Tag #148644 - Interview #95166 (Semyon Vilenskiy)

After rehabilitation [32] I went back to Moscow before the new 1957 Year. Soon I began to publish my works. I could not have my poems published since their themes did not fit the Soviet publication rules. I translated poems by national authors having line by line translation and wrote reviews. My university friends taught me this job and published the poems under their names since not a single Soviet publication would dare to publish the author, who had been in jail 8 years under a political conviction. They gave me money for these publications. Some time later I learned to translate poems as skillfully as they did it. The ‘Soviet writer’ publishing house sent me to Nalchik in the Caucasus. The Balkarian people were returning from exile [33]. My friend Golubkov and I translated the book ‘Balkarian poets’. This was the period in my life, when I earned my living by translating poems and writing review.