Solzhenitsyn
From Dr Konstantin Bazarov
Sir: David Burg (Letters, August 26) blandly assumes that Solzhenitsyn's hostile attitude to the arrg/Feifer biography is based on a misunderstanding of what is actually in the text. But Solzhenitsyn's attacks on Burg and Feifer have been on their whole method of working by collecting coarse secondhand "gossip." The fact that something Burg and Feifer published about Solzhenitsyn two years ago has clearly proved to be untrue is "easily disposed of," claims Burg, producing two extremely curious arguments to perform this conjuring trick.
(1) He and Fiefer were not the only ones to make this particular untrue statement. Is Burg seriously contending that if I tell a lie and am found out, I can "easily dispose of" the charge by saying that someone else told it too?
(2) Burg's second argument is
breathtaking: "Solzhenitsyn changed his mind." But the evidence Burg produces for this is a statement by a Scandinavian newsman, not by Solzhenitsyn himself. Yet Burg then has the effrontery to pat himself on the back for the quality of his ' research ' in picking up this
secondhand statement, and accuses me of not having done my homework. I am afraid that I simply do not share Burg's abysmal standards of evidence, and require something more than statements by X or Y, or even a Scandinavian newsman, before rushing into print' like Messrs Feiferburg with mischievous statements about Solzhenitsyn's intentions, Burg's maniacal arrogance seems to have no bounds, otherwise he might realise that there is only one person in the world who can tell us what goes on in Solzhenitsyn's mind. And that is most emphatically not Mr David-coarse
secondhand-gossip-monger Burg but Solzhenitsyn himself, whose sole contribution to what purports to be a ' biography ' of him has been attacks on Burg and Feifer and their biographical methods.
Burg seems to claim the right to discuss not Solzhenitsyn's work, which is public property, but his personal life and even his thoughts, using as basis for discussion any old rumour or piete of gossip that comes to hand. Obviously Solzhenitsyn's entirely justified protests are quite incapable of penetrating Burg's armour-plated self-satisfaction, but it is surprising that Hodder and Stoughton should be prepared to publish a book of this nature, especially after its original publisher has dropped it. But at least Hodders do seem to have -panicked to the extent of getting it vetted by the mysterious experts.' Isn't it about time that someone from Hodder and Stoughton told us who these ' experts ' are, and what they can possibly have found to say in favour of anything written by that wretcher pair Burg and Feifer?
Konstantin Bazarov 41 Wisteria Road, London SE13
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