Reagan Urges Soviet Thaw on Solzhenitsyn, All Artists

President Reagan called today for banished writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn to be published in his homeland and for ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov to again perform in Moscow.

In a 20-minute speech to Soviet writers and cultural figures, Reagan continued his Moscow summit major theme of making all Soviet society, including the arts, more open and liberal.

“We in the United States applaud the new thaw in the arts,” Reagan said of Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s liberal reforms that have allowed long-banished works to be published and once-barred films to be shown.

“We hope to see it go further,” he said. “We hope to see Mikhail Baryshnikov and Slava (Mstislav) Rostropovich, artists Mrs. Reagan and I have seen perform in Washington, perform again in Moscow.

“We hope to see the works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn published in the land he loves.”

Solzhenitsyn, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, was banished in 1974 after battling with Soviet literary authorities who would not publish his writings. The cellist Rostropovich, who helped Solzhenitsyn, also was banished in 1974, and Baryshnikov defected the same year.

Walks in Red Square

Reagan arrived at the Moscow Writers’ House, a turn-of-the-century Masonic lodge, after a walk in Red Square with Gorbachev on the third day of the five-day summit in the Soviet capital.

Unlike his no-nonsense call Monday for greater human rights during a reception with dissidents, Reagan was more relaxed with the writers, movie directors and artists--even trying to explain how he, an actor, became a politician whom the American voters repeatedly elect.

“I’ve had a lot of time and reason to think about my role, not just a citizen turned politician but as an actor turned politician,” he said.

But Reagan kept returning to what has become almost a crusade during the summit, that Gorbachev’s policies keep opening up the Soviet Union.

His call for the publication of Solzhenitsyn touched on one of the most sensitive themes, but approaches have already been made to Rostropovich and Baryshnikov to return and perform in their homeland. Both so far have said no.

Among the guests was Roy Medvedyev, a former dissident historian who has become respectable under Gorbachev after being treated as a non-person for 20 years for his literary works describing Joseph Stalin as a tyrant.