"The Unpublished Solzhenitsyn" in LePoint
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The current issue of the French weekly LePoint has excerpts from two new Solzhenitsyn titles forthcoming next week from Fayard.
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Warning to the West now available as e-book
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“Warning to the West”, a collection of Solzhenitsyn’s speeches to the Americans and the British in 1975 and 1976, is newly available from Vintage Digital, both on Amazon (UK) and iTunes (UK).
“During 1975 and 1976, Nobel Prize-winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn embarked on a series of speeches across America and Britain that would shock and scandalise both countries. His message: the West was veering towards moral and spiritual bankruptcy, and with it the world’s one hope against tyranny and totalitarianism.
From Solzhenitsyn’s warnings about the allure of communism, to his rebuke that the West should not abandon its age-old concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, the speeches collected in Warning to the West provide insight into Solzhenitsyn’s uncompromising moral vision. Read today, their message remains as powerfully urgent as when Solzhenitsyn first delivered them.”
Exhibit—In Solzhenitsyn’s Circle: The Writer and His Invisible Allies
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This exhibition, marking the centenary of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s birth, coincides with the launch of the Solzhenitsyn Initiative by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture as well as the publication of the first English translation of several of Solzhenitsyn’s works by the University of Notre Dame Press. Through 14 December.
Recap of Northern Vermont University conference
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Elena Strokanova in Russkiy Mir recaps proceedings at the recently-concluded conference.
READING SOLZHENITSYN: AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
/An international conference is opening at Northern Vermont University to mark the centennial of Solzhenitsyn. The Associated Press has more details.
Solzhenitsyn’s adopted state marks his 100th
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Kevin O’Connor at VTDigger details Vermont initiatives to celebrate the Solzhenitsyn centenary.
BTM excerpt in New Criterion
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The Landsgemeinde gathers to vote in Appenzell, Switzerland, in 2013. Photo: Rosmarie Widmer Gysel.
The September issue of New Criterion excerpts this remarkable passage from the forthcoming Between Two Millstones, Book 1, about the Swiss half-canton Appenzell, and its ancient voting rituals that Solzhenitsyn witnessed just before his first journey to North America in April 1975.
Margo Caulfield introducing the Cavendish Historical Society's Exhibit on Solzhenitsyn
/The Cavendish Historical Society Museum hosts an exhibit on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, which will become a permanent exhibit. 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of Solzhenitsyn's birth; in commemoration of this, the State of Vermont issued a proclamation in his name, observing the author's life work, which included living and writing in exile from the Soviet Union / Russia, in Cavendish. Margo Caulfield from the Historical Society gives us the summary of Solzhenitsyn's life & work, as portrayed through the museum's exhibit. She also discusses the children's book she authored about Solzhenitsyn.
"My First Days in the West"
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The September issue of Commentary excerpts the first few pages of Between Two Millstones, Book 1, forthcoming from Notre Dame in October. These pages, written in 1978, pick up where The Oak and the Calf leaves off, beginning with Solzhenitsyn’s expulsion to West Germany on February 13, 1974.
Post-Communist Russia Is Not the Soviet Union
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Over at Real Clear Politics, Daniel J. Mahoney writes perceptively about today’s Russia.
What Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Can Tell Us About Truth
/Matthew Janney at Culturetrip on Solzhenitsyn and objective truth.
“Friday, 3 August 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s death. At a time when alternative facts and fake news are commonplace in public discourse, the Russian writer’s commitment to objectivity is a refreshing reminder of the existence of truth.”
A Tiny Village in Vermont Was the Perfect Spot to Hide Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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A reflection at the National Endowment for the Humanities about Solzhenitsyn’s years in Vermont.
Le Figaro on Solzhenitsyn in Vermont
/Philippe Gélie writes about “Alexandre Soljenitsyne, le secret bien gardé du Vermont”.
Notre Dame's “Higher Powers” 2018 Fall Conference To Focus on Solzhenitsyn
/What is the proper relationship between God, the human person, and the state? In a 1993 address, Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed that, “having refused to recognize the unchanging Higher Power above us, we have filled that space with personal imperatives, and suddenly life has become a harrowing prospect indeed.” Twenty-five years after Solzhenitsyn’s address, and one hundred years after his birth, the Center for Ethics and Culture’s 19th Annual Fall Conference will consider how every human pursuit can be oriented toward higher powers and reflect on the true measures of social progress, the role of morality in law and politics, and the dynamics of liberty, dignity, self-sacrifice, and the good in public life.
A New Exhibit Considers Solzhenitsyn's Exile in Vermont
/The Vermont History Museum is showing a new exhibit about Solzhenitsyn’s years in Vermont. Until 22 October.
Solzhenitsyn and Lincoln
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At First Things, Robert P. George reflects on Solzhenitsyn’s moral message and intriguingly compares his Harvard and Templeton speeches with Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer and Fasting.
“It has been 155 years since Lincoln wrote those words. And yet, it is as if he wrote them yesterday and directed them to us today. Yes, as a culture, as a people, we have forgotten God. That is reflected in our laws, in the edicts of our Supreme Court, in our public policies, in our news and entertainment media, in our schools and universities, in our economic and cultural institutions, on the streets of our cities, and even, alas, in many homes. We “have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts,” that our “blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.” And, as a result, we find ourselves in the condition so accurately and brutally diagnosed by Solzhenitsyn.”
40 Years Later, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Speech Blazes A Beacon For Renewal
/Over at the Federalist, Stella Morabito recapitulates key themes of Solzhenitsyn's Harvard address.
“The Harvard speech is a must-read for our times, a diagnosis of what ails us, whether or not you agree with all of it.”
A Tale of Two Commencement Addresses
/At NRO, Matthew Spalding compares Solzhenitsyn's 1978 Harvard address with Hillary Clinton's recent address at Yale.
“Solzhenitsyn eschewed the traditional clichés and head pats for the students, delivering instead a stunning analysis of the East and West, one which took seriously Harvard’s celebrated motto of Veritas — Truth — to speak of the imminent danger the West faced in losing not only the Cold War but also its democratic soul.”
Notre Dame to establish new American home for Solzhenitsyn research
/In 2018 — the centenary of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s birth and the 40th anniversary of his prophetic Harvard commencement address — the University of Notre Dame will launch several initiatives connected to the work of this novelist, critic of Communism and 1970 Nobel laureate for literature. Through his writing on the system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn brought worldwide awareness to the devastating core of totalitarianism.
The University’s plans include the acquisition and first English translations of Solzhenitsyn works, as well as major academic conferences and postdoctoral fellowships that will connect researchers from around the world to the manuscript and print collections held by the Hesburgh Libraries — which are among the most extensive holdings in the United States related to the life and work of Solzhenitsyn.
“Nobody lived a more powerful witness to the truth about the human person’s right to dignity, freedom and human flourishing than this great writer.”
