CENTERPIECE
SOLZHENITSYN AT WORK
AMIDST PEACE OF VERMONT HILLS, RUSSIAN EXILE WRITES OF REVOLUTION

Author: By Bernard Pivot

Date: Friday, February 24, 1984
Page: ?????
Section: RUN OF PAPER

CAVENDISH, Vt. - It was a dark night when we reached by car the estate of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Our interview with the exiled Russian author has been set for the following day, but his wife Natalia insisted that we come in right away to organize our reportage showing a typical day of the author of "The Gulag Archipelago," and his family in their retreat in Vermont.

Natalia Solzhenitsyn is more than the wife and mother of three children of the Nobel Prize-winning writer. She is the only person who helps him in his work as archivist, typist, telephone operator and adviser. Natalia is a woman with beautiful, dark brown eyes and short, gray hair, who wears a bright smile. She is always on the move, asking questions, ready to help. She also does all the housework and the cooking with her mother, Catherine Svetlova, who worked as a physicist in the USSR, while Natalia was a mathematician.

Upon returning to Paris, the one question we were being asked everywhere was: Is it true that Solzhenitsyn has built for himself a gulag? Some people have spread the story that Solzhenitsyn's estate is closed off with barbed wire, that he has built a long, mysterious tunnel under his house and that he
relishes living in a sinister atmosphere in his beleaguered camp.

I have seen the enclosure with my own eyes. The fence is plain, common wiring. The tunnel is a mere extension of the cellar by some 10 yards to allow Solzhenitsyn to rejoin the outhouse in which he works on days when there is too much snow to move around. He does have a dog, though he didn't want one. The reason is that one day a photographer stole onto the premises and, hidden behind the trees, kept shooting pictures for hours of the writer and his family. Solzhenitsyn was rightly upset by his unscrupulous behavior.

Then, there are evident security considerations. Fearing both mentally ill extremists and KGB agents, Solzhenitsyn refuses pictures or films to be made of the four houses that stand on his grounds. But if the magnificent estate on a hillside, where the white bark of the birch trees contrasts with the dark green color of the pine and fir trees, if the spot where three red-cheeked boys play soccer, if the house where excellent, rich Russian food is being cooked, the rooms filled with books - if indeed all this is a gulag, then three cheers for the gulag.

When, in 1976, Solzhenitsyn chose to live outside the small village of Cavendish, Vt., at a lawyer's advice, news reporters from all over the United States descended onto the town. Solzhenitsyn, who profoundly dislikes social events and is anxious to preserve his solitude, turned them away. But some reporters nevertheless entered the premises without permission. Pending the construction of a gate, a builder's aide had the unfortunate idea of closing the roadway with a length of barbed wire. Photographers promptly took snapshots of the enclosure and the photographs appeared around the world.

Solzhenitsyn decided to settle in the United States not because he disliked Europe and loved America. But while living in Zurich after his expulsion from the USSR, he was steadily bothered by people asking favors. Solzhenitsyn, however, had one ambition: to have enough time to write "The Red Wheel," a monumental history of the Soviet revolution. He chose to go in exile in the United States. This explains why he chose the vast, sparsely populated expanse of Vermont's Green Mountains. This wooded, snowy region with rough weather has the added advantage of reminding him of his beloved Russia.

"There is one more reason why I came to live here," Solzhenitsyn told me. "It is the extraordinary wealth of American universities regarding Russian manuscripts, books and documents pertaining to the 1917 revolution. I can use them, which greatly facilitates my work." Work is the key word in the author's life.

Solzhenitsyn turned 65 on Dec. 11. He still has thousands of pages to write before putting the final dot on "The Red Wheel." He hopes that God will grant him time and strength to complete his great project.

Solzhenitsyn gracefully accepts the requirements of a television interview. The one thing he will not do is repeat his gestures and words. He agrees that the camera should capture all his movements, but refuses to act. In that way, he displays an extraordinary ease in front of the cameras, a natural air that makes one think he missed the opportunity of being a great actor.

Solzhenitsyn rarely smiles. How charming he is, when he does. He speaks with a fast and strong voice, and accompanies his remarks with lively gestures. There is a good deal of the teacher in the way in which he speaks. But didn't he begin his career teaching physics and mathematics?

Without being asked, Solzhenitsyn agreed to be filmed during his preferred pastime: chopping wood, walking with his wife and playing tennis with one of his boys. McEnroe doesn't have to worry. But it is easy to see how much Solzhenitsyn enjoys being on the court, his long beard flowing in the wind, hitting with his racket his worn-out tennis balls, which rebound badly on the court's soft surface.

Solzhenitsyn says, catching his breath: "When I was a child, I dreamed of playing tennis. But I never had enough money in my life to buy a racket. And considering my condition in the Soviet Union, it was very difficult to have access to a tennis court. But, finally, when I was 57, I could afford having a tennis court built outside my house. I have been playing for eight years now, and I really enjoy it."

We stepped inside the family house. His eldest boy, Yermolay, 13, was punching out words on a printer. The printer provides Solzhenitsyn with a clean copy of his text on which it is easy to make final corrections and additions. Each page resembles the page of a book.

His second son, Ignat, 11, was playing on the piano the second concerto by Beethoven. In a few days, at Brattleboro, he was to make his debut as a concert pianist with the Vermont Professional Orchestra.

The one son who is not around is Dmitri, 21, Natalia's boy from her first marriage. He is in Boston studying film and communication technology. While Solzhenitsyn speaks no English, his three boys are fully bilingual. Outwardly, they are true American boys - blond, round-cheeked and daredevil. But when they speak to one another at games or while doing their homework, they speak Russian.

Although all three were born in Russia, they were too small to have any recollection of that country. I asked Solzhenitsyn whether his children, while becoming American through their studies and way of life, don't risk losing the desire of returning home. "With my wife," Solzhenitsyn says, "we do our best to make sure they will acquire a perfect knowledge of the Russian language, poetry and culture. This does not rule out the fact that they also learn the English language, and assimilate American culture. All this makes us happy, but it must not be done at the expense of the Russian culture. If they abandoned the Russian culture, it would surely be tough. But I don't believe they ever will.

"Naturally, there is the risk of my being buried in this country, the risk that we all will die here. But I am certain that my children will be glad to go back to Russia and they will be greatly needed there."

The house where Solzhenitsyn works was built to his specific instructions, to provide him with the most favorable conditions for his work on "The Red Wheel." It is a unique thing to see a house built around a writer's literary project. On the ground floor is a large library with manuscripts from all those who supplied Solzhenitsyn with eyewitness accounts of the 1917 revolution. Next to it is a small, pretty chapel filled with bright light at sunrise. It is a great treat for the Solzhenitsyns when a Russian Orthodox priest calls on them at their house to read mass in the chapel.

Solzhenitsyn is putting together material for his historic work in the first floor working room. He is now completing "April 17," or the fourth volume of "The Red Wheel." Spread over long tables are neat piles of notes and pages covered with the fine handwriting of the former inmate of Soviet concentration camps and prisons. The handwriting is tight and small, and there are virtually no margins on the pages. The author has kept his old habit of covering the pages from top to bottom with his meticulous script.

Each little pile refers to a scene, a character or an event for a particular chapter. It represents the sum of all the facts he has noted for the final composition. The composition proper is being done on the second floor, in a vast office on a desk cluttered with all kinds of objects and handwritten notes.

Through the broad windows, Solzhenitsyn can see his trees, among them his preferred one - a tall birch tree. In a baroque-style cabinet, he keeps notebooks in which he began composing "August 14" when he was only 18 years old. There are also a few notes that survived his stay in the gulag.

Next to the office is a kitchen and a bedroom that allow him not to interrupt his work for days in a row. There is also a room with blackboards and maps that help him teach his boys physics and astronomy. Here and there lie small books. They are Solzhenitsyn's novels printed in small type on very fine paper, which are shipped clandestinely to the Soviet Union.

But he, Alexander Solzhenitsyn - will he ever be able to go home again? Although the situation in the Soviet Union is not encouraging, he says, "I have the feeling, the deep conviction that I will one day return home alive. And yet, as you may see, I am no longer that young . . . "

Bernard Pivot's interview was first published in the French magazine, Lire. COPYRIGHT 1983 Lire magazine.

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