Anna Gretas 1963 article about Vladislav Krasnovs defection. It was just translate from Swedish with his comments. He Sought Freedom “PORTRAITS of the 1960s” By A[nna]. G[reta]. [Backman] What does a defector seek? As the phenomenon of defection during the 1960s has become increasingly common, the question arises: Why does he or she voluntarily leave the motherland, home, family, friends, work,…while knowing that they can never return? In a twist of fate a “Nils Holgersson” has just landed in my living room in Stockholm. He gazes searchingly around the room, inspects the lines of bookshelves, and then walks toward a window to admire a panoramic view of the city lights. But he is not that boy with flaxen hair sticking out from under a red hood with a tassel. No, he is a young man with a butch haircut, fashionable pants, and blazer over a nylon shirt. He looks like a young scholar – his gaze, somewhat diffuse, he turns sharp and clear in a second when he is about to explain why he has landed here. Like Nils Holgersson, he is a traveler. But he flew here not on a goose’s back, but on a Soviet passenger jet. And unlike Nils, he has no hope of ever seeing his mother and father again. Vladislav Krasnov is a Russian intellectual with a Moscow State University degree comparable to the Swedish Master’s. At 25 he is a journalist and editor of the of the Swedish language division of Moscow Radio’s broadcasts in foreign languages. After years of solitary thinking and qualms of conscience, he has left his country and his parents. Nils Holgersson is not just a literary device to make this article more interesting for Swedish readers. Nils Holgersson is part and parcel of his psychological make-up. When he was barely five, the book about a boy’s travel on the back of a goose was given to him by his mother. The book made such an impression on him, he says, that it must have influenced his defection. When his mother read aloud about the wonderful journey, he had no idea of the country where it had happened. But a journey across a country over green meadows, deep forests, royal castles and statue-like kings was so wonderland that it aroused his spirit of adventure and longing for traveling around in the world. A MODEL SOVIET YOUTH He is native of Perm in the Ural Mountains. It lies on the banks of the Kama River, Volga’s biggest tributary. In 1723 at the end of the Great Northern War, a Swedish officer, captured by the Russians, founded a copper smelting foundry there which became the seed of Perm, now an important industrial center. Vladislav grew up in a middle-class family with four children. Family life was unusually harmonious. I do not think there are many such happy couples across Russia”, says Vladislav in a praise of his parents. He matured ahead of his time and was a gifted student. He learned to read and write from his brother, a couple of years his senior. He is also grateful to his elder sister, five years his senior. He still remembers the fascination he felt seeing her history text-book featuring an Egyptian pharaoh’s battle carriage. The children were given a strict communist upbringing. The first words little ”Vladik” wrote, after “mom” and “dad”, were Lenin and Stalin. While his parents worked, he was at a day care center where the walls were decorated with Lenins and Stalin’s portraits. First in his class, he was a model Soviet youth, a member of the Pioneers and then the youth organization Komsomol. Upon graduation from high-school, he was awarded a gold medal which guaranteed his enrollment at Moscow University, the Mecca of the Soviet educational pyramid. As his interests ranged over all the humanities, he chose the History Department with a concentration in ethnology. Now he learned what country Nils Holgersson lived in. And his history studies uncovered other connections to Scandinavia. In the Icelandic sagas he read about the Vikings’ eastward drive reaching the enchanted land of Biarmia (Bjarmaland)– assumed to be somewhere in the Perm region. In literature he learned to admire Ibsen and Kierkegaard. For his diploma thesis he chose “History of the Northern Peoples” written by Olaus Magnus, the last Catholic archbishop of Sweden who was forced to free to Rome. Learning the Swedish language, he made the Lenin Library borrow a volume from the Royal Library in Stockholm. When we hand him a volume of Magnus’ History from our bookshelf, he is delighted. LONGING TO TRAVEL In fact, Vladislav had traveled in the USSR more than the majority of Soviet people. Even as a student he took part in several ethnographic expeditions sponsored by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. With his own eyes, he saw that the official Soviet propaganda line was far from the reality. Even as a school boy in Perm, he began to look critically at all they preached. He felt uncomfortable, as his “heresy” seemed a betrayal of everything his parents and friends believed in. But his qualms of conscience had no outlet. He knew that one could not confide such things to anyone. All he could do was ask his parents not to love him too much, for someday he might make them very disappointed. His longing– the longing that we find so sound and right in our youth – grew stronger and stronger. Thoughts of defection began to burrow in his brain. It was not just the geographic enclosure, or the material difficulties that bothered him. Nor was it the many prohibitions which troubled everyday life – you must not dance the twist, you shall not go dressed in jeans and a thousand other such small things that effected his decision. It was not even the emotional romantic drive to break out of his shell. Vladislav was too mature for that. Through his defection, he wanted to challenge the spiritual and ideological entrapment of his homeland. He wanted people to have the right to see with their own eyes what the world and the truth are all about. WE MUST GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER After graduation from the University, he joined the foreign department of Moscow Radio broadcasting system. His degree ensured him a teaching position at a high school or university, but his new job at the hub of the Soviet world-wide propaganda system was a lot more prestigious. It also secured him far better earnings, which were not unimportant as he had duties to his parents who had supported his studies. As a university student he read some foreign newspapers, but only those of Communist orientation. His job at the radio gave him access to new sources. From Swedish newspapers he now learned about life in Sweden: that all retired Swedes got a basic pension; that all school children got free school meals; as well as about numerous other social benefits in this welfare society. Most of all, he was impressed that the “capitalist country”, as it was billed in the USSR, allowed Communists to publish their own newspaper “Ny Dag” (New Day). In October 1962, he got the opportunity to join a group of the USSR-Sweden Friendship Society on a tour of Sweden. As he wanted to see the country to get a clearer picture, he stayed with the group to the last day. Only then did he decide to flee the group and apply for asylum. We live in the age of the nuclear bomb, but the spirit of mutual ignorance is truly terrifying. Mankind has seen the back side of the Moon; we are probing the surface of Mars and flirting with Venus. And yet we are not even allowed to see the face of our Earth. Unless we do it, we shall destroy ourselves. Therefore I wish to encourage all those who plan to cross the border; I wish them courage and fortitude. He seems a withdrawn and reclusive human being. But his defection has attracted attention, as he called a press conference in order to explain his action. “I feel my responsibility not only for my country, but for all countries, which is why I wanted to speak today. Otherwise my defection makes no sense,” he explained. “I thrive in Sweden. Sure, I may yet encounter disappointments. But what I have seen so far has confirmed the view I had of your country. Simply speaking, I found freedom here.” OUR GUIDE IN MOSCOW Vladislav is not completely unknown to us. We met him the first time last summer [1962] during a tourist trip to Moscow. After all, Moscow is one of the worlds most important points. It was fascinating to see something of life there, even if the language barrier prevented us from making better contact with the people. But, like anywhere in the world, we got by with sign language – even if one cannot discuss substantial topics with that. Vladislav was our Swedish-speaking guide. But we had no idea we had met a “Nils Holgersson” then. What we saw was a young man who took the combined job of radio reporter and our guide with all due seriousness. A young scholastic man, he did not impose himself. He always inquired if he could help us or show us something more. And we were grateful to receive this help, as our Russian language skills were not older than the beginning of the tour. Even Russian letters on billboards and metro stations looked like hieroglyphics. Together we went on a tour of the University the center tower of which was visible from far over the city – which itself spread out mile after mile along the curves of the Moscow River. Together we saw “Ivans childhood,” a fine Russian film, which had already successfully premiered in Stockholm. We went to Gorky Park. We even made it to Lenins crypt. As tourists, we were privileged not to stand in the long line that meandered for several miles from Revolution Square to the Red Square ziggurat, a Mausoleum where Lenin now rests alone. A wax-like figure with a gentle smile on his lips, he looks all but inaccessible. It is hard to imagine that once this was an intensively living human being. He’s the Soviet national God – a substitute for the God in whom one no longer may believe? WANT TO SEE MORE OF THE WESTERN WORLD Vladislav came to see us off when we departed from the Moscow railroad station on the Leningrad Express. As expected, we said “Pa oterseende,” “Do svidania” and “We will write sometime”. But it did not happen. Each day has so many tasks that must be completed, that good intentions are never fulfilled. One evening in February, I hear the telephone ring and a man’s voice: “Vladislav here. Do you remember me? We met last summer in Moscow. I have gotten asylum in Sweden... Can we meet? Unless you don’t want me to destroy your house of cards?” We were able to talk about so little the last time we met in Moscow. We were reserved Swedes who met a reserved Russian. This is a feature that Vladislav shares with us Swedes – he’s aloof. He did not know what to think about us or why we came to Moscow. We did not know about his attitude to things, but thought we knew. So there had been no discussion of serious problems that must have burned on both sides. Now we were full of excitement expecting to see Vladislav again. We met a completely different human being: open, calm and clear, with a strong and vibrant idealism…a human being who has taken his life into his own hands. The defection took place without much external drama. In the crush of last minute shopping at a department store in Stockholm, he snuck away from his fellow travelers who needed his help with Swedish. Running out into the street, he caught a taxi cab and commanded it to “naesta polis stationen”. Paying his last five crowns, he entered the police station and requested refuge. For the next three weeks he was being interrogated before the Royal Commission decided in his favor. As he had no money to stay in a hotel, he accepted the police offer to stay in a temporary prison. The most testing time came when Soviet Embassy officials came to see him in prison in order to convince him to change his mind. They kept reminding him of how difficult it would be for a Russian to get adapted to the outside world. “On the whole, it was a good time,” says Vladislav of his time in prison. He praised his interrogators for letting him read Swedish newspapers and for buying him fresh fruits when prison food became too dull. But now he does not want to immerse himself in the past; he wants to look forward. He speaks of home in Gothenburg . Thanks to a scholarship, he can continue his studies at the university there. To complement his daily budget, he found a packing job at a department store. Now he is deep in his studies in order to earn a Swedish degree. He finds student life is calmer here than in Moscow. One has only a few lectures a week, while at Moscow University there were as many on one a day. The rest of the time a student is supposed to study on his own. He has made a few good friends with whom he can discuss serious matters. He corresponds with a number of young people in other countries. For relaxation he goes to student parties where he can feely dance the twist. He does not know yet if he will take root in Sweden. After all, he has been here only a few months. He certainly hopes to see more of the Western world. His supreme desire is to see people of all countries getting to know each other – without running the risk of being called traitors. A. G.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 09:49:15 +0000
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