In connection with Solzhenitsyn’s centenary, Почта России (Russian Post) has issued a new first-class stamp (denomination 27 rubles) that goes into circulation immediately around the entire Russian Federation.
CoLibri Books have just published a new collection of Solzhenitsyn’s thoughts, entitled “Россия. Запад. Украина” (“Russia. The West. Ukraine”), compiled by Natalia Solzhenitsyn. This is a beautifully presented slim 5x7 hardback of 176 pages. It opens with a 4-page introduction from the compiler, followed by a 110-page section entitled “Россия и Запад” (“Russia and the West”). This section, presented in chronological order, is comprised of 21 selections excerpted from Solzhenitsyn’s speeches, press-conferences, interviews, and essays, beginning with the Walter Cronkite/CBS interview of June 1974, and ending with the Der Spiegel interview of July 2007. There follows a 39-page second section entitled “Об Украине” (“About Ukraine”), comprised of 11 selections, again presented chronologically, from the prophetic part V, chapter 2 of the Gulag Archipelago (written in 1967), to the author’s Izvestiya article from March 2008, just months before his death. The book is rounded off by a 9-page “Краткие пояснения” (“Brief explanatory notes”) that place each selection in context and provide precise bibliographical information about earlier publications across various languages.
“This book, timed for the centenary of Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, collects his thoughts about the true meaning of Freedom, about Russia and the West’s false conceptions of each other, and about new dangers that threaten modern civilzation.
A separate section is devoted to a Slavic tragedy—the writer’s “perpetual sorrow and pain”—to Ukraine, about relations with whom he had written already a half-century ago, and until his very last days.”
Douglas Kries at The Catholic Thing with an appreciation of Solzhenitsyn.
“Marxism not only misunderstood the origin of evil, but likewise misunderstood what is to be done with its effects – with suffering. Solzhenitsyn came to realize that while there was no correlation between what he and the other political prisoners in the camps were charged with and what they were made to suffer, the Christians within the archipelago – at least the best of them – learned how to make suffering redemptive. That is, they knew how to turn their suffering into a continuous penance stemming from a continuous confession.”
A few days ago Princeton University hosted a panel discussion entitled Fearless Prophets: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, commemorating the 50th Anniversary of King's Death and the Centenary of Solzhenitsyn's Birth, and featuring:
Daniel Mahoney, Augustine Chair in Distinguished Scholarship, Assumption College;
Eugene F. Rivers, III, Founding Director, Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies;
David L. Tubbs *01, Associate Professor of Politics, The King's College.
It was moderated by Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University.
See the video of the event here.
Over at Ricochet, Kirk Kolbo looks back on Solzhenitsyn’s life and thought.
“What his critics never understood is that for Solzhenitsyn, politics was never the main thing. Over the course of a lifetime, as he explained to his biographer, he had moved “ever so slowly towards a position … of supporting the primacy of the spiritual over the material,” a philosophy to which all his works are a testament.
As with his literary forebears, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn’s writings are rooted in Russian history and culture, but the themes are universal. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, his speech addressed literature and its relationship to culture and the human spirit: “Art inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to a high spiritual experience.” A self-described optimist, Solzhenitsyn was convinced that “[i]n the struggle with falsehood art always did win and it always does win! … One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world.”
Historians generally agree that the moral force of Solzhenitsyn’s writings, particularly The Gulag Archipelago, contributed significantly to the fall of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the non-Russian Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, and in the West an end to the idolization by many of Soviet communism. When it occurred, and all his writings were allowed to be published there, Solzhenitsyn returned with his wife to Russia in 1994, where he died in 2008.”
At RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty), Steve Gutterman reflects on Solzhenitsyn's return to Russia in 1994.
Jack Fowler at the National Review reflects on Solzhenitsyn’s centennial, and posts the full text of Solzhenitsyn’s 1983 Templeton Address, which originally ran in the 22 July 1983 issue of National Review.
Chloe Arnold of the BBC Russian Service interviews Richard Tempest, Alexander Strokanov and Margo Caulfield for a story on Solzhenitsyn's centennial.
““Солженицын - прекрасный пример того, как можно ненавидеть коммунизм, ужасно относиться к СССР, но в то же время любить Россию, быть русским патриотом. Те, кто положительно относится к коммунизму, не могут принять его, потому что Солженицын - антисоветский писатель. Пожалуй, самый заметный и сильный среди всех антикоммунистических писателей. Живущие ностальгией по советскому прошлому воспринимают его сложно. Но те, кто не связывают Россию и СССР в целое, кто критически или объективно относятся к коммунизму, они понимают ценность Солженицына. И, думаю, что его ценность только растет”, - считает Строканов.”
We have heard you, our patient (but demanding!) readers, and are delighted to present to you today, on Solzhenitsyn’s 100th birthday, newly uploaded versions of the complete Trilogy of films about Solzhenitsyn by Sergei Miroshnichenko. All of these come with excellent English subtitles. Happy watching!
Michael Scammell’s op-ed piece in today’s New York Times.
“Solzhenitsyn should be remembered for his role as a truth-teller. He risked his all to drive a stake through the heart of Soviet communism and did more than any other single human being to undermine its credibility and bring the Soviet state to its knees.”
At a ceremony today on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Street in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled a new monument of Solzhenitsyn. (Scroll down for video.)
11 December 2018. Russian President Vladimir Putin lays flowers at the new Moscow monument to Solzhenitsyn.
“Aleksandr Isayevich believed that, without understanding our country’s past, there could be no sensible path toward its future. And so he trained his thought and words onto her future, in an attempt to identify possible ways of rebuilding Russia, so that the dramatic and profoundly difficult trials that fell to her would never again repeat, so that our multinational people could live in dignity and justice. That is how he saw his mission, his goal, the point of his service.”
Tonight's "main event", with theatre and film star Yevgeny Mironov, from Chekhov's legendary Moscow Art Theatre, will be webcast live at 19h00 Moscow time (0300 Sydney, 16h00 London, 11h00 New York).
Author at his home in Troitse-Lykovo, 2001.
“If, try as we may, we never have been and never shall be able to see, to reflect the truth in all its eternal fresh-minted clarity, is it not because we are still in motion, still living?…”
The celebrated filmmaker Leonid Parfenov reflects on Solzhenitsyn in his popular video log, Parthenon:
"Парфенон" - про то, что со мной было за это время, что видел, про что думал, что почему-то вспомнилось. Разговоры под вино недели, выбранное в соответствии с обстоятельствами - потому "18". Подписывайтесь на канал!
City Journal has posted a centennial tribute by Dan Mahoney to Solzhenitsyn and his thought.
“Solzhenitsyn spoke in the name of an older Western and Christian civilization, still connected to the “deep reserves of mercy and sacrifice” at the heart of ordered liberty. It is a mark of the erosion of that rich tradition that its voice is so hard to hear in our late modern world, more—and more single-mindedly—devoted to what Solzhenitsyn called “anthropocentricity,” an incoherent and self-destructive atheistic humanism. Solzhenitsyn asks no special privileges for biblical religion (and classical philosophy), just a place at the table and a serious consideration within our souls. ”
Panel discussion this coming Wed, 12th December at 6.30pm at NYPL. More info here.
The 6th issue of Studying Solzhenitsyn is out, after a (planned) two-year hiatus.
Studying Solzhenitsyn, No. 6 (2018) 408 pp. This issue presents, for the first time, Solzhenitsyn’s recollections of his childhood years and his “long-lost miniature”; selections from the author’s correspondence with Gregory (Afonsky), OCA Bishop of Alaska (1975–79); archival documents illuminating Solzhenitsyn’s military career; and documents pertaining to the author’s 50th-birthday celebrations in 1968. Sections detailing current goings-on in the Solzhenitsyn space include information on the latest editions of Solzhenitsyn’s works, on new scholarly studies or conferences focused on Solzhenitsyn, on special exhibits or permanent museum installations bearing on the writer, on new or imminent theatrical, cinematic, or musical interpretations of his works, and on the latest (2017 and 2018) awards of the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Prize in Literature. The issue is rounded out by reproductions of handwritten manuscripts and by photographs.
Contents & Summary (English)
Buy in hardcover (Russian)
An interesting reflection on Solzhenitsyn and patriotism in Crisis Magazine.
“In Russia In Collapse, for instance, Solzhenitsyn explicitly defines patriotism not in reference to any political theory, ancient or modern, but rather characterizes it as “an integral and persistent feeling of love for one’s homeland,” and goes so far as to make the following analogy:
Love for one’s people is as natural as love for one’s family. No one can be faulted for this love, only respected. After all, no matter how much the modern world whirls and jerks about, we still aim to keep intact our family, and we hold it in special regard, suffused with sympathy. A nation is a family, too, except an order of magnitude higher in numbers. It is bound by unique internal ties: a common language, a common cultural tradition, a shared historical memory, and a shared set of problems to resolve in the future.”
The New Yorker “briefly noted” the publication of Between Two Millstones, Book 1.
“In 1974, Solzhenitsyn, the novelist, dissident, and former political prisoner, was deported from the Soviet Union and stripped of his citizenship. In that moment, he was the most famous writer in the world, celebrated—and despised—for his great “literary experiment” chronicling the Gulag Archipelago and for his independence of mind. This first volume of his memoirs covers the next four years, when he lived first in Frankfurt, then in Vermont. It is distinguished mostly by Solzhenitsyn’s descriptions of the initial pain of exile, his bristling reactions to Western mores, and his search for a quiet place to finish his work and live out his life.”
A reflection and review by Stephen Kotkin in the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) of Between Two Millstones, Book 1.
“Many – perhaps most – of Solzhenitsyn’s critics viewed him as an arch-reactionary, a nineteenth-century mind in the twentieth. But in his turn away from Western universalism to nativism and traditional values, in his revolt against liberal condescension, he appears to have foreseen the twenty-first. ”
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