ABSTRACT
The term “exit file” is a purely Soviet, bureaucratic one. It calls for an untarnished biography, without any doubts regarding parents, family, friends, loyalty to the regime, submissive behavior, or trustworthiness. Opportunities to cross Alexander Russia’s borders unvetted were eliminated during Ivan the Terrible’s reign. Applied to Pushkin, the fable explains that his yearning for Europe was due to his lack of usefulness, which is amusing, certainly. There were several reasons for this limitation: apprehension that foreign beliefs would penetrate into the country, causing heresy; that, having discovered freedom abroad, anyone returning would be dissatisfied with serfdom in the motherland; and, finally, the all-too-frequent conversion of travelers into defectors. In the first half of the nineteenth century in Russia, the right to travel freely—secured in legislation that could be appealed to in case of conflict —didn’t exist.
