TRAC
Interview Transcript

Paul Pozner     (cont)

Pozner:  Okay.  It started to work as, the citizen diplomacy started to work, if you remember, the concept that we just worked out at the Pushkin's choir was the following.  If the government cannot get us together, then the people have to do it, without breaking the law of neither country.  Yes?

Interviewer:  Right.

Pozner:  And there was a lot of people who joined you, or joined our project if you want, because it turned out you started a project on one hand and I won't speak about my relationship with Joseph.  But we have to recognize that on Soviet side, it was Joseph Golden who started this project; no doubts, and without him the project wouldn't exist. 

Interviewer:  That's right.

Pozner:  So a lot of people, even the classical Soviet bureaucrats, classical.  Even people from Central Committee, having quite a good position in the Central Committee, like Vadim Zagladyn, even those people joined the project.  For one reason, because everybody, those people, I would say those people, understood that we need to improve relations on one hand.  On the other hand we have to remain loyal citizens of our countries.  Because to be dissident, we had plenty of this kind of shit around, and it was of no interest for that kind of work.  No American dissidence, no Russian dissidence, no Soviet dissidence; we didn't need it.  As you remember, it developed in different ways, it went to television, that's how it started the first space purchase, which was an event at that time.  Today, everybody speaks about space purchase, what it means, it's a technical meaning--nothing else.  At that time it was an event, because people had the possibility to talk to each other for the first time, and it was December '82; no Perestroika, nothing around, nothing close to that.  And at that time, because, I was in your group, I was in this group.  I can't say it's your group, our group...

Interviewer: Our group.

Pozner:  I wasn't the last person in the group, but at the same time I work at the institute, as you know, at my Oriental studies--at the same time to make some extra living, I make translations, simultaneous translations a lot, which gave me some extra money.  And one the entities where I worked, and I had very good relations and because of my social position too, not--the translator there may know them--that was the Writers' Union.  And I knew the leadership of the Writers' Union.  And I thought, because of the impact of the culture in Soviet Union and in Russia, in Russia before the revolution, after Perestroika, anything you want to, after the falling apart of the Soviet Union; still the impact of the culture in this country traditional is very important.  Much more important than in a lot of Western countries.  So the impact of the Writers' Union was enormous.  And we succeeded, because I knew a lot of people there, I put in contact with people, with decision makers there.  So you did a good job, and they did a good job , and I made a good job to help put it together, so you got the result.  That's how it happened.

Interviewer:  And that's how they came to join the Pen Club.

Pozner:  That was the other part, in the Western side.  And I don't know, that's--you managed it, I don't know--you better know it.  I would say that the first trip, for example, of Tatyana Tolstoya, the first trip abroad, Tatyana Tolstoya was never a dissident, what she was, she was always an in-betweener, and she never traveled.  She was not allowed to travel.  Her first trip abroad was to America, which already was amazing.  And through your invitation with a delegation of the writers, that I know.

Interviewer: You said something about your social position enabled you to know the leadership of the Writers' Union.  Tell us about that.  What does that mean, your social position?

Pozner:  That means, like in America, like in any other country, it's my family roots, who we are in the society.  It's no question of money, because we never had much money.  And it's not a question of being in the nomenclatura as you say in America.  Because in Russia--to a Soviet, not to a Russian--a Soviet, you say nomenclatura, everybody's laughing.  Because nomenclatura, it means, the hierarchy in one of the entities.  Which means in my plant today I have a nomenclatura, I'm the head of the nomenclatura, and all the people are down there, it's a nomenclatura.  I understand that in the West when you say nomenclatura it's a beautiful word, but for them, nomenclatura is Central Committee.