From a response by the Russian literary critic Viktor Shklovsky (1893–1984) to a question by Serena Vitale, during an interview in Moscow in December 1978. Yevgeni Polivanov, who like Shklovsky was a member of the literary group Opoyaz in the 1920s, was accused of spying for Japan and was executed in 1938 during the Stalinist purge. Shklovsky: Witness to an Era, a collection of Vitale’s interviews with the critic, was recently published by Dalkey Archive Press. Vitale is a professor of Russian literature at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, in Milan. Translated by Jamie Richards.

Yevgeni Polivanov had…