attention to Moscow's dissident movement, Sinyavsky spent almost six years in a labor camp, Daniel five. Sinyavsky emigrated to Paris in 1973, and Soviet authorities...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!