ABSTRACT
On 24 june 1956 Solzhenitsyn was met at the Kazan Station in Moscow by Panin (who had been released from exile in January) and Kopelev. He was immediately recognizable in his worn army greatcoat with flapping skirts, but looked thinner and paler than they remembered, and his skin was tinged with yellow from the radiation treatment. Because of his diet, he was allowed no alcohol, and they could not drink to their reunion, but it was a jolly occasion nonetheless. The ebullient Kopelev burst out at one point, “Guess what? They’re forming a second party.” Only a few short months ago Kopelev had been threatened with eviction from his flat and even from Moscow and had complained to Solzhenitsyn in a letter about the difficulty of adjusting and making friends. But now he was in the swim again and full of the latest news. Of course, it was the wildest of wild hopes, a second party, but Kopelev’s unquenchable optimism and generous imagination made it seem like a genuine possibility. Solzhenitsyn was impressed by what seemed like a general mood of hopefulness and excitement in the capital and by a relaxed freedom of speech that was quite unthinkable in Kok Terek. In Kazakhstan you didn’t even whisper about second parties, let alone talk aloud about them on the station platform.1
