What Solzhenitsyn Understood

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; illustration by Seth

The eminent New York Review of Books features a major piece, in its current issue, by the always-insightful Gary Saul Morson, a splendid reflection on the Red Wheel and the misunderstandings that proliferated around Solzhenitsyn during his Western exile—the years of Between Two Millstones.

Read the full piece here.

“Despite its relentless focus on political events, The Red Wheel paradoxically instructs that politics is not the most important thing in life. To the contrary, the main cause of political horror is the overvaluing of politics itself. It is supremely dangerous to presume that if only the right social system could be established, life’s fundamental problems would be resolved. Like the great realist novelists of the nineteenth century, Solzhenitsyn believed that, as he stated in Rebuilding Russia,

political activity is by no means the principal mode of human life…. The more energetic the political activity in a country, the greater is the loss to spiritual life. Politics must not swallow up all of a people’s spiritual and creative energies. Beyond upholding its rights, mankind must defend its soul.”

— Quote Source

Ignat Solzhenitsyn Speaks at Benedictine

Ignat Solzhenitsyn spoke recently at Benedictine College on his father’s legacy, reading passages from Solzhenitsyn’s works, including his Miniatures, and answering questions from the audience.

Solzhenitsyn Was Right

An interesting reflection by Rabbi Jeremy Rosen over at J-Wire on Solzhenitsyn and his legacy.

“He strongly objected to the mischaracterization of his views by the same western intellectual and journalistic circles that had previously praised his courage in criticizing the USSR. But turned against him when he began to dismiss the vapid, armchair intellectual hypocrisy of Western societies which failed to offer viable moral alternatives. He felt alienated by the disregard and rejection of a serious spiritual dimension in American life. He spoke out against the way most of the media in the West, distorted facts just as much as the Soviet censors had and still do.”

— Rabbi Jeremy Rosen