Outspoken Soviet Poet Makes Waves in East and West

He was a house guest of Picasso and Chagall.

He was a protege of Pasternak, and a plague on the house of Khrushchev.

He dines with Armand Hammer and Dennis Hopper.

He has the entire Soviet Union--by extension, the whole world--dancing on a tightrope.

And he can’t get a bowl of fish soup.

Andrei Voznesensky, poet, philosopher, boat-rocker, has no use for the menu.

“Something light,” he rumbles to the waiter in a coffee shop of the Beverly Hills Comstock. (Voznesensky’s voice rumbles naturally, like a far-off thunderstorm moving across the Steppes.) “Some soup. Fish?”

“Shrimp cocktail,” suggests the waiter.

“Cocktail? Too early,” the poet says. “You have soup, no?”

“Tomato soup.”

“Is cold or hot?”

“Hot.”

Voznesenky shrugs, ladles something pink and prepared into the mouth that roared.

He cocks an eyebrow over a blue orb that’s seen it all, possibly even Heinz’s tomato soup.

Borscht it’s not.

Andrei (“In Russia they call me just Andrei; they never set poet above poor man”) shouldn’t be here at all, here in America.

“It’s a hot time at home,” he says. “My family called me yesterday and said, ‘Andrei, we need you.’ I’m only here, very quickly, for the book tour.” Henry Holt has just published “An Arrow in the Wall” ($22.95), a collection of poetry and prose that is startling in its resonance, even in English.

There are readings across the country. Nothing, though, like the packed stadia in the Soviet Union, where Andrei has been hotter than Madonna for more than 30 years. Or like Paris, where Pierre Cardin opened his personal theater to Andrei, followed by Champagne at Maxim’s. Nor London, where Andrei’s Goudonov-ish basso dueled Olivier and Scofield to a tie.

No such triumphs in America, but increasing enthusiasm. At UCLA last week, auditors kept Voznesensky reciting their favorites until long past his allotted time. Still, these were the cognoscenti, not exactly “the people.” It troubles Andrei (though not unduly) that in America, his poetry-- any poetry--has the approximate public appeal of lacrosse.

“In Russia,” the poet muses, “I was treated like rock star. I was younger. I began to think of myself as a prophet. It went to my head. Then Khrushchev cut it off. . . . “

But “It’s hot back home now,” he repeats. Indeed it is.

Spearheaded by Voznesensky, and at least tacitly abetted by Chairman Gorbachev, Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago” probably will be published this year. Nabokov too. Chagall’s works will be on display for the first time. (Chagall, not incidentally, is a Jewish emigre.)

“People will question,” Andrei says, his eyes sparkling in anticipation of another challenge to the Establishment--or perhaps it’s simply a reflection of the pink soup.

“They will read this wonderful ‘Zhivago,’ and they will ask, ‘Why haven’t we been allowed to read this for 30 years?’ They will see Chagall’s beautiful paintings and they will ask, ‘Why haven’t we seen this? It was painted 70 years ago!’ ”

Other questions have been asked of late, with Voznesensky posing a fair share.

He tells a vivid tale, at once horrific and hopeful, of a mass grave recently discovered in the Crimea.

“The Germans had killed 12,000 Jews and buried them in a ditch. No gold teeth stolen; they were in a hurry. Nobody knows the place but one policeman, who cooperated

with the Germans.

“Two years ago he sold the secret to a group of ordinary Soviet people: a physician, workers, an engineer, a pregnant young woman. They begin to dig and break skulls and take golden teeth.

“They were caught by police. It was secret trial; nobody knows. Not one line in press. The authorities, they do nothing to them. Even this doctor of medicine now is working in Moscow.

“I come to this place last year. Two fresh holes, with skulls; small children’s boots with bones inside; even hair still with hair ribbon.

“I was shocked. It was not Auschwitz by movie or book. I saw it myself.

“I write long poem, about Chernobyl, our corruption, the grave. Some of my friends steal documents of the trial. I published poem and documents in a magazine last summer. Three million copies were sold. They reopened the case for this.

“One year ago, it was impossible to even think these things. Maybe not arrested, but terrible time. Even now, I know the magazine director was brave guy. He didn’t even ask authorities. So it’s changing. I don’t know personally Gorbachev, but I think somebody around him read this poem and said, ‘It’s OK.’ ”

The visitor from Russia smiles, at his audacity and its acceptance, but bristles when asked if a poet would be permitted to criticize the occupation of Afghanistan.

“I have not seen such a poem,” he says shortly. (Then, parenthetically, “I’m sure that this war has to be finished as shortly as possible.”)

Yet he has written: “For an artist true-born/ revolt is second nature:/ he is both tribune/ and troublemaker.”

It is an apparent paradox, then, that Andrei Voznesensky has remained in a country that historically does not tolerate troublemakers, real or imagined.

“Some who have emigrated judge me,” he concedes. “But I do not judge them.

“All my life belongs to a higher thing named poetry: my head, my heart, even my legs.

“And I think that if my people are in trouble, I have to be among them.

“In Russia, a poet is special. For them, you have to be good, not a bastard. Because they trust you. They buy your book not only for the fine lines but because of the trust.

“If you leave them, they forgive you, but they will not be happy.

“During present times, I can say-- nearly the truth. Before, I could say part of truth. So they know part of truth anyway, which is better than no truth. But if I leave country. . . . “

Andrei Voznesensky warms again as he recalls Khrushchev, his old adversary. “He wanted me to leave the country. He tell me, ‘You want to make another Hungary, in Russia!’

“I thought to myself--maybe was overly dramatic--’If I go, I’ve committed suicide. I am nothing if not a poet.’ ”

Rather than endure the ritual “self-criticism,” the poet disappeared, “to a country town. Nobody knows where I am, not even my mother.”

Khrushchev was ousted, Voznesensky returned, Khrushchev apologized. “He said, ‘Somebody lied to me.’ ”

Andrei chortles--you have never heard a chortle until you have heard a Russian chortle--in recollection of a pet Khrushchev pose: scowling peasant face, gesticulating arm high in the air. “I always saw that high right hand as pulling a toilet chain. He was pulling chain on me !”

Out on the freeway now, Andrei Voznesenksy is being driven to a radio interview at KGIL in the San Fernando Valley. It is a gorgeous California afternoon, clear, halcyon, with a hint of orange in the air.

Andrei, 52, is told that during his boyhood, the entire valley was an orange grove. He looks about him, enthralled, sniffs out the window.

“When I was kid they were bombing Moscow,” he says. “Before war, we collect stamps. Then I start to gather pieces of bomb. I had great collection.

“After, we run away to Siberia. Nothing to eat, even no bread. We ate what cows are eating. They pressed it, made it hard so we could chew it. It was good. A potato was a real treat.

“But an orange in Siberia? I saw once an orange. I smelled it. It was like paradise.”

On the way back, Voznesensky, relaxed, studies the faces of American passersby, as if probing for a sea change.

“Russians love Americans even now,” he says. “You go to the streets and it is ‘Ah, American! Hi! Hello!’ We love your type of people.

“Americans like Russians less now, I think. In the ‘60s when I came here there was some sympathy. But now is different. I sense a fear.

“I go to ‘Rambo’ movie, alone with a friend. It was primitive, stupid, maybe small fun.

“The audience was kids, teen-agers. Suddenly they begin to shout, ‘Kill them! Kill them!’ ‘Them was Russians, but they look like German fascists, torturing with electricity. They are all shouting. I had feelingthat they would kill me . . . . “

The conversation drifts, to earthy, off-the-record talk: of women in particular and oranges in general.

There is speculation as to how the various leaders of yesteryear would have fared in the TV Age. (Stalin, Voznesensky says, never would have made it: “His speech was awful. Terrible Georgian accent. Like Carter, no? That’s why Stalin’s speeches were so short. And so was he. Short. Not a heroic type.

(“Hitler would never have led his country. He was hypnotic in the concert hall, but his gestures! Even in the movie it’s funny!”)

Finally, good talk, serious talk, about the barriers that divide our respective peoples and how to dismantle them.

The computers worry Andrei. “They don’t see the faces,” he says.

“It’s not even the ridiculous cliches--America as ‘center of imperialism’; Russia as ‘evil empire.’ People can cut through this in time. Computers can’t. Computers can’t look into people’s eyes . . . . “

“I had a strong dream once,” he says. “I am running through a place looking for a button. The button.

“Finally, in last room I find it. I rip it off the wall--wires, electricity, everything. The sparks fly. . . . “

With Andrei Voznesensky, they always do.