YULI MARKOVICH DANIEL was a Russian poet, translator, and satirical short-story writer who published under the pseudonym Nikolai Arzhak.
Background
He was the son of the prominent Yiddish writer Mark Daniel, who fought in the Russian Revolution and passionately championed the ideal of freedom for the common man. In his writings, the common man was invariably his hero. This endeared him to the first generation after the revolution.
Yuli Daniel grew up with this same commitment to his country and revolutionary ideas.
Education
At age eighteen he fought in World War II, until he was critically wounded and disabled. In 1946, he had sufficiently recovered to continue his education at Kharkov University and the Moscow Province Teachers’ Training College. He graduated in 1951 and began his teaching career.
Career
Late in the 1950s, he forsook teaching literature and turned to his first love — writing. He began to develop as a poet in his own right and at the same time successfully translated poetry from Ukrainian, Armenia, the Balkan languages, and Yiddish, becoming known as one of the foremost poetic translators in the country.
However, his favorable position lasted only about eight years. It ended abruptly in 1965 when Daniel and his good friend Andrei Sinyavsky were arrested for allegedly publishing seditious works. Until that time Daniel was virtually unknown outside his own country. He had smuggled three short stories and a short novel out of the country for publication. “Hands,” “Atonement,” and “The Man from Minap” as well as his most famous work, "This Is Moscow Speaking", were published under the pseudonym Nikolai Arzhak. Although the works had already appeared, it was the trial itself that made Daniel and Sinyavsky internationally famous.
The two authors’ writings were alleged to be anti-Soviet, aimed at subverting the regime. The trial was unusual in that it marked the first time artists were tried for their actual works as opposed to other political or “subversive” deeds. During the hearing, which lasted four days, the authors were accused of being the incarnate version of the characters they had created.
That may have been true in part in the case of Daniel’s "This Is Moscow Speaking", where the nov el’s hero, like Daniel himself, is a war veteran. However, the prosecution gave the piece a different meaning from the one Daniel intended.
"This Is Moscow Speaking" depicts a day which the Kremlin declares a “Public Murder Day.” On the specified day all citizens over the age of sixteen have the right to murder any other citizen, with the exception of certain categories such as police and army. Before the said day, the hero ponders the hate in his own heart and who would be worthy of revenge. But into his musings crash the memories of death around him on the battlefield and these ideas jolt him back to reality. The murder day in general is a fiasco, with very few people actually being killed.
Daniel maintained that his tale was opposed to murder and to state terror, but the prosecution claimed it advocated murder. In the end, Daniel was sentenced to five years in prison, receiving a lighter sentence than Sinyavsky, who received a seven-year sentence.
Daniel served his term in a labor camp and Vladimir prison, one of the worst in the Soviet Union. He was released after serving exactly five years. He left prison with a broken spirit. He was refused permission to return to Moscow to live, a banishment he accepted. He settled ninety miles outside of the capital and became a petty clerk, writing poetry and translating.