Writers, Vonnegut, and the USSR

"Writers, Vonnegut, and the USSR" is an article published in the November 1974 edition of the American PENewsletter on a financial scheme to allow American writers to visit the Soviet Union.

Summary

Nicolai Fedorenko, December 1956

Opening with a letter written to Prof. Nicolai R. Fedorenko—editor of Foreign Literature magazine and member of the Writers' Union—Vonnegut, as vice president of American P.E.N., suggests forming a scholarship so that "American writers of modest means" can travel to the Soviet Union. He proposes funding it using rubles that had been apportion for works by American authors before the USSR joined the International Copyright Convention. American writers often visit Western Europe "at great personal expense" to broaden their outlook on life. However, few can continue further to the Soviet Union, which Vonnegut calls "a tragedy for both our nations". Using the rubles already earned from books by American authors "may be impossibly Utopian", but nevertheless, he asks to whom in the Soviet system to make such an appeal.

Vonnegut follows with reflections on his recent five day trip to Moscow to visit the Russian translator Rita Rait. A meeting with some executives from the Writers' Union and Foreign Literature magazine also gave him information useful to Americans wishing to do business as writers in the Soviet Union. He saw both "an apparent eagerness" as well as clumsiness as they have attempted to comply with the new International Copyright Agreement, although they seem surprised at how little the rights actually cost. In the future writers can hopefully be paid in their own currency, whereas in the past, royalty accounts paid in rubles were kept for two years after each publication and then closed if they were not claimed. Vonnegut's earlier inquires to find out how much he had were left unanswered, but when he arrived for his visit, he found his account had 2500 rubles. By comparison, Rait's monthly old-age pension is 120 rubles.

However, with so much bureaucracy, Vonnegut only received the funds hours before he left, enough time to place it in "a savings bank at 2 per cent interest". These funds can be used for future trips to the Soviet Union, but cannot leave the country. He asked the cultural attaché in Moscow for a list of American works published before the new agreement, but "will be flabbergasted if we get it". However, he is willing to guess that "several hundred thousand rubles" have gone unclaimed since claiming them requires a trip to the Soviet Union. If American authors were allowed to pool together their rubles without a visit, this "respectable fortune" could be used to finance trips by American writers to the U.S.S.R. Vonnegut would "cheerful surrender [his] boodle" for such a worthy cause.