p With the death of Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, who is deeply mourned by the entire Soviet people, our literature has lost its greatest friend and a competent, strict judge of the writer’s endeavour.

p Mikhail Ivanovich, who was brought up on Russian classic literature which he knew excellently and loved all his life with a pure, youthfully fresh love, always took the liveliest interest in the work of contemporary writers.

p It was not more than two months ago that I had a conversation with him. Mikhail Ivanovich asked me what I was planning to write and how I was getting on with my novel They Fought for Their Country, and then said:

p “I have long wanted to see you to talk with you about your book. Frankly, it worried me that writing a novel about the Great Patriotic War you might overlook the following, and to my mind, extremely important circumstance,” and Mikhail Ivanovich proceeded to tell me what he considered ought to be reflected in my future book.

p When I replied that I had it in mind and would try to write about it as best I could, Mikhail Ivanovich who was at the moment rolling himself a cigarette gave me a jolly glance from under his glinting spectacles and smiled a sweet old man’s smile, which seemed to light up his whole face.

p “Well, that’s fine then! Very good. So I need not have worried,” he said, and then continued in a more serious vein. “You see, what we readers want from you writers is not just books, we want good books giving a comprehensive picture of our life. This is why I’m meddling, so to speak, in your plans. And especially if the subject is a happening as formidable as the past war which our people came through with victory and honour, we want to read real books, the kind of books that will live for decades, if not more. You know how it goes with some authors: they don’t give the plot time to shape properly in their minds, they lose no sleep over it, and before you know 152 it they have published their book, or worse still two books in a year, each with a life span of no more than a day. You read it today, and by tomorrow you will have forgotten the names of the main characters, the captain or perhaps lieutenant and the girl, and what the book was all about. The people in it were not real, they were grey, incorporeal shadows, so how could anyone be expected to remember them? And if to this you add the author’s poor language and far from perfect form of the novel, then there’s no point in remembering it at all. And as a result, the efforts of the printers and the publishing staff, the paper and the money have all been wasted. And so has the reader’s precious time.

p “The other day, I received a letter from a certain author and a copy of his plump book which has been brought out by a regional publishing house. In his letter, the author complained that the Union of Writers was unfair to him because it had not nominated his book for the Stalin Prize which, he stated, the book deserved. My eyes are bad, but still I read that voluminous work through. I read it and I did not answer the author.” Mikhail Ivanovich made a hopeless gesture and smiled. “It was unkind of me, I know, but what could I do? The book did not deserve publication, let alone the Stalin Prize. So what could I reply to an author who had not a whit of talent and any amount of conceit? I don’t suppose he would believe me either. And yet I did not hesitate to reply to an old intelligent writer who also sent me his new book not so long ago. I wrote back to say that the book was bad and cold. I told him straight: the book is bad!”

p Mikhail Ivanovich fell silent and, rapping on the table with the tips of his fingers, smiled at some thought of his own.

p He resumed: “About fifty years ago when I was in prison in Tiflis I got hold of a book by a well-known author. I was alone in the cell and this book was the only one I had. I read and re-read it countless times. I should have remembered it all my life, shouldn’t I? But the minute I was released I forgot it completely, and since then I never felt like reading it again. It wasn’t real literature, that’s why___When it’s Tolstoi or Chekhov, you read the story once and remember it always, it remains projected on your memory. And when you start rereading it you find you know it so well as if you’d read it the day before and not forty years ago—-To be sure, even the ‘immortal’ authors have books which, though perfect in form, are written with an indifferent hand, and they leave a 153 sensation of chill in your soul, as if you’d placed your hand on a cold marble slab....”

p Mikhail Ivanovich placed his small, dry hand on the table and illustrated his thought with a laconic movement which was so eloquent and impressive that all of us present seemed to feel the chilling breath of lifeless marble.

p “What I call a good book is one where life pulsates under the binding, the way your blood does under your skin, and which you will remember for a long time, if not forever, and will want to re-read some day. Do you remember Chekhov’s Steppe?” Mikhail Ivanovich asked, and with great animation began to talk about Chekhov, Tolstoi and Gorky.

p Later, he asked me with keen interest about the life of collective farmers on the Don, which he knew from his tour of the Civil War fronts, and said reminiscently:

p “You’ve a good lot of people there, like everywhere else in our country. With people like ours you can safely fight a war or take up construction. I liked your Don women especially, they’re so hard-working, and they’ve got character. When they talked to me they didn’t whine and nag that there was no cloth, no soap, and only sometimes when the shortage of something really got into their hair they’d curse a little, I remember ... in fact they cursed quite roundly....” Chuckling and wrinkling up his eyes with a peasant’s knowing slyness, he said: “Oh well, I think it’s better to get it off your chest by cursing than whine and nag, don’t you agree?”

p Speaking of the indestructible vitality of our people, Mikhail Ivanovich told me the following:

p “Once, when I was in your parts, also in the twenties, I dropped in at a bee-garden in passing. The Civil War had just ended, the apiary had been sacked as both the Whites and our own people must have had a sweet tooth—-The old bee-keeper, a jovial old soul, came out to meet me. ‘How’s life?’ I asked him, and he said: ’Fine, Mikhail Ivanovich!’ What was so fine about it, I asked, wasn’t he ruined by the war? And he said: ’It did ruin me but not quite. One out of my forty beehives has survived, and God be thanked for that. The bee family in that hive is mighty strong, and I can treat my dear guest to some honey right now! Come back in three years’ time, and you won’t know the bee-garden!’ "

p In parting, Mikhail Ivanovich asked me when I thought I’d finish the first part of my novel, and I gave him the approximate date.

p “Then I’ll live to read it,” he said. “However, you must not 154 hurry, and don’t take too much notice of what we readers want. Our business is to urge the writer on so his book will come out sooner, and your business is to produce a book that will be worth the attention of the people you’re writing it for. After all, it’s you and not the reader who’ll be answerable for the book. Never forget this!”

p Today, with the bitterness and pain of bereavement still fresh in my heart, that last conversation I had with Kalinin comes vividly back to mind. His encounter with the old beekeeper set me thinking: our country is like a huge beehive, seething with joyous, peaceful activity, busily restoring its warravaged economy___Many years will pass, and our descendants, coming to the Red Square and bowing their heads before the Mausoleum of the greatest man of our epoch, will also pause with feelings of love and gratitude before the grave of Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin who placed his entire life in the service of his country, and was Lenin’s faithful comrade in his struggle for the happiness of people on earth.

1946