Book 2 of March 1917, first published in English by Notre Dame Press three years ago, has been released today in paperback. See a short video introducing the book here. To catch up on The Red Wheel from the beginning, read August 1914, October 1916, Book 1 of March 1917, then this Book 2 of March 1917. Book 3 is here, and Book 4 is due out in autumn 2024.
In what has become an important biennial literary event, the latest (8th) issue of Studying Solzhenitsyn is out.
Studying Solzhenitsyn, No. 8 (2021) 336 pp.
This issue presents, for the first time, Solzhenitsyn’s recollections of his young adulthood, as well as a number of his private letters; materials from the Soviet government’s 1974 criminal case against the author; and other documents from the Russian State Archives. Sections detailing current goings-on in the Solzhenitsyn space include information on important recent editions of the writer’s works, new research publications and study aids, exhibits, conferences, and on the latest (2020) award of the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Prize in Literature. The issue is rounded out by reproductions of handwritten manuscripts and by photographs.
Contents & Summary (English)
A new book thoughtfully illuminates the respective treatments of the Gulag in the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov, even if the editors and contributors generally approach camp literature and testimony from a literary, moral, and philosophical perspective closer to Shalamov than Solzhenitsyn. Two essays stand out: Michael N. Nicholson's lucid and informative account of the genesis of both the Kolyma Tales and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; and Luba Jurgenson's suggestive account of why Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov ended up not collaborating on The Gulag Archipelago.
The Red Wheel, Node III, March 1917, Book 3 is available today for the first time in English from University of Notre Dame Press, from Amazon, or wherever books are sold.
The action of Book 3 (out of four) is set during March 16–22, 1917. In Book 3, the Romanov dynasty ends and the revolution starts to roll out from Petrograd toward Moscow and the Russian provinces. The dethroned Emperor Nikolai II makes his farewell to the Army and is kept under guard with his family. In Petrograd, the Provisional Government and the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies continue to exercise power in parallel. The war hero Lavr Kornilov is appointed military chief of Petrograd. But the Soviet’s “Order No. 1” reaches every soldier, undermining the officer corps and shaking the Army to its foundations. Many officers, including the head of the Baltic Fleet, the progressive Admiral Nepenin, are murdered. Black Sea Fleet Admiral Kolchak holds the revolution at bay; meanwhile, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, the emperor’s uncle, makes his way to military headquarters, naïvely thinking he will be allowed to take the Supreme Command.
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 (University of Notre Dame Press)
Node III: March 1917, Book 3 (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.”
Roger Kimball—man of letters extraordinaire—has published The Critical Temper, an anthology of the finest writing to appear in the New Criterion over its first 40 years. Included is the marvelous excerpt from Chapter 1 of Solzhenitsyn’s Between Two Millstones, Book 1, depicting the Swiss half-canton Appenzell and its ancient voting rituals that Solzhenitsyn witnessed just before his first journey to North America in April 1975.
Hear Roger Kimball discuss the anthology below, and scroll further down for a quote from Solzhenitsyn’s memoir.
“So no, this was definitely not the least bit like back home. Having unanimously re-elected their beloved Landamann, entrusting him with the formation of the kind of government he wanted, they immediately rejected all his major proposals. And now he is to govern! I had never seen or heard of such a democracy, and was filled with respect (especially after Landamann Broger’s speech). This is the kind of democracy we could do with. (Were not perhaps our medieval town assemblies—the veche—very much like these?)
The Swiss Confederation, established in 1291, is in fact now the oldest democracy in the world. It did not spring from the ideas of the Enlightenment, but directly from the ancient forms of communal life. The rich, industrial, crowded cantons, however, have lost all this, conforming to Europe for many years now (and have adopted everything European from miniskirts to sexual poses plastiques). But in Appenzell, on the other hand, much has been kept as of old.
How great is the diversity of the Earth, and how many unknown, unseen possibilities it offers us! There is so much for us to think about for a Russia of the future—if we are only given the chance to think.”
Book 1 of Between Two Millstones, first published in English by Notre Dame Press three years ago, has been released today in paperback. And Book 2 is readily available in hardcover.
Learn more about the forthcoming English publication of March 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book 3, due out for the first time in English, translated by Marian Schwartz, 15 October from University of Notre Dame Press.
March 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book 3 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Available October 15, 2021, wherever books are sold. Published by University of Notre Dame Press at undpress.nd.edu
Soljénitsyne et la France: Une œuvre et un message toujours vivants is out today in paperback and Kindle.
This volume compiles the essays and presentations from the December 2018 conference and exhibit of Solzhenitsyn’s manuscripts entitled, “ALEXANDRE SOLJENITSYNE: UN ÉCRIVAIN EN LUTTE AVEC SON SIÈCLE”, that took place at the Institut de France and the Sorbonne. It includes contributions from Natalia Solzhenitsyn, Georges Nivat, Pierre Manent, Lyudmila Saraskina, and Daniel Mahoney, among others.
More info at the publisher’s website here.
A curious new book by “humanistic psychologist” Roman Gelperin, entitled On Rotting Prison Straw: The Self-Actualization of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Daniel J. Mahoney’s second Solzhenitsyn book, The Other Solzhenitsyn: Telling the Truth about a Misunderstood Writer and Thinker, has now come out in paperback from St. Augustine’s Press. It is an insightful exploration of the philosophical, political, and moral themes in The Gulag Archipelago, The Red Wheel, and In the First Circle, among other works.
For many Americans of both right and left political persuasions, the Russian bear is more of a bugbear. On the right, the country is still mentally represented by Soviet domination. For those on the left, it is a harbor for reactionary values and neo-imperial visions. The reality, however, is that, despite Russia’s political failures, its rich history of culture, religion, and philosophical reflection—even during the darkest days of the Gulag—have been a deposit of wisdom for American artists, religious thinkers, and political philosophers probing what it means to be human in America.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stands out as the key figure in this conversation, as both a Russian literary giant and an exile from Russia living in America for two decades. This anthology reconsiders Solzhenitsyn’s work from a variety of perspectives—his faith, his politics, and the influences and context of his literature—to provide a prophetic vision for our current national confusion over universal ideals. In Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West, David P. Deavel and Jessica Hooten Wilson have collected essays from the foremost scholars and thinkers of comparative studies who have been tracking what Americans have borrowed and learned from Solzhenitsyn as well as his fellow Russians. The book offers a consideration of what we have in common—the truth, goodness, and beauty America has drawn from Russian culture and from masters such as Solzhenitsyn—and will suggest to readers what we can still learn and what we must preserve. The book will interest fans of Solzhenitsyn and scholars across the disciplines, and it can be used in courses on Solzhenitsyn or Russian literature more broadly.
Contributors: David P. Deavel, Jessica Hooten Wilson, Nathan Nielson, Eugene Vodolazkin, David Walsh, Matthew Lee Miller, Ralph C. Wood, Gary Saul Morson, Edward E. Ericson, Jr., Micah Mattix, Joseph Pearce, James F. Pontuso, Daniel J. Mahoney, William Jason Wallace, Lee Trepanier, Peter Leithart, Dale Peterson, Julianna Leachman, Walter G. Moss, and Jacob Howland.
We are very pleased to announce that Book 2 of Between Two Millstones is now available wherever books are sold.
Learn more about the forthcoming English publication of BETWEEN TWO MILLSTONES, Book 2: Exile in America.
Book 1 of March 1917, first published in English by Notre Dame Press three years ago, has been released today in paperback. To catch up on The Red Wheel from the beginning, read August 1914, October 1916, this Book 1 of March 1917, and then Book 2 of March 1917. Book 3 is due out in autumn 2021.
We are happy to remind readers that the second, and final, book of Between Two Millstones—Solzhenitsyn’s memoir of his Western years—will be released on 15th November. Many journals will be running excerpts in advance of publication, and we will highlight them here as they appear.
Slavic languages and literatures professor Richard Tempest has written a new book, Overwriting Chaos, about the literary artistry of Russian novelist and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Read his interview about it here.
“Every story, every novel is a complete imagined world unto itself, with a humankind, geography, climate, flora and its own logic. It can be very playful and magical. That’s the way I look at him,” Tempest said. “As an artist, he had tremendous fun writing. He liked all kinds of tricks and in-jokes and private witticisms.”
The new audiobook of the official abridged version of The Gulag Achipelago, read by the author’s son, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, came out last summer in UK/Commonwealth countries, and is coming to the USA on 26th May 2020, available to download wherever audiobooks are sold.
The 7th issue of Studying Solzhenitsyn is out.
Studying Solzhenitsyn, No. 7 (2019) 360 pp.
This issue presents, for the first time, Solzhenitsyn’s recollections of his school years; archival documents pertaining to the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Solzhenitsyn 50 years ago; the author’s correspondence with Heinrich Böll (1968–82); photographic materials relating to Solzhenitsyn’s military career; and the reflections of Ignat Solzhenitsyn, the author’s son, on Aleksandr Chaikovsky’s opera “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”. 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)
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The Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center supports explorations into the life and writings of the Nobel Laureate and Russian writer and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
