My parents gave up Judaism and didn’t give me religious education, and I had a craving for religion. Perhaps, I took after my great grandfather Vigdor in this respect. There was a hollowness in my heart. I was a very credulous simpleton in my childhood and youth. They told me at school that religion was a tale of uneducated old women. Teachers said this at school and chucked all religion out of my soul. I wasn’t religious at school and at 30 I became an atheist. However, I wasn’t an active atheist, I was passive. I couldn’t resist general moods.
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Emilia Kotliar
And then I met archpriest Aleksandr Men’ [Editor’s note: Aleksandr Men’ (1935-1990) Fr Alexander Men’ served as a priest in the Russian Orthodox church for thirty years. His legacy includes an Orthodox University, a Charity Group at the Russian Children's Hospital, and a Youth Missionary School. Fr Alexander is sometimes referred to as the architect of Christian renewal in Russia. He was a prolific writer, whose books cover all areas of religious thought, capped by a multi-volume study of world religions. On September 9, 1990 he was murdered. Fr Alexander's murder was never solved] and adopted Christianity. He was such a bright and light person that I followed him.
I spent vacations in houses of creativity of the Union of Writers, mainly in the vicinity of Moscow and made new friends there.
Denouncements of the 20th Congress [24] were a shock for me. My mother was happy that the truth found its way. My mother had different outlooks since she was a historian, but she didn’t share her opinions with me.
When in 1953 Stalin died, I was very upset. I thought it was going to be worse without him. I believed in his wisdom. I understood so little. One acquaintance said: ‘Better, Emilia. It’s going to be better’. I didn’t believe him, but later everything fell in its place. I remember Stalin’s funeral. I almost died in the crowd. I didn’t go there by myself, our college obliged us to go. There were no excuses accepted. My mother didn’t know. I wasn’t at home a whole night. What could she think? And we could hardly get out of the crowd. We were on the edge of death.
After the war I faced anti-Semitism in everyday life. In 1948 mass persecution of Jews began. Being a Jew I was very concerned about it. Murder of Mikhoels [21], cosmopolitism [22] and ‘doctors’ plot’ [23]. I happened to meet a boy, medical Professor Yegorov. His father was arrested during the period of ‘doctors’ plot’. He and his family were very worried. Many acquaintances turned away from his family then. One acquaintance of mine hanged himself at that period. His uncle was arrested under this case and he was hunted down. There was anti-Semitism among members of the house of literature workers. Not always evident and open, but there it was. One renowned poet was a militant anti-Semite and didn’t conceal it. Everybody knew him and avoided him. Routinely anti-Semitism was at its height and our co-tenants in our communal apartment tormented us. We used to have no conflicts before when all of a sudden our neighbors began to shout into a telephone receiver: ‘There are Jews living here’. Of course, this was badgering against us. Other co-tenants didn’t interfere and kept silent, and my mother and I were distressed. Our neighbor used to polish his boots by our door grumbling: ‘Jews, Jews’.
In 1961 I entered the Union of Writers. It was difficult to become a member of this Union at the time. I only had one book issued and I needed recommendations. S. Marshak [20] gave me one. Somehow they admitted me, though my poems left much to be desired and unusual and people felt stunned. Then I began to have my books published. I had 6 books for adults and 15 children’s books. I also translated 10 children’s books. My publishing house gave me books for translation. I met famous poets to be in ‘Magistral’ like Bulat Okudjava [a famous Russian bard (1924-1997)]. We were closely acquainted for a lifetime. It was hard to have books published, not only for me, but for all. Some people were against my books. There were spokes in my wheels and there were other things, but I had a wonderful editor: Victor Faigelson.
I didn’t finish Literature College. There was a literature association ‘Magistral’ [‘highway’ in Russian] where I attended classes and took my entrance into literature. Igor Levin, a wonderful pedagog, conducted classes. We recited our poems and criticized each other. It was a good school. Levin invited best poets of the time to our sittings and they shared their views with us, recited their poems and listened to ours. I learned a lot at those classes.
I began writing poems. At first I didn’t think much of it, but then I caught myself sitting at an exam at school putting down my lines instead of listening to a student. This shouldn’t be! I met young poets and we became friends and they told me that I had to quit school immediately. ‘Or, you will always remain a teacher and will never become a poet’. I left school, though we didn’t have anything at home. I found a job in a publishing house with low payment. I was to write responses to beginners of poets. In 1958 my first book was published and I received a small fee for it. So I lived.
I worked a mandatory term [19] in the kindergarten and then couldn’t find a job for a long time until I managed to become a preschool education teacher at the Pedagogical School.
While working in the kindergarten I finished a pedagogical school with honors and entered a Pedagogical College without taking entrance exams. I was only allowed to not take entrance exams at the Preschool Department. I wanted to go to the Philological Faculty, but I just wasn’t strong enough to take exams there. I finished my college with honors.
My mother knew my opinions and agreed that I should become a tutor in a kindergarten. I worked there 4 years. It was hard work, but I managed and children were good to me. I couldn’t work as a music teacher at school due to my hands. There were 37 children in my group. It was a big group and besides, children of the war, they were problem children. Many didn’t have fathers, they had dramatic living conditions and they were all hungry. They were nervous and excitable children. In general, they made a hard company.
I couldn’t continue my studies in my music school due to my hand defects. My hands turned out to lack technicality. I had finished the 9th form of district school #9 in Moscow. I didn’t like it in this school after my previous school at the Conservatory. It was like farce. Most teachers were in evacuation or at the front. Our teachers had low qualifications and it was ridiculous how they conducted their lessons and I kept thinking about our wonderful teachers at the Central Music School.
She went to teach history in school # 12 [In the USSR schools had numbers and not names. It was part of the policy of the state. They were all state schools and were all supposed to be identical], where children of 3rd-rate chiefs studied. They were capricious and spoiled children. One came to the second class, another one came to the third, but they liked my mother’s classes. They gave her pictures on historical subjects, she managed to arouse their interest in history. She worked there until 1948 and then her eyes got worse and she retired. She was allowed to retire due to her poor sight. Then she went to lecture in the association of blind people.
When we returned to Moscow, my mother defended her diploma and went to teach at school. My mother graduated from University brilliantly and was offered to start her postgraduate studies, but she had problems with her eyes.
My mother taught history in a vocational school. I worked as a tutor in a kindergarten for about 8 months.
We took hiding in the basement and bombshells to find shelter from bombs. There were many people hiding in metro. The University where my mother studied evacuated to Sverdlovsk, about 1400 km east of Moscow and my mother and I went there, too. We didn’t find any suitable accommodation in Sverdlovsk and my mother quit University and decided to go with me to the vicinity of Alapayevsk about 138 km north of Sverdlovsk, to Kostino village where my mother was teaching history. My mother rented a corner in a village hut. Life was terrible there. There was only hunger. I didn’t go to school since there was only a 7-year school in the village and I was to study in the 9th form. I was hanging around there. There was a woman in evacuation in this village. She worked in a club before the war. She was a nice and tactful woman of about 60 years of age. She gathered young people into something like a drama club and we performed in surrounding villages. We didn’t get anything for it, but we were at least busy. People called us ‘artists’. There was no entertainment in villages. There was a radio near the library in the village and there was no electricity. Our performances were like holidays for them. People had a very hard life in the kolkhoz. They worked hard and worked a lot for almost nothing. Our landlady had 7 boys. Can you imagine what it took to provide food for them? The oldest was 12. He didn’t go to school since he had to work in the kolkhoz. The only food we had were potatoes in jackets. And I remember an episode. My mother and I are eating when there appears a little face with begging eyes. This was one of our landlady’s sons. So what were we to do? We gave him a potato. Older children never begged, probably their mother told them not to, but younger ones always asked for food. It was hard to see this. Alapayevsk was a town near Sverdlovsk where members of the czar’s family were killed, including czarina’s sister Yelizaveta Fyodorovna, but in those years nobody knew about it, this was concealed. It was an industrial town. There were many steel casting and military plants in it. We stayed in Alapayevsk for a year, but I didn’t go to school. I was too weak from hunger. We rented a hallway in an overcrowded apartment.
I have no memories about the days when the war began. I remember that later, standing round a corner I thought: ‘What if I catch a spy?’ I was stupid and didn’t understand anything. And I thought: ‘What is it like when bombs begin falling all of a sudden I wonder.’ I didn’t know a thing about the war and what we were up to. I understood that something terrible happened, but I didn’t apply it to myself. Nothing was going to happen to me and my life could not be terrible.
I had no idea that there was to be a war and was quite indifferent about a treaty between the USSR and Germany [18]. Only my nanny Anna Dormidontovna spoke in agitated manner turning to Stalin’s portrait. I need to mention here that there was a portrait of Stalin in every family. ‘What are you doing, what are you doing? Why are you shipping them all our wheat and giving them our bread?’ (She meant fascists). The nanny stayed with us until the war and during the war she left us.
Then my school sent me to the best and biggest pioneer camp ‘Artek’ in the Crimea [1200 km south of Moscow] on the shore of the Black Sea. I liked this camp very much. It was a model camp and lots of funds were allocated in it. There was good food and we had beautiful uniforms, there ere interesting children and at the end of our term we had a party around a big fire. There was a Kabardinian boy in the camp and he was a symbol of Artek. Kabardinians are backward mountainous people. Even now only few of them have education and it was symbolic that their boy came to this wonderful camp. We even sang song about him in Artek. During holidays he rode a horse and it was beautiful. We also arranged amateur concerts and sang songs. There was a piano in the camp. We sang pioneer and other songs. Some children sang, some danced and it was nice and joyful. I sat at the seashore gathering seashells. I brought home a suitcase full of seashells.
I didn’t face any anti-Semitism before the war and my mother didn’t either. There were many Jews at the university where my mother studied.
My mother believed in communist slogans and tried to convert me to her views, but she failed. I was passive and somewhat deferred. Maybe it was because I was often ill. Besides, it was something not for me. She started a few times when I was an adult: ‘Why don’t you join the Party? Life would be easier for you. You have an antisocial position.’ But she understood that if somebody didn’t want something, then it didn’t make sense to force this person. So it all went past me.
I didn’t join Komsomol. Here is what happened. It’s not that I was some hero or something. I was sickly and at the time when my classmates joined Komsomol I was ill. Nobody asked me about it or mentioned it afterward and I wasn’t quite eager to touch upon this subject. I was an active pioneer at my previous school. I was very interested in pioneer movement and believed it was something interesting. Once I went to a pioneer meeting. So I came there and listened. One speaks looking into his notes, then another one does the same – how dull. So by the time I returned home I stopped being an active pioneer. Something broke up in me. I wasn’t interested in public movements since then.
I would like to say that this music school added a lot to my spiritual education, even though I didn’t feel quite comfortable there since I was sort of backward. I often went to the Bolshoy Theater [17] and to concerts at the conservatory, we were given free tickets. Besides, I studied with talented children and enjoyed talking to them. There were no conflicts in our class and children behaved themselves. They just didn’t have time for fooling around. In the morning we had music classes and studied theory and at 2 our general classes began. Therefore, there was a good atmosphere in class and we had nice teachers who were selected by special requirements.
There were many Jews. Everywhere. It was some sort of a ‘Jewish Zoo’. There were 18 children in my class, but only 12 attended classes regularly. Some were ill and others had other reasons. It was the end of the 1930s [15]. This was the period of arrests of their fathers and there were children of ‘enemies of the people’ [16] in my class. Their fathers were in jail or had been executed, but they didn’t have a status of turncoats in the class. They studied like everybody else and we were all equal.
I went to school in 1932. I went to a preparatory “zero” class. I finished this zero and 3 primary forms in this district school and then my mother sent me to the 4th form at the preparatory department of Central Music School at Moscow Conservatory. My initial audition went well and they admitted me to their piano class, but then it turned out that my hands were not technical enough.
Some time later after my father died my mother entered the History Department of Moscow University. My mother liked history much. At first her co-students who were young girls, gave her a hostile reception since she was a mature woman already. I was 9 years old then. Those girls sniffed and chuckled about me, but then my mother somehow happened to become a head student of her course. They called her ‘our Mom’. She was awarded a Stalin’s stipend [Editor’s note: Stalin’s stipend was awarded to most advanced college and university students].
Four years later my mother received a room in a communal apartment [14] in Moscow where we lived until 1966.
We didn’t have a place to live and our nanny went to work for other people. We lived out of town. I liked it there. There was a wooden house, so mysterious, in the woods. There were pine trees. We rented this “izba” hut, but then my mother was accommodated in a hostel and so was my father. They lived in different rooms on different floors and since children were not allowed to stay in hostels there were always problems with my presence there. My mother lived with some girls in her room and I was with them. Later I went to a kindergarten. Children could stay there overnight, but it turned out, this was not for me. I was withering away there. Nobody actually looked after me or how I ate there. Our family was poor. Then my parents got another room and there was a student girl living there with us. She was a stranger living with us. I remember my father asking her: ‘Sonia, I need to get dressed. Turn away, please’. We lived in this room until 1938. In 1934, before my father defended his diploma, they convinced him to go to Irkutsk [4120 km east of Moscow] to become production manager of a big plant.
My father entered Moscow College of Light Industry. My mother also entered this college after finishing a rabfak [13] school.