Gareth Jones Interview Notes
with Commissar Maxim Litvinov
March 1933
Below
is a copy of Gareth Jones actual diary notes of his late March 1933 confidential
interview in Moscow with Maxim Litvinov, after just returning from his
unescorted trip to Ukraine, where Gareth observed the famine, firsthand..
It
is historically significant as Gareth 'subtly' broaches the subject of famine in
the villages, whilst in conversation about new freedom of Soviet playwrights to
write without censorship... And as such, from the mouth of Litvinov, is probably
the highest level of a famine denial by any Soviet official, as he was
arguably second only to Stalin in political power..
[FYI
- Gareth used a similar technique of interviewing two years later, when he asked
the Japanese War Minister General Hayashi, "Some Chinese fear that Japan
will attack North China. Has this fear any basis?" - further
details click here]
Transcript
Artistic Realisation1
"Give us books for new readers, true
books, with living truth".2
GJ [Gareth Jones]:
“Would describe famine in villages?”
L [itvinov]: “Well,
there is no famine.”
L: “Well,
a gun would shoot shell far. You
must take a longer view. The present hunger is temporary. In writing books you
must have a longer view. It would
be difficult to describe it as hunger.”
Prevarication3
See Hamlet 4
Influence of Marcel, Proust, Joyce is Great
Great
respect for:
There
are few party writers.
- - - - - -
Footnotes&
Personal Interpretation
-
:For
one interpretation of the title's relevance, then please click
HERE, where the Artistic Realisation Organisation describes it as the
creative "liberation
lies in the power of Art, not as therapy or recreation, but as a critical
means of articulate self-expression".
-
Presumably
some current Soviet edict or slogan
-
A
GJ diary footnote at bottom of first page - presumably summing up GJ's
thoughts on Litvinov's reply
-
Re "See Hamlet"
The
exact relevance of this phrase depends on two specific factors; firstly, when
exactly was Hamlet 'banned' by Stalin as the last Moscow production during
Stalin's life was in 1932, and secondly whether it was an official ban ?
On
searching the internet for references on this subject, I came across an excellent web page on the subject of
Stalin's 'ban' on Shakespeare's Hamlet: http://archive.1september.ru/eng/2001/16/2.htm
, from which I would like to quote a single paragraph:
"For
more than twenty years, from 1932 to 1954, “Hamlet” wasn’t performed in
Moscow: quite atypical for Russian theatre history. At the same time
Shakespeare was made an official cult figure in Soviet ideology. The best
Moscow theatres produced “King Lear”, “Othello”, “Romeo and
Juliet”, and a lot of Shakespeare’s comedies; but not “Hamlet”. The
main reason was: Josef Stalin, who generally favoured the classics, hated
“Hamlet” as a play and Hamlet as a character. There was something in the
very human type of this Shakespearean Prince that caused “the great
leader’s” scorn and suspicion. His hatred for the intelligentsia was
transferred to the hero of the tragedy – with whom Russian intellectuals
always tended to identify themselves
...Of
course the ban on “Hamlet” wasn’t officially declared. The play became,
silently, “non-recommendable” for the stage. The theatres had learned to
catch these sorts of hints from the authorities’."
This
last production was described elsewhere on the internet as an “iconoclastic, grotesque” Hamlet, produced in
1932 at the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow, anticipating “both the grotesque
and the tragic features of Stalin’s monstrous show” (85). http://komparatistika.ff.cuni.cz/litteraria/no20-10/prochazka.htm
Another
Hamlet website states: "Stalin's regime banned Hamlet, claiming that "Hamlet's indecisiveness and depression were incompatible with the new Soviet spirit of optimism, fortitude, and clarity" (Epstein 353).
- though no date of the ban is cited - Ref: http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~govind/shakespeare/#post1900.
Nevertheless,
the question remains, did the play run into 1933 and then this "See
Hamlet" was a suggestion by Litvinov for GJ to make a visit to see this
'last' production? And if, as more likely from the above quotations it
was no longer being played, when GJ was in Moscow in March 1933, then did GJ
suspect or have reason to believe that it had already been banned and was thereby
making a judgement on the folly of the new edict of playwrights complete
"freedom from censorship"?
It is my personal opinion, that
in ignorance of a Soviet 'ban', GJ as
a Cambridge University literary scholar, made a personal and sarcastic
note referring to Shakespeare's own take on tyranny and famine, from Hamlet's main "To be or not to be"
soliloquy {Quarto One), which reads:: "The taste of hunger or a
tyrant's reign, And thosand more calamaties besides," - [ Click
here for relevant link to Hamlet soliloquy.]
The
jury on my interpretation is out - so if you have an opinion on the above,
then please email me, Nigel
Colley with your constructive thoughts...
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