To survive as an artist, writer, or scientist
meant to force creativity where almost no room for it was left.
Under no other regime on Earth did people read so much, listen
to music more intensely, visit museums with more passion, and
care for each other as family, friends, or as human beings,
episodes of brutality notwithstanding. It is too simplistic to
accept the line that people read more in East Europe and the
Soviet Union because they had nothing else to do. The pragmatic
framework was set up under the assumption of permanence,
stability, centrality, and universality founded on literacy.
It goes without saying that the misuse of language (in political
discourse and in social life) played its role in the
quasi-unanimous silent rejection of the system, even more in
silent, cowardly complicity with it. When the literate machine of
spying on the individual fell apart, people saw themselves in
the merciless mirror of opportunistic self- betrayal. The records
will stand as a testimony that writing does not lead only to
Solzhenitsyn's novels, Yevtushenko's poetry, Shoshtakovich's
music, and the romantic Samizdat, but also to putrid words about
others, kin included. The opaqueness of literacy partially
explains why this is possible. Something other than the
opaqueness granted by literacy (i.e., complicity established in
society) explains how it became a necessary aspect of that
society.
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