| Now I see it makes
no fucking difference, here or there. The same gangs in either sphere.
But here I have something more to lose, because I am a Russian writer,
I write in Russian words. And as a man, I found I had been spoiled by
the praise of the underground, the attention of underground Moscow, of
artistic Russia, where a poet is not what a poet is in New York. From
time immemorial a poet in Russia has always been something of a spiritual
leader. To make the acquaintance of a poet, for example, is a great honor
there. Here a poet is shit, which is why even Joseph Brodsky
is miserable here in your country. Once when he came to see me on Lexington
Avenue he said, as he drank his vodka, 'One has to have the hide of an
elephant here in this country. I do, but you don't.' There was anguish
in these words, because Joseph Brodsky has succumbed to the system
of this world, though he had not succumbed to the system of the other.
I understood his misery. In Leningrad, after all, apart from his troubles,
he had tens of thousands of admirers, he would have been received with
delight in any house on any evening, the beautiful Russian maidens, the
Natashas and Tanyas, were all his - because he, a red-haired Jewish youth,
was a Russian poet. The best place for a poet
is Russia.There, even the authorities fear our kind. They have from time
immemorial.
Eduard Limonov: It's Me, Eddy, 1978, p.20 |