Feature: Theatre - Bernard Kops's new play on life of Russian writer - Whatever happened to Isaac Babel? at The Jewish Museum

Published: 21 October 2010
by DAN CARRIER

THE documents made for chilling reading. Writer Bernard Kops held in his hand the typescripts of an interrogation of one of his heroes, Russian Isaac Babel (pictured), who had not committed a crime as such, except to be blessed with a glorious imagination.

But it was this talent that had landed him shackled in a deep and grimy dungeon beneath the infamous Lubyanka prison in Moscow. In front of him were Stalin’s thugs, torturing him, beating him, to get information that he could not possibly reveal as he did not possess it: he was simply being slowly murdered because he was a writer, and one the regime deemed was not sufficiently politically in tune with their aims.

Bernard, who lives in West Hampstead and whose poetry and plays on the Jewish East End have become seminal works on the topic, has now turned his pen towards the story of the life and death of one of his literary heroes and inspirations.

His story is shocking and has provided a mine of inspiration. The Soviet authorities got him to confess to a “creative impotence” that prevented him publishing any thing of any significance for years and he was found guilty of “deliberate sabotage and a refusal to write”. To make matters worse, he was forced to confess being a member of a Trotskyite organisation. The confession he signed is covered in bloodstains.

“He was a wonderful writer,” says Bernard.

“Gorky thought he was as good as Chekhov.”

Bernard first discovered the writer 30 years ago but as with so much Russian literature of the mid-20th century, the true story of his life emerged relatively recently as previously unseen files held by the KGB came to light. “His stories about the civil war were marvellous, and frightening, and dark,” he says.

But while Bernard has enjoyed Babel’s works, it was his demise that became the starting point for the play. “What made me want to write the play was his disappearance. He was thrown into the Lubyanka, and when the prison was opened up, in the archives all that happened to him came out,” says Bernard. “I managed to get hold of the notes on his interrogations and that is the starting point for the play.”

Stalin had had his eye on the writer for some time.

“Gorky was his protector but then when he died, they could get their revenge on Babel.” 

Bernard has long been an admirer of Russian literature. His particular influences are the works of Vassily Grossman, the Red Army reporter who followed the Soviet’s battles against the Nazis and covered the siege of Leningrad and then watched and chronicled the way his fellow countrymen pushed the German army back through eastern Europe. 

“This period of writing was kept from us for so long, for so many years, and it has come out properly in the past 10 years,” he says.

He was fortunate enough to have in-laws who were originally from Odessa and Riga – their bookshelves were stacked with Russian literature, which helped capture the voice of Babel. “They had a great collection of Russian literature,” he recalls. “It was like walking through a garden stacked with beautiful works, every tree a masterpiece.”

• Whatever happened to Isaac Babel? is to be performed at The Jewish Museum, Albert Street, NW1, on Sunday October 24, at 7pm.