Nostalgia and Persecution

"As far as the Soviet authorities are concerned, I simply do not exist." So said the U.S.S.R.'s internationally celebrated film director Andrei Tarkovsky as he announced in Milan last week that he was seeking political asylum in the West. One reason for his decision: Soviet officials had ignored his repeated applications for permission to extend an 18-month working stint abroad. The director, whose wife is with him, said that requests for other members of his family to join him, particularly Son Andrei, 13, had also gone unheeded.

Tarkovsky, 52, was most recently acclaimed in the West for Nostalghia, which won three prizes, including a special award for creative cinema, at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. According to Tarkovsky, Soviet officials tried to have the picture withdrawn from the competition. The dispirited director says that he has been allowed to make only six feature-length films during a 24-year career. Present as Tarkovsky made his emotional announcement were three other famous exiled artists from the Soviet Union: Cellist-Conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, Stage Director Yuri Lyubimov and Writer Vladimir Maximov. All understood Tarkovsky's bitter complaint: "I cannot help but ask why they persecute me so."