49. V. Aksenov. Island of Crimea (1977-79). Photocopy of the book from Tamizdat. Not bound, 324 pp., A5.

Aksenov Vasily Pavlovich, автор

03/05/1966 participated in an attempted demonstration on Red Square in Moscow against the alleged rehabilitation of Stalin. He was detained by vigilantes. In 1967-1968 signed a number of letters in defense of dissidents, for which he received a reprimand and entered into his personal file from the Moscow branch of the Union of Writers of the USSR. Back in March 1963, at a meeting with the intelligentsia in the Kremlin, Nikita Khrushchev sharply criticized Aksyonov. And in the 1970s, after the end of the “thaw,” Aksyonov’s works ceased to be published in his homeland. From the very beginning, the novels “The Burn” (1975) and “Island of Crimea” (1979) were created by the author without any expectation of publication. In 1977-1978 Aksyonov's works began to appear abroad, primarily in the USA.
In 1978, together with A. Bitov, V. Erofeev, F. Iskander, E. Popov, B. Akhmadulina, he became one of the organizers and authors of the uncensored almanac “Metropol”. Never published in the Soviet censored press, the almanac was published in the USA. Like all the participants in the almanac, he was subjected to “working”. As a sign of protest against the subsequent exclusion of Popov and Erofeev from the Union of Writers of the USSR in December 1979, V. Aksyonov, as well as Inna Lisnyanskaya and Semyon Lipkin, announced their withdrawal from the joint venture. The history of the almanac is described in the novel “Say “Raisin”.