I was perhaps oversensitive to the auditory aspects of different languages (it was no accident that later on I became interested in such related subjects as phonetics, phonology, and likewise in voice production). But an awareness of language in general was something I shared with all my close friends. When making a new acquaintance I could usually find out whether we had common ground from the very first words he spoke. To paraphrase Shaw, in modern Russia the moment a man opens his mouth it becomes clear precisely what measure of scorn he deserves from another speaker. But even so, the richness and variety of pre–Revolutionary Russian speech has never wholly disappeared.

Soviet totalitarianism failed to take into account the subversive potential of the Russian language. To be logically consistent, those in power should have instituted some kind of Orwellian newspeak while abolishing the living language and making its use an indictable offense. But the Soviet leaders permitted—and in many cases even encouraged—the reading of the Russian classics. This was done mainly in order to legitimize the transition from the old regime to the new and thus to gain the support of the intelligentsia. But, having allowed the continuing circulation of the classics, the authorities opened the door to a comparison between the depth, beauty, and integrity of these writings and the shoddy barbarism of what was taking their place. When I was seventeen I wrote down in my notebook two quotations I wished to remember. One from Tolstoy: “Try to do your duty, and you will at once discover your own worth.” The other was from Chekhov: “You cannot be deprived of your honor—it can only be lost.” The Soviet authorities should have forbidden such phrases: they teach a man to think for himself. This encouragement to think does even more harm to the system than any quotations from the classics on the subject of liberty, such as these lines from Pushkin: