Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Anne C. Heller [264]
first glimpse of the New York skyline: One of the films she may have seen was The Lights of New York, a 1922 Fox Film Corporation production. The brother of her second cousin Burt Stone’s first wife, Sarah Stone, was a cellist in the Fox Studio Orchestra in Hollywood. According to Susan Belter, the great-granddaughter of Burt and Sarah Stone, AR knew of this cellist and saw him onscreen, sitting in the orchestra pit, in at least one movie she viewed in Russia (Russian Writings on Hollywood, p. 9; author interview with Susan Belter, October 24, 2006).
nonsense, or “applesauce”: “Woman Novelist Reveals Soviet Tyranny’s Horror,” New York American, June 15, 1936.
Her enthusiasm for America: Russian Writings on Hollywood, p. 9.
“Atlantis”: the ideal existence: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”
Lenin had been preoccupied: Passage Through Armageddon, p. 465.
Diseases of dirt and poverty: A People’s Tragedy, pp. 784–85.
becoming an informant against fellow students: “Woman Novelist Reveals Soviet Tyranny’s Horror.”
Candid speech was dangerous: St. Petersburg, p. 335–39.
Leonid Konheim joined them: St. Petersburg address rolls, Central Archive.
cakes made of potato peelings: EOWTL, p. 72.
carrot greens, coffee grounds, and acorns: “Russian Girl Jeers at Depression Complaint,” Oakland Tribune, October 7, 1932, p. 9.
her one party dress: EOWTL, p. 74.
her eminent professor N. O. Lossky: Archive of the St. Petersburg FSB Office, archival file 14493, concerning criminal case 1625. See also Leslie Chamberlain, The Philosophy Steamer: Lenin and the Exile of the Intelligentsia (London: Atlantic Books, 2006).
On Mme. Stoiunina’s arrest: Archive of the St. Petersburg FSB Office, archival file 14493, concerning criminal case 1625.
the university announced the largest purge: The Russian Radical, p. 92.
She was one of four thousand students expelled: EOWTL, pp. 62–63.
“young girls and boys I knew”: Current Biography Yearbook 1982, (New York: H. W. Wilson), p. 332.
“not fulfilling academic requirements”: Petrograd State University Archive, personal file of A. Z. Rosenbaum, list N 1361 from November 28, 1923.
“all kinds of anti-Soviet remarks”: EOWTL, p. 50.
When a group of visiting Western scientists: EOWTL, p. 51.
Her university records show: Petrograd State University Archive, personal file of A. Z. Rosenbaum, list N 1361 from November 28, 1923.
“with highest honors”: TPOAR, p. 42. AR told BB that she (AR) had also been awarded a perfect score in a course on the history of ancient philosophy with N. O. Lossky, whom she described as famous for his tough grading and contempt for women. Dr. Sciabarra has cast doubt on these assertions, including AR’s description of Professor Lossky as “an international authority on Plato” (TPOAR, p. 42), whom AR considered a philosophical malefactor. According to Dr. Sciabarra, Professor Lossky published nearly three hundred works on philosophy, “and not one of them even mentions Plato in the title” (The Russian Radical, p. 86). Lossky was a specialist in dialectics and in Kant, among other thinkers (“The Ayn Rand Transcript,” pp. 5–9).
Rand joined local writers’ clubs: “Woman Novelist Reveals Soviet Tyranny’s Horror.”
The text of the novella seems to be lost: “Ayn Rand’s Life.” Presumably, if the ARI or the estate owned the manuscript, Binswanger would have stated that he had read it. As it is, he quotes from AR’s recollection of it.
The explanation may lie: Natasha’s Dance, pp. 447–50; St. Petersburg, pp. 359, 369–92.
Anthem clearly reflects their influence: On the other hand, AR may have gotten the idea for her story from seeing airplanes in silent movies. According to Greg Walsh, a librarian at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California, aircraft first appeared on screen circa 1913; in the following ten years, at least forty films featured airplanes or aviators as an integral plot component.
too fearful to fly in a plane: Her first plane ride was in 1963, to Portland, Oregon, to accept an honorary degree (TPOAR, p. 318).