Posted on 04/27/2002 9:14:35 PM PDT by abigail2
Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile
By Joseph Pearce.
Baker Books. 328 pages. $19.99.
I rented a video recently called Unbreakable starring Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson. The movie posed this question: “Do comic book heroes actually walk the earth?” The question hovered in my mind as I read Joseph Pearce’s biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. After reading it, I knew that the answer is “yes”.
We live among so much mediocrity. The quality of things is generally low, particularly the quality of our heroes. These days, if you’re famous enough, or crude enough, or rich enough, you’re going to be considered a hero by many. Alexander Solzhenitsyn is a real hero, and amazingly, he’s still alive! To our discredit, however, he’s been largely forgotten, both in his native Russia and worldwide. Pearce’s excellent biography aims to change that.
Solzhenitsyn was raised in a traditional religious home in Russia. But as a youth, he was lured into the “Pioneers”, the Communist version of the Boy Scouts. He was soon on the road to becoming a fanatical Communist.
On February 9, 1945, while serving in the army, Solzhenitsyn was arrested. A subversive piece he had written years before containing derogatory remarks about Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had been found. The arrest was a shock, and led to years of brutal imprisonment.
Solzhenitsyn began to undergo a spiritual awakening in prison. A cellmate had tried to convince him to play it safe and stay quiet. Solzhenitsyn’s reaction was: “One wanted to agree with him, to serve out the time cozily, and then expunge from one’s head what one had lived through. But I had begun to sense a truth inside myself; if in order to live it is necessary not to live, then what’s it all for?”
Solzhenitsyn became determined to tell the brutal truth about Stalin’s camps. When finally released he was a changed man.
Solzhenitsyn began to ask himself questions about life. He wondered of the evil dictator Stalin, and the torturers in the camps. They appeared to prosper, and he could not understand it: “And the only solution to this would be that the meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but… in the development of the soul. From that point of view our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine, they are departing from humanity.”
In 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature “for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature”. The Soviet authorities were outraged. Others saw it differently: A message smuggled out of a Soviet labor camp said, “Barbed wire and automatic weapons prevent us from expressing to you personally the depth of our admiration for your courageous creative work, upholding the sense of human dignity…”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn is undoubtedly one of the great writers of this or any other time. More importantly, he is a great man. His highest value to society has been the power of his example: “Solzhenitsyn’s courage was clearly contagious and was spreading to parts of Soviet society that the authorities had hoped it would never reach.” Other writers and citizens in Soviet society began to step forward and challenge the authorities, which increased the moral pressure on the Communist power.
In 1972 Solzhenitsyn went public with an open confession of Christianity and he was roundly denounced. In Solzhenitsyn’s own words: “I was received with ‘hurrahs’ as long as I appeared to be against Stalinist abuses only… [but] the time had come to speak more precisely, to go even deeper. And in doing so I should inevitably lose the reading public, lose my contemporaries in the hope of winning posterity.”
On August 23rd, 1973, Solzhenitsyn detailed death threats he had received, he believed, from the KGB. While Solzhenitsyn was speaking to the press, “the KGB was being implicated in the death of a frail old woman named Elizaveta Voronyanskaya, who was one of Solzhenitsyn’s most devoted supporters. She was arrested by the KGB and broke down under interrogation, divulging the whereabouts of a hidden copy of his finished manuscript, The Gulag Archipelago. Racked with guilt she returned home on August 23rd and apparently committed suicide by hanging herself, though there were rumours that the KGB had a direct hand in her death.”
Solzhenitsyn had done everything possible to keep the existence of the book secret from the Soviet authorities. Now that they had a copy of the book in their possession, he had no choice but to order publication in the West as soon as possible. It was to become his best-known, and perhaps greatest work.
Soon after publication, Solzhenitsyn was arrested at his Moscow home and taken to Lefortovo prison, where he was charged with treason. The next day, having been stripped of his Soviet citizenship, he was expelled from his homeland as a traitor. He and his family were to live in Switzerland, and later, the United States.
On June 8th, 1978, Solzhenitsyn delivered the commencement address at Harvard University. In his uncompromising speech, he condemned the Western world as being morally bankrupt. Indeed, many in the West had loved Solzhenitsyn – as long as he was trashing the Soviet empire, not them.
On August 16th, 1990, Solzhenitsyn’s Soviet citizenship was restored nearly seventeen years after it had been taken from him. An announcement was subsequently made that the treason charges against him had been revoked. This had been the last official obstacle barring his return to Russia.
On the morning of May 27th, 1994, Alexander Solzhenitsyn set foot in Russia for the first time in over twenty years. The old Soviet Union had fallen: The truth of Solzhenitsyn’s works had attacked the foundation of the Soviet system, until it came crashing down under its own immoral weight, with the help of the policies of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
Solzhenitsyn made a blistering attack on Russia’s new political leaders, saying they were no better than the communist rulers he spent much of his life opposing. Ironically though, the man who was most responsible for the newfound freedom of everyday Russians was now considered no longer relevant by many in the “New Russia”. Solzhenitsyn was to assume a diminished cultural role, and has semi retired to a home in the countryside.
In Solzhenitsyn: A Soul In Exile, Joseph Pearce has completed a labor of love, and chronicled a giant. Alexander Solzhenitsyn is more than a hero. This book had a powerful effect on my life. It reminded me of what human beings are indeed capable of – for good or ill, but particularly for good. Solzhenitsyn: A Soul In Exile has earned my highest recommendation.
-- Patrick Rooney
Patrick Rooney is the Director of Special Projects for BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles whose purpose is “Rebuilding the Family By Rebuilding the Man”. He can be reached at Patrick@bondinfo.org or (323) 782-1980.
And...
"There is something incomparably precious that you are capable of discovering, resolving, conceiving-if only you do not ruffle or let others disturb the glassy calm of this lake that lies within you"
And another thing I've learned is to be objective concerning those in power, regardless of party affiliation. That way I can judge them by their actions and not their words. I don't want to be persuaded by emotions or personal feelings towards a personality, but instead, base my opinions according to what's right and wrong.
There is another book (whose title I can't remember) that greatly influenced my thinking in my teenage years (have always been an avid reader) that documented the Nazi regime and what the Nazi's did to the Jews. This was a paperback book with many pictures of the atrocities being committed along with their medical experiments on Jews. I probably shouldn't have read this book when I was so young and pure of heart because it did shock me and I cried alot while reading it. I had nightmares for a while. The author spoke of the reasons for and process by which the final solution was carried out. It shocked me how insidiously it came about and how devious the Nazi's were in concealing their true intent. First they confiscated all guns - and then the rest was easy. And so, this is why I don't take my freedom for granted and take to heart Ben Franklin's warning 'We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it' - be ever vigilant, I say. Trust, but verify.
Again, thanks, abigail2. You are so right to encourage us to read this book and I recommend The Gulag Archipelago as well. I think it'll have a profound effect on the reader as to why it's important to keep the Power in the People's hands and that we need to remember the .gov works for us. Not the other way around. Tyranny is insidious - it's a done deal by the time you become aware of it's arrival. These books may give you the kick in the pants you need to get informed and realize that this can happen to us. I thank G_d President Bush (a Brother-in-Christ) is sitting in the Oval Office. I pray he (and his administration) turns to G_d Almighty for wisdom and guidance in his decisions that affect the US. However, I also pray to G_d that He will bring out into the Light all crime and corruption in our .gov and that we elect and vote in responsible, decent, moral, God-fearing men and women to serve us. God Bless America!
"What a dog hears"
No wonder he has become "irrelevant."
It's a must-read.
Yes, what a difference one person can make in the world - for evil - or for good.
In today's America, there are many - MANY - who yearn for the day when our country will follow the Stalinist model - as long as they are "at the top of the heap" when that happens.
Hillary Clinton and her disciples are the leading such advocates....but there are many many more with her.
Despite all the years of public school brainwashing, there are young people who have been homeschooled, who have attended Christian schools in this country - and many even still in public schools - who have "resisted" against the brainwashing. They are the hope of this country.
But their parents, the hippies turned Marxists turned Communists turned Stalinists = the hard core bully dictator wannabe's which make up a huge percentage of the Democratic "party" and its supporters - these are where the danger for our country resides.
Were it not for their lust for power, their determination to achieve that power no matter what the cost in terms of the risk to American lives and prosperity, President Bush and America would be able to fight and defeat the terrorists and others in the world who are ready to destroy us!
Only an ADL, ACLU, People for the America way type bigot would think my comment refering to Solzhenitsyn's writings as typical of "The sentiment of a person of deep Christian faith" excluded other faiths.
Oh...Oh...something said the "C" word in a public place! Worst of all, it was a positive comment! Call up Norman Lear! Call up Alan Dershowitz! Call up the ACLU! Call up Abe Foxman! Make him stop! Make him stop! Sue him! Sue him! This is UnAmerican! This offends me! This offends me!
What should I have said? Sozhenitsyn's writings express the deep faith of a Wiccan?
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