Nâzım Hikmet and Stalinist state terror (addendum):

“They were going to kill me!”

In a recent article I published, titled Nâzım Hikmet and Stalinist state terror, I referred to a highly striking anecdote -long overlooked- which suggests that in 1952, during the early years of Nâzım Hikmet’s exile in the Soviet Union, he was targeted for elimination by the Stalinist state apparatus. The anecdote was recounted by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, one of the most internationally renowned figures of Soviet poetry. [*]

After publishing that article, I recalled that a different version of the same anecdote also appears in Zekeriya Sertel’s book Nâzım Hikmet’in Son Yılları (Nâzım Hikmet’s Final Years), which I had read many years ago. Sertel-one of Nâzım Hikmet’s few companions during his years in exile-first published the book in 1978. He therefore recorded this dreadful truth eleven years before Yevtushenko.

In his book, under the subheading “Nâzım: ‘They Were Going to Kill Me’”, Sertel recounts what Nâzım Hikmet personally told him:

According to Nâzım, during Stalin’s era a decision was once even taken to have him physically eliminated. He had recounted this episode to all his acquaintances, myself included. The story is as follows. One day, Nâzım Hikmet’s driver came to him and said that he could no longer continue working and wished to resign. Yet Nâzım treated his driver as a friend: he paid him a generous salary, invited him to his table, and kept him close as a companion. Taken aback by this request, he asked:

“What’s the matter, Ivan? Have we done something to upset you? Is your salary too low?”

The driver, embarrassed and stammering, replied:

“No. But I can no longer work for you.”

“Why?”

“Because…” he said, and fell silent.

It was clear that something was weighing on him. He kept stammering, unable to bring himself to speak.

At last, he blurted it out:

“I’ve been ordered to kill you in a staged car accident. I can’t do it. I care for you too much, so I’m stepping down.” (Zekeriya Sertel, Nâzım Hikmet’in Son Yılları, Remzi Kitabevi, 3rd ed., Istanbul, pp. 192-193.)

At the Budapest radio station, April 1954. Back row (from left to right): Zekeriya Sertel, Nâzım Hikmet, Necil Togay. Front row: Sabiha Sertel, Bianca, Gün Benderli (Togay), unknown, Korolowskiy.

From this account, we can draw the following conclusion: the story -which had likely left a deep and lasting traumatic mark on Nâzım Hikmet- was told not only to Sertel but to many of his acquaintances.

On the other hand, there are several differences between the version recounted by Sertel and Yevtushenko’s account-differences that clearly merit closer attention. Let us briefly consider them.

• In Sertel’s version of the story, neither Yuri Vasilyev nor Yevtushenko -who, in Yevtushenko’s own account, are present when the driver makes his confession- are mentioned. According to Sertel, after learning that he had been instructed to carry out an assassination disguised as a “traffic accident”, the driver refuses to comply, explains the situation to Nâzım Hikmet, and resigns from his post as a result. (Sertel does not give a precise date; however, given that he refers to the incident as having occurred “during Stalin’s era”, and in light of Yevtushenko’s account, it is easy to infer that it must have taken place in 1952. Of course, at that time, it is hardly credible that an ordinary driver could reject such an order-one coming from the very top-and simply walk away without paying any price.) [**]
• In the scene witnessed by Yevtushenko, however, the picture is both far more coherent and far darker. According to this version, the driver received the order directly from Lavrentiy Beria in 1952. (There is little doubt that the instruction itself came from Joseph Stalin.) The driver refused the order and was tortured as a result, yet he did not change his position. His resistance was finally broken only when Beria threatened to have the driver’s wife raped if the order were not carried out. The driver made this confession three years later, in 1955 -after Stalin’s death- while heavily intoxicated.
• The story recounted by Sertel was not an event he personally witnessed; rather, it was an account he wrote down after hearing it directly from Nâzım Hikmet. It is therefore entirely plausible that certain elements were simplified or altered as the story passed from one person to another.
• It is possible that, in recounting the story to Sertel, Nâzım Hikmet deliberately left Yevtushenko and Vasilyev out of the narrative in order to spare them any trouble. Stalin was dead; yet the Stalinist police state continued to exist in full institutional force.
• On the other hand, it is well known-and at times openly acknowledged by Nâzım Hikmet himself-that his memory was weak. By contrast, Yevtushenko appears to have had a far stronger one. It is also known that, in some of his accounts, Nâzım Hikmet made changes that tended to mythologise his own role, and that he sometimes-again, in his own words-told lies without any particular purpose. [***]

Conclusion: The truth remains unchanged

In conclusion, one undeniable fact remains: Nâzım Hikmet -himself a Stalinist, yet one who at times raised his voice, at considerable personal risk, against the practices he witnessed in the Soviet Union and found intolerable- was targeted for elimination by the Stalinist state apparatus in 1952, almost certainly on Joseph Stalin’s verbal order. Owing to a series of delays, and ultimately to Stalin’s death on 5 March 1953, Nâzım Hikmet survived largely as a matter of chance.

[*] Yevgeni Yevtuşenko, " Great Actor - Pity about the Play!", in Romantic Communist: The Life and Work of Nâzım Hikmet, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1999.

[**] Nâzım Hikmet’s failure to mention the driver’s drunkenness when recounting the story to Sertel, and his reshaping of the narrative in a way that suggests the driver took such a grave risk purely for his sake, was likely intended to convey the message: “Do you see how strong a circle of affection and respect I have built around myself?”

[***] A detailed discussion of Nâzım Hikmet’s weak memory, his tendency towards self-mythologisation, and his occasional habit of telling both minor and major lies would lead this article significantly away from its intended focus. For that reason, we confine ourselves here to merely pointing to these traits. Perhaps in the future there will be an opportunity to examine these matters in greater detail. For the time being, let us simply cite three lines from his poem Autobiography, written in 1961, as an illustration: “If I felt shame for someone I lied / I lied so as not to grieve others / but I also lied for no reason” (Nâzım Hikmet, Beyond the Walls: Selected Poems, trans. Ruth Christie, Richard McKane & Talât Sait Halman, Anvil & Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2003, Istanbul, p. 233.)