"Delo Kravcenko" glazami N.N. Berberovoj

The article offers an analysis of Nina Berberova's book "The Kravchenko case", containing the reports of the trial for defamation started by Victor Kravchenko, a former attaché to the Soviet trade mission to the USA, against the newspaper "Les Lettres françaises". In April 1944 Kravchenko decided to put an end to his ties with his own country and to stay in the Western world. In 1946 the English edition of his book I choose Freedom was published. In 1947, when the book was published in France, an article signed by a mysterious "Sim Thomas" appeared in the "Lettres françaises", where Kravchenko, described as a betrayer and a drunkard, was accused not to be the author of the book, which had arguably been written by American Mensheviks paid by the US intelligence. Berberova followed all the hearings of the trial and published her reports in the weekly newspaper "Russkaja Mysl" (La pensée russe). The narration develops along two main lines, constantly intertwining one another, i.e. the coverage given by the scrupulous and precise journalist and Berberova's personal narration of facts, declaring her right to subjectivity. Through the narration of the hearings, each conceived as a tale in itself, the writer conveys the profound meaning that the trial had acquired for her and for the Russian diaspora, which shared her vision of the Stalinist regime, a vision that raised a sentiment of hostility in several French intellectuals, unresponsive for superficiality, ignorance or reluctance to open up a dialogue with those who were questioning the Soviet authority.