Literature of the Americas Literature of the Americas 2541-7894 2542-243X IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2024-17-8-50 Research Article Articles "I Stuck with My Opinion about the Russians": Lion Feuchtwanger in the American Exile 2024 Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 The article examines the stay of the German writer Lion Feuchtwanger in the United States during World War II, where he was able to emigrate from France in 1940 thanks to the assistance of the American president and American colleagues. The writer's work was well known in the United States, his novel Power was very popular, all of Feuchtwanger's books were published by the New York publishing house The Viking Press. On the other hand, the American public and American intelligence services knew the writer as a friend of the USSR and the author of the scandalous travelogue Moscow 1937. In the first months of his life in the United States, the press was interested in Feuchtwanger and his pro-Soviet position, but the situation changed after the alliance between the USA and the USSR. Feuchtwanger continued to maintain sympathy for the Soviet Union and repeatedly tried to establish contact with his friends in Moscow. He sent his manuscripts, letters and congratulatory telegrams to the USSR, and until 1943 his telegrams were regularly published in the Soviet press. However, the writer failed to publish a single one of his works in a Soviet publishing house during the war. The intermediary in the complicated relations between Moscow and the émigré writer was the Soviet vice-consul G. Heifetz, who regularly reported to the Soviet Union on the situation of German writers in the USA, and asked to publish Feuchtwanger's novels in the Soviet Union. Thanks to Heifetz's support after Germany's capitulation Feuchtwanger's first novel was published in a Moscow magazine. I express my deep gratitude to Professor Olga Y. Panova for her support and valuable advice during my work on the article. I also thank my husband Arkady Vasilyev for his help in working with the archive of the American press. 1. Bahr 1989 — Bahr, Ehrhard. Die Kontroverse um «Das andere Deutschland» In: Deutschsprachige Exilliteratur seit 1933, Bd. 2, T. 2. New York; Bern: Francke, 1989. 2. Dobrjashkina 2021 —Dobrjashkina, Anna V. “‘Estety v Sovetskom Sojuze’: A. Zhid, L. Fejhtvanger, M. Kol'cov” [“‘Esthetes in the Soviet Union’: A. Gide, L. Feuchtwanger, M. Koltsov.”]. ROSSICA. Literaturnye svjazi i kontakty, no. 1 (2021): 79–111. (In Russ.) 3. Heusler 2014 — Heusler, Andreas. Lion Feuchtwanger. Münchner – Emigrant – Weltbürger. St. Pölten, Salzburg, Wien: Residenz Verl., 2014. 4. Jaretzky 1985 — Jaretzky, Reinhold. Lion Feuchtwanger mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. Reinbek b.H.: Rowohlt, 1985. 5. Kesten 1964 — Kesten, Hermann. Deutsche Literatur im Exil. Briefe europäischen Autoren 1933–1949. Wien, München, Basek: Kurt Desch Verl., 1964. 6. Kieβling 1984 — Kieβling, Wolfgang. Exil in Lateinamerika. Leipzig: Reclam, 1984. 7. Skierka 1984 — Skierka, Volker. Lion Feuchtwanger. Eine Biographie. Berlin: Quadriga Verl., 1984. 8. Stephan 1998 — Stephan, Alexander. Im Visier der FBI. Deutsche Exilschriftsteller in den Akten amerikanischer Geheimdienste. Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch Verl., 1998.