Vermont General Assembly Passes Resolution Recognizing Solzhenitsyn

On March 21st, the Vermont General Assembly passed a resolution in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's honor. Ignat Solzhenitsyn and representatives of Cavendish, Vermont were on hand in Montpelier to be presented with official copies of Resolution HCR-199.

“No. R-248. House concurrent resolution commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Russian author, historian, and former Cavendish resident Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn.”

March 1917 JACKET Cover Design Recognized with Design Award

March 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book 1 was selected by the Association of University Presses for the 2018 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show. Jeff Miller, a designer with Faceout Studio, and Wendy McMillen, production and design manager of the University of Notre Dame Press, collaborated on the design. The design was one of 53 chosen from a total of 375 submissions. The show is held each year to celebrate the year's best work in design and production in university presses. The show will be exhibited across the U.S. from June 2018 to May 2019; the first show opens June 17th in San Francisco during the 2018 AUPresses Annual Meeting

Since 1965, the Association of University Presses has held the Book, Jacket, and Journal Show each year to highlight achievements in design and production in university presses. The winning books and journals for 2018, selected by jurors in New York City, will be displayed in the annual catalog and the traveling show, which premiers in San Francisco on June 17, and continues throughout North America until May 2019.  

"What Men Live By": Paper Presented at the Annual AATSEEL Meeting

This year's annual meeting of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AAATSEEL) took place on February 3rd in Washington, D.C, where Professor Kevin McKenna of University of Vermont presented a lecture entitled, “‘What Men Live By’: Leo Tolstoy’s Proverb-Parable As a Source for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Novel, Cancer Ward.”

McKenna's paper will be published at a later date.

Margo Caulfield Leads Book Discussion and Movie Viewing

On January 23rd, author and historian Margo Caulfield led a book discussion of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in Ludlow, Vermont at Fletcher Memorial Library.

Caufield is the author of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Writer Who Changed History, an introduction to Solzhenitsyn's life and writings, published in 2016.

Winner of Solzhenitsyn Monument Design Competition Announced

On 17 January, the Union of Moscow Architects announced the project winner, Andrei Nikolaevich Kovalchuk, selected by their jury from a Russia-wide field of design projects competing to build the new Solzhenitsyn monument on ul. Solzhenitsyna (Solzhenitsyn Street) in Moscow in connection with the writer’s upcoming centennnial. 

The Winning Design
solzhenitsyn.ru

Claremont Review of Books: MARCH 1917, BOOK 1

Guy Burnett reviews March 1917, Book 1 in tandem with Catherine Merridale's Lenin on the Train.

“There was no shortage of blame, but Solzhenitsyn shows how the most dangerous blunders leading up to October 1917 were the Czar’s. He presents Nicholas II as a naïve but devoted family man, a great neighbor but poor leader, whose faith in the protestors was his undoing.”

The Quarterly Conversation: March 1917, Book 1

The novelist Jeff Bursey reviews March 1917, Book 1, suggesting that it is very much a modernist novel, even as History herself emerges as a "skillfully drawn character in this portrait of Russia on the eve of its transformation".

“What we have, so far, of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s mega-novel The Red Wheel is correspondingly inventive, despairing, sharp, acidic, lyrical, and panoramic, with shafts of insight illuminating murky or forgotten corners.”

March 1917, Book 1 published today

The Red Wheel, Node III, March 1917, Book 1 is available today for the first time in English from University of Notre Dame Press, from Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

We remind Solzhenitsyn readers of the overall sequence of the 10-volume Red Wheel:
Node I: August 1914, Books 1 & 2 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, published in one volume)
Node II: November 1916, Books 1 & 2 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, published in one volume)
Node III: March 1917, Book 1 (University of Notre Dame Press)
Node III: March 1917, Book 2 (forthcoming 2019—University of Notre Dame Press)
Node III: March 1917, Book 3 (forthcoming—University of Notre Dame Press)
Node III: March 1917, Book 4 (forthcoming—University of Notre Dame Press)
Node IV: April 1917, Book 1 (forthcoming—University of Notre Dame Press)
Node IV: April 1917, Book 2 (forthcoming—University of Notre Dame Press)

To inform readers about Solzhenitsyn’s system of “Nodes”, and also to explain the definitive term “Node” (instead of the older “Knot”), here is a portion of the Publisher’s Note that accompanies each of the Notre Dame volumes:

The English translations by H.T. Willetts of August 1914 and November 1916, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1989 and 1999, respectively, appeared as Knot I and Knot II. The present translation, in accordance with the wishes of the Solzhenitsyn estate, has chosen the term “Node” as more faithful to the author’s intent. Both terms refer, as in mathematics, to discrete points on a continuous line. In a 1983 interview with Bernard Pivot, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described his narrative concept as follows: “The Red Wheel is the narrative of revolution in Russia, its movement through the whirlwind of revolution. This is an immense scope of material, and . . . it would be impossible to describe this many events and this many characters over such a lengthy stretch of time. That is why I have chosen the method of nodal points, or Nodes. I select short segments of time, of two or three weeks’ duration, where the most vivid events unfold, or else where the decisive causes of future events are formed. And I describe in detail only these short segments. These are the Nodes. Through these nodal points I convey the general vector, the overall shape of this complex curve.”

Exhibition of Projects Competing to Design Major Solzhenitsyn Monument in Moscow

The Union of Moscow Architects has unveiled an exhibit of the various projects competing to be awarded the right to build a major monument to Solzhenitsyn in Moscow.  The winner will be announced on 7th December.

Will Morrisey Review of March 1917, Book 1

A probing review of March 1917, Book 1, posted today.

“Solzhenitsyn has made this mob of characters and passions, this kinesis of revolution, intelligible. For this his work deserves to be read not only in Russia but everywhere. The thoughts of the characters, their understandable confusion, their elation or despair, come through without any resort to moral relativism. In scenes that parallel one another, Solzhenitsyn gives us mind after mind, capturing the insights but also the illusions of each. When he intervenes in his own voice he speaks not with narrative omniscience, which he leaves to God, but with narrative judgment, which as a Christian he shares a bit with God, thanks to God.”

Daniel J. Mahoney Reviews March 1917, Book 1

Insightful review of March 1917, Book 1 from renowned Solzhenitsyn scholar Daniel J. Mahoney in the new issue of National Review.  

“This volume consists of 170 chapters (out of 656 in March 1917 as a whole), most of them relatively brief. One experiences on every page the frenzied pace of events spiraling completely out of control.”

Russian Memorial to Victims of Political Repression Unveiled In Moscow

As reported by Digital Journal, The Solzhenitsyn Foundation and the Memorial organization have partnered in backing the creation of a new monument by sculptor Georgy Frangulyan, which was unveiled as a part of a memorial for Soviet-era victims of political repression in Central Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at the memorial's dedication and quoted Natalia Solzhenitsyn in his remarks. 

“To know, to remember, to condemn and only then to forgive.”

— Natalya Solzhenitsyn

University of Notre Dame Press Establishes New Solzhenitsyn Series

The University of Note Dame Press has announced a major new Solzhenitsyn series, called The Center for Ethics and Culture Solzhenitsyn Series. March 1917: Red Wheel, Node III, Book 1, the first book in this series, will be published later this month.  It is the continuation of Solzhenitsyn's epic Red Wheel novel, which begins with August 1914, then October 1916, and now March 1917.

Anne Applebaum: Solzhenitsyn Altered the Way People Thought

The October 30th edition of the National Review featured an article, "The Russian Revolution, 100 Years On: Its Enduring Allure and Menace" accompanied by sidebars highlighting notable Russian authors. In one, Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History, speaks to the influence of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago on the West.

“When we look back at the 20th century, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn will be remembered not just as an influential author, but as one of the few authors who actually altered the way in which millions of people thought about politics. ”

Review of March 1917, Book 1 at Foreword

Letitia Montgomery-Rodgers reviews March 1917, Book 1 at Foreword.

“In March 1917, Solzhenitsyn attempts the impossible and succeeds, evoking a fully formed world through episodic narratives that insist on the prosaic integrity of every life, from tsars to peasants. What emerges is a rich history that’s truly greater than the sum of its parts.”

— Letitia Montgomery-Rodgers

Why Did the Russian Revolution Occur?

James Pontuso, writing at the Victims of Communism blog: "Solzhenitsyn’s multi-volume The Red Wheel attempts to answer the question: why did the Russian Revolution occur?”

“It was in this chaotic situation that the peculiar talents of Vladimir Lenin came into play. Solzhenitsyn portrays Lenin throughout The Red Wheel as disciplined, self-assured, cunning, and ruthless.”

— James Pontuso

“Solzhenitsyn’s Cathedrals”: New Criterion reviews March 1917, Book 1

A review of March 1917, Book 1 by Gary Saul Morson in The New Criterion.

“In the final analysis, The Red Wheel is less a political novel than an anti-political novel […] To see life solely in political terms is to misunderstand it.”

— Gary Saul Morson

Northern Illinois University Press Publishes New Solzhenitsyn Inquiry

A new book on Solzhenitsyn is out this month, Solzhenitsyn: The Historical-Spiritual Destinies of Russia and the West.  According to Solzhenitsyn scholar Dan Mahoney, “Lee Congdon has succeeded in encapsulating Solzhenitsyn’s intellectual engagement with the twentieth century through an integration of Solzhenitsyn’s corpus into its historical, political, philosophical, and religious context.  This is a masterful accomplishment and a major contribution to the field of Solzhenitsyn studies.”

First Complete English Translation of The Red Wheelto Be Published

As highlighted in The Guardian this week, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's multivolume epic The Red Wheel will soon be published in English for the first time in its entirety. 

“You might say that he caught the last train of departing memory. He was able to interview some of the last living participants of those fateful days in 1917, and of the Russian civil war that followed. His childhood years were the fearsome Soviet 1920s and early 1930s, when the revolution was in fact still ongoing, completely reshaping the old order amidst an atmosphere of terror. Born just a year after the revolution, he breathed its powerful, both terrifying—and for some, edifying—air.”

— Stephan Solzhenitsyn

A Solzhenitsyn Virtual Museum Announced

Located in Rostov-on-Don, the Southern Federal University (SFU) has announced plans to create a virtual museum about the author in hopes of inspiring current students. The author graduated from Rostov University and went on to teach at a school in Morozovka for a short time before he began his service in WWII. There will also be a monument in his honor.