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My dear old friend Misha \quad}

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\title{MY DEAR OLD FRIEND MISHA}

\author{LARS BRINK}

\address{Dept of Theoretical Physics, Chalmers University of Technology,\\ S-412 96 G\"oteborg, Sweden} 
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I first met Misha Marinov when we lived in two separate worlds. It was
25 years ago and indeed life was different then. In the summer of 1976
the international high energy physics conference was held in Tbilisi in
Georgia. The experiences that we, Westerners, had during that week were so
interesting that I could easily write a long report only on those, but
let me just mention my first encounters with Misha. One evening I was
invited to a separate talk given by Felix Berezin. We were two persons
from the West, David Fairlie and myself, and the rest of the audience
came from the Soviet Union. After the talk we had a nice meal somewhere
and I mentioned to Berezin that I was working on spinning particles and
strings. He then said that he had a collaborator by the name of Mikhail
Marinov with whom he was working on similar things, and the next day
Misha came up to me and we had a long and very fruitful discussion and
we compared our methods and ideas. Eventually we wrote up papers with
very similar content on the action for a spinning particle.

The next time I came to the Soviet Union was in 1981 when there was the
first Landau-Nordita meeting. It was a marvelous meeting with unmatched
hospitality from the Russian side. Alan Luther who had organized the
Nordita delegation, where only two or three people really worked at
Nordita with the rest of us just Westerners, had insisted that the
meeting should be open to everybody. One day I met Misha there. He told
me that he was since some time a refusnik and he told me of his
hardships but he was still very optimistic. He was worried that he would
be thrown out of the meeting and could only come for a few days since he
had to work to support his family. Officially, of course, he was not
allowed to work, but he managed to find some odd jobs to translate
between Russian and English and later on he helped to build houses. A
year or two later I got a message from Misha through a man whom I knew
from a Swedish association to help refusnik. I got Misha's address and
started to send him letters now and then. I was told that the refusniks
who got mail from abroad were better treated since their situation was
watched from the West. Of course, Misha could not reply but he did
obtain some of the letters to some encouragement, I think. When we had
the next Landau-Nordita meeting in 1984 I packed a suitcase with clothes
and fortunately the Soviet customs did not ask me why I traveled with
mostly clothes for young girls. I asked my friends Misha Shifman and
Arkady Vainshtein how to meet with Misha, and they managed to get in
touch with him and Arkady and I went there one evening. We had a very,
very nice evening there with food and wine, but I could see that the
hardships had taken its toll on him, but at the same time he had kept
his optimism. At some time during the evening there was a knock on the
door. During a few seconds I could see the last five years of terror
against him flick through his eyes. This was evidently the way KGB would
come in the evenings to harass and interrogate him. The room became
completely silent. He then went to the door and opened it. There was his
friendly neighbor who told him that he had a telephone call from Israel.
The relief I saw in his face I can still see when I close my eyes.

Even though he had been away from the ITEP for some five years he had
written a paper which I brought with me and had published, and I also
started to help him in his attempts to secure a job in Israel. I was
negotiating with the Negev University for him and I think I was more or
less successful to get their attention. I was, of course, just a small
piece in this endeavor. He had friends who had already managed to get to
Israel who could do more than I, I am sure. When we came for the third
Landau-Nordita meeting in 1986 I met him again, this time at the
refusnik seminar. He had then broken his leg while constructing a house
and did not look too well, but when he saw us his big smile came back.
The refusnik seminar was indeed quite historical. All the famous
refusniks were there and we got so many questions why the West had
forgotten about them and why we did not do anything for them. We tried
to explain that we had tried but not enough evidently. When leaving the
seminar I asked David Gross when we walked back what chances he gave
these people to be able to emigrate. He said zero and I agreed. Six
months later they were all in Israel! The development was so rapid and
the measures that were taken during the Perestroika were so surprising,
even though they were all logic, of course, but logic had not been the
trademark of communism.

In 1987 Misha emigrated to Israel. This was the first time he was
outside Russia and the shock was great. His appetite to learn about this
kind of life was, of course, formidable. I invited him to spend a month
here, in G\"oteborg, and this visit was really his first real visit 
to the Western
world. His months in Israel had been spent learning Hebrew, getting a
job and getting acclimatized, so he had not discovered so much of the
world outside those spheres. I remember taking him to a Chinese
restaurant and he was so amazed about the various dishes, like a
schoolboy's first visit. (On his next visit a few years later he
excelled in eating sashimi.) Now I learnt to know the real Misha,
lively, optimistic and interesting in every detail of life. Remarkably
enough, he was ready to discuss modern physics, and his eight years or
so outside academia had not left too many traces. We had a wonderful
time together.

He then visited me several times and we kept a fairly close contact all
through the years. When I learnt about his illness I called him when he
had come home after his radiotherapy. First he answered rather weakly,
which I am sure reflected his status, but when he heard it was me he
raised his voice to a normal level and became the good old Misha full of
optimism and love of life. It was wonderful to hear him but so sad
knowing the odds. We then had  contacts during the summer when he
managed to travel to Germany, but then I lost contact with him for a
month or two. When I finally called him later in the fall there was no
answer...

I cherish my fond memory of Misha. He taught me a lot about life, about
the human nature and that willpower can help you through really bad
conditions. I miss him a lot but am glad that I did get the chance to
learn to know him.

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