ABSTRACT
Raisa Orlova delivered the manuscript to Navy Mir in mid-November 1961, immediately after the holiday, with strict instructions that it be passed directly to Tvardovsky. A few days earlier Natalia had bought a copy of Tvardovsky's latest narrative poem, Distant Horizons, and Solzhenitsyn had been admiring the author's political frankness and artistic skill. Kondratovich had more praise for the story but was also pessimistic about its publication chances. He now settled down to prepare the story about Matryona for publication, toning it down a little and cutting out some of the sharper comments, and on 26 December returned to Moscow to deliver these things to Tvardovsky. Khrushchev’s weakness was masked, however, by feverish activity both at home and abroad. Grossman’s novel resurfaced and reached the West almost twenty years later in circumstances that were even more dramatic than its disappearance.
