“A New Appointment” by Alexander Beck: the novel that killed the author

November 2, 1972 in Moscow at the age of 69 died the author of the famous “Volokolamskoye Highway” writer Alexander Beck.

However, Alexander Beck himself considered his main book to be the novel “The New Appointment”, which was published in Russia only 22 years after its completion and 14 years after the death of the author (it was first published in the Znamya magazine, No. 10-11, 1986 G.)

According to the writer’s daughter Tatyana Beck, Alexander Beck’s last years became “a tragic period in his life, a ‘going through the throes’, the purpose of which was to try to stop the persecution of his novel” (quoted from Tatiana Beck’s article “On the History of the Novel”, published in the book: Alexander Bek “New Appointment”, Cheboksary, 1989)

According to the writer’s diaries, work on the novel was completed on October 15, 1964. On this day he writes:

“So, the novel has been handed over to the editors (meaning the editors of the Novy Mir magazine – S.I.) For some reason, it’s sad when a thing with which many, many days that develop in years, you were alone in the morning, built up, turned chapter by chapter, a thing that was yours, only yours – and even more so this one, conceived as yours The main book, or at least the first link of such a book, suddenly leaves you, sets sail, will live on its own, defend itself. (…) When I was cleaning my desk, I came across a page – a list of titles for the novel: Case History No. 2277; Deed, only deed; A man without flakes (a flake is an internal defect in steel, an outwardly invisible “wormhole.” — S.I.); Soldier of Stalin; Soldier.

After all sorts of doubts, he named his offspring “Crash” (the final name “New Appointment” was proposed by the editors of Novy Mir in July 1965 during another attempt at publication. – S.I.) A heavy, discordant word. However, it attracted me with accuracy. Collision is a scientific medical term introduced by I.P. Pavlov. And besides, in the literal sense, a collision is a fight, a collision, a slash, a battle … “

In the evening of the same day, Alexander Beck writes:

“That’s such a surprise. I handed over the manuscript in the afternoon, and now I have learned amazing news: Khrushchev has been removed, removed… Well, okay, let this event become an additional test for the thing. Time, history, will test it in a different way.”

In October 1964, in the editorial office of Novy Mir, then led by Alexander Tvardovsky, Beck’s work was well received.

“In the prose department, my novel was also visited by Asya Berzer (head of the department. — S.I.) (…) She told me:

– I read it with interest. (This is her “with interest” – a great confession). Learned a lot.

How do you like my hero? (the protagonist of the novel is Alexander Leontyevich Onisimov, Chairman of the Committee for Metallurgy and Fuel in the Council of Ministers of the USSR. — S.I.)

– A performer, even a slave. But you still admire him: what a brilliant performer! The era of brilliant performers. And at the top, despotic Stalin.”

However, as Alexander Beck tells in his diary, soon “the serene wanderings of his manuscript ended”: on November 20, 1964, he was summoned by the deputy editor-in-chief Alexander Dementiev and said that they had been approached by the widow of Ivan Fedorovich Tevosyan, who was in charge of black affairs in the first post-war years. metallurgy and the metallurgical industry, and declared indignantly that her husband was brought out in the novel, and “brought out” impartially …

Despite Beck’s assurances that his Onisimov was not Tevosyan at all, but a collective artistic image of the leader of the outgoing Stalinist era, Dementiev was inexorable.

“Dementiev, as they say, got into it and hardly listened to me. Of course, I was taken aback. And not so much by the intervention of the widow, as by the attacks of Dementiev himself. He, usually smart, I just did not recognize. I wonder how it happened that he was thrown off balance like that? Will I ever know this secret? ”- the author writes in the evening of this day.

In the following days and weeks, Beck tries to somehow remake the manuscript in order to calm the angry widow: “I am making various corrections, excluding coincidences that could give reason to look for Tevosyan in Onisimov.”

This humiliating for the author “work on mistakes” lasted until July 1965, and on July 6, the manuscript, read and generally approved by Tvardovsky, was finally handed over to Novy Mir for typesetting. It was then that, by decision of the editors, the name “Sshibka” was replaced by “New Appointment”.

However, already on July 31, the writer receives a letter from Novy Mir, in which it is reported that “higher authorities sent a new statement to the editorial office by O. A. Khvalebnova, Tevosyan’s widow, protesting against the revised version of the novel, in connection with which printing is postponed.”

As the writer’s daughter Tatyana Beck clarifies, in a letter from Tevosyan’s widow, originally addressed to the chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin, it was said that the novel was “filled with monstrous slander.”

Despite everything, Alexander Beck continued to fight for his “General Ledger”, but the same answer came to a series of appeals to the highest authorities – a striking formula proposed by one of the major officials of that time: “Who told you that Beck’s novel prohibited? This novel has never been banned by anyone. It’s just not allowed.”

In 1966, the writer tried to appeal to Brezhnev. In the Writers’ Union and in the Central Committee, Beck was reassured, they promised to move things off the ground. On January 17, 1966, the writer enters in his diary his impressions of the conversation with Georgy Markov, secretary of the board of the Writers’ Union:

“He told me the very first minute I came to him: “In this story, I am entirely on your side.” And about the novel he put it this way: “Here is our heroism and our drama. We need to print, and quickly.

However, Tevosyan’s widow again organized new applications for the highest signatures, and the attempts of the “New World” to score a novel were frustrated again and again. Already on January 16, 1969, Alexander Beck writes in his diary:

“Yesterday I was in the Novy Mir, they got number 12 stuck … The impression is that the slow suffocation continues. And the editors are still breathing. Today I got back the layout from the editor of another thick magazine – the last brushstroke to the whole picture.

According to Beck, this “thick magazine editor” revealed in his letter “something that was somehow kept secret”:

“There are no words, the novel was written by a strong and experienced hand. The basic concept of it seems to us decisively unacceptable. The essence of the novel is that everyone who worked with Stalin and believed in him is historically doomed… This idea is embodied in the image of Onisimov. And, on the contrary, those who were away from the leader or internally doubted him, contain the future of the country. Can we agree with such a philosophy? After all, Stalin was undividedly believed by those who are now over forty, and this is the bulk of the current leaders.

In 1971 Alexander Beck’s novel was published abroad. In November 1972, the writer died without waiting for his publication in his homeland. He was buried at the Golovinsky cemetery in Moscow. The poet Vladimir Kornilov dedicated poignant verses to the farewell ceremony:

“I remember how Beck was buried.
It was November, but the first numbers.
It was cold, but there was no snow.
There was a lot of second meaning.
And Alexander Alfredych lay,
Still not forgetting sorrow
And every speaker was knowledgeable,
But, however, they were silent
And about the layout, and about the scattering,
What is more reliable than poison,
That a man died from a collision,
Although the oncologist spun: from cancer “…

Sergei Ishkov.