Radzinsky is really unbelievably fantastic. He makes one feel that Soviet tyranny, for all its awfulness had certain compensations, at least compared with a present one. Here he tells the story of his play about Socrates, which was held up for 6 years by censorship until
unexpectedly a permission was given for it to be performed, with cuts of course. The decision was made by Surkov himself, the no 2 man in the USSR at the time. One reason why a play about Socrates could not be performed because everyone assumed that Socrates was no other than
Andrei Sakharov, although actually Radzinsky meant him to be just …Socrates. And then another writer suggested that Radzinsky should invite Sakharov to the premier performance…This was the time when “the entire Soviet people in unison were demanding that action should be taken
against the servant of the imperialists Sakharov”. Distinguish scientists signed “letters”, which, Radzinsky says, later they would have given for having these signatures removed…
The whole talk is here (in Russian)
The whole talk is here (in Russian)
and like all Radzinsky’s talks, it’s absolutely riveting .
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