A Classic of the 20th and 21st Centuries: "The Gulag Archipelago"

Fifty years ago, I was a copy editor at the Beaumont, Texas Enterprise. In December of `973, we began receiving a series of alerts from the New York Times News Service, saying the Times had acquired a manuscript of worldwide importance and would be publishing soon. The manuscript was The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  

Solzhenitsyn was living in the Soviet Union at the time. The manuscript had been circulating in samizdat there, and apparently the KGB had gotten its hands on a copy or a portion of a copy. A considerable amount had already been smuggled out to the West. To protect his friends and family, Solzhenitsyn gave the green light to publishing the work in the West, and it would soon be published in French, its first published language, and an English translation was underway.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Tales from the road: The kid who died in Mrs. Cross’ yard – John Banks at Civil War Blog.

 

Winter Rabbits – Carter Johnson at Front Porch Republic.

 

“Democracy is too prevalent in America” Thomas Gage Arrive in Boston – Rob Orrison at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The good news about the left’s growing resort to intimidation – Lewis Andrews at The Spectator. 

How Hadrian’s Wall is Revealing a Hidden Side of Roman History – Julia Buckley at CNN.

"Between Two Millstones, Book 2" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Two momentous events occurred in the life of Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) in 1978. He gave the commencement address at Harvard University, and he and his family moved to Vermont. They would spend the next 16 years in Vermont, returning to Russia only after the fall of communism and the Soviet Union. 

The speech at Harvard ruffled Western sensibilities, especially the sensibilities of Western news media. In short, they never forgot it, and they never forgave him for it (one observer said that Solzhenitsyn had accomplished the impossible: he’d given a commencement address that was remembered a year later). The news media had initially embraced Solzhenitsyn when his Soviet arrest loomed in 1973 and when it happened, he was exiled, and he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship in 1974. His was a heroic tale; it also allowed the media to tweak the noses of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who were deep in the throes of détente with Leonid Brezhnev. 

 

The move to Vermont was less controversial. The Solzhenitsyns had considered Switzerland, Norway, and Canada before finally deciding on Vermont. Solzhenitsyn needed calm and quiet to work on what he considered his great work – The Red Wheel, the multivolume story of how the Bolshevik Revolution happened. 

 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Between Two Millstones, Book 2: Exile in America 1978-1994 tells that story. It also tells the stories of the trial and tribulations of literary agents, biographers (some of which were not above deliberate deception), enemies and often friends financed by the KGB to discredit the author. It also tells the stories of Solzhenitsyn’s dealings with the news media, especially the American news media and the author running smack into what was little known then but common knowledge today – the new media’s many narratives, which are often very different from the news.

 

The memoir is written is the same style as its predecessor, Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches from Exile 1974-1978. (The “millstones” of the title refer to the two competing societies and systems of Soviet communism and the culture of the West.) He makes ample use of exclamation points (he was a passionate Russian, after all). He struggles to balance his need for privacy and quiet with the necessity of defending himself. He deals with the mundane activities of family life (although he acknowledges that his wife dealt with far more of the mundane).

 

He talks about the mistakes and often wrong assumptions he made, about people and the Western news media (including the ones who sent photographers secretly on to his property for photographs and possibly a chance meeting). He discovers the critics and biographers who were less interested in telling his story and far more interested in their own careers. Old émigré friends unexpectedly turn upon him. Yet he also finds many steadfast friends and supporters. 

 

The account of the two volumes of Between Two Millstones are taken from journals Solzhenitsyn wrote at the time. The books are footnoted, which is often helpful with names of people and places. They give a deep insight into what was happening to one of the great writers of the 20^th century, the man who helped bring down communism simply be telling, and publishing, the truth. 

 

Related:

 

Between Two Millstones by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. 

"Between Two Millstones" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

In February 1974, writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was expelled from the Soviet Union. After years of his writings being published in the West, the triggering event for the Soviet government was the publication of the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn’s highly detailed account of life in the Soviet prison camp system. 

The writer was flown to West Germany, beginning an exile that would last until 1994, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the restoration of his Russian citizenship, and his eventual return. But in 1974, his wife and young children had to be allowed to leave, his rather large archive of research materials, notes, and other documents had to be smuggled out, a place to live had to be found. He also had to navigate life in the West, survive the machinations of unscrupulous people disguised as helpers, and deal with a news media he found horrific.

Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches of Exile 1974-1978 is the first of two volumes on the 20 years he spent in the West. Translated by Peter Constantine. The account provides a story of an internationally famous author bewildered by Western culture and society. He was at first embraced by the Western news media and intellectuals; he was something of a problem and embarrassment for the Richard Nixon / Henry Kissinger plan for détente with Soviet Russia. 

The media the intellectual elites soon discovered, however, that Solzhenitsyn was not the Western-style liberal they expected; he was first and foremost a Russian, and a conservative one at that; the man actually worshipped faithfully in the Russian Orthodox Church. He learned quickly to distrust the news media in all of its forms

Solzhenitsyn must have kept meticulously detailed diaries or have a phenomenal memory, or both. The memoir covers an almost daily account of his first five years outside of Russia. He had to give countless interviews. He had to find a place to live, considering Switzerland, Norway, and Canada before finally deciding on Vermont in the United States. He had to deal with the constant propaganda efforts of the KGB, the Soviet counterpart to the CIA. And he had to gather together his archives, visit universities and research centers, and somehow find time to help his wife raise their children.

Solzhenitsyn and his three sons about 1975

It’s no wonder he often felt caught between what he called two millstones – the millstone pf the Soviets and the KGB, and the millstone of unending pressure from elements of Western culture, and Western culture itself. 

I have read most of Solzhenitsyn’s works (including all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago) and his two earlier memoirs, The Oak and the Calf and Invisible Allies. I had believed that his falling out with the Western news media and intellectual elites stemmed from his 1978 Harvard commencement speech, published as A World Split Apart. More than one pundit observed that Solzhenitsyn had done something at Harvard that no one ever had done anywhere before – he gave a commencement address that was remembered a year later.  What Between Two Millstones makes clear, however, is that the falling out between the writer and western news media happened much earlier, almost as soon as he arrived in Germany.

Solzhenitsyn in 1974.

The memoir also provides a deep understanding of Solzhenitsyn experiences as he began to write his fictional account of the rise of the Bolsheviks and how they seized power in 1917. Doing research at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, he’s shocked to learn that the first revolution of 1917, in which the tsar abdicated and Alexander Kerensky took over as national leader, was not the glorious moment he and many other Russians had believed it to be. In fact, that revolution was just as much responsible for the eventual tyranny of communism as the second revolution of 1917, that in November that was celebrated as the founding moment of Soviet Russia. 

Between Two Millstones is for admirers of Solzhenitsyn, for critics interested in his writings, and for historians who want to understand a short five years that, in their own way, contributed to the ultimate dissolution of Soviet Russia.

Top photograph: Solzhenitsyn at his home in Cavendish, Vermont.

Saturday Good Reads

I was a senior in high school when I read The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. And then I read Cancer Ward, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I was an almost brand-new copy editor at a newspaper in Texas when the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago was published in Paris, and the first day it was available in English found me at the Methodist Bookstore in downtown Houston buying my copy. 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I’ve since read the other two volumes of the Gulag, his memoir The Oak and the Calf, his novels of World War I, his poetry, his speeches, and just about everything else he wrote. I could argue that Solzhenitsyn’s writing and faith had an enormous impact on my formative years and after. This month is the 100^th anniversary of his birth, and Daniel Mahoney at City-Journal and Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative have tributes to the man and what he accomplished.

The famous flu pandemic of 1918-19 killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including 550,000 in the United States (about the same number who died in the Civil War). For some time now, it’s believed to have started in a small town in Kansas and been carried to Europe by American troops fighting in the war. New medical detective work is unraveling that belief. Helen Branswell at STAT has the story.

Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy has a list of the year’s best magazine writing, and it contains some excellent articles. The Hudson Review has published a new short story by Wendell Berry. The funeral of President George H.W. Bush inspired a story in Smithsonian Magazine on the somber history of the presidential funeral train. And James Heartfield at Spiked explains why the poets of World War I matter.

More Good Reads

Writing and Literature

30 Words Invented by Shakespeare – Michael at Daily Writing Tips.

Home and Hearth: A Cautionary Christmas with Washington Irving – Christine Norvell at The Imaginative Conservative.

Merton & Blake, Revisited – Michael Higgins at Commonweal.

Life and Culture

How Overparenting Backfired on Americans – Jonathan Haidt (video).

8 years and $550 million: A pro-life political failure – Jesse Johnson at The Cripplegate.

Oh, the sweet irony of Jordan Peterson’s fame – Rex Murphy at National Post.

Faith

Join Me on a Ride to Malvern – Kimberly Wagner.

Fathers and Churches – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

The Kingdom of God Has No Borders: An Interview with Melani McAlister – Thomas Kidd at The Gospel Coalition.

History

The boy left behind in Nazi Vienna – Nik Pollinger at BBC (Hat Tip: J of India).

Poetry

Lament for Mother Earth – Joy Lenton at Poetry Joy.

A Quintet of Sonnets for Mary – Malcolm Guite at The Imaginative Conservative.

Oliver Callan on Patrick Kavanagh: burning rage, fiery genius – Irish Times.

For the Nativity – John Heath-Stubbs via Kingdom Poets.

The Underworld – Dana Gioia at The Hudson Review.

The Sermon and the Whisper – Nathan Koblintz at Thinking Faith (Hat Tip: J of India).

A Lesson Heard in Longfellow’s Home – Barry York at Gentle Reformation.

Art and Photography

The Spiritual Mechanics of Labor and Rest – Jack Baumgartner at The School for the Transfer of Energy.

Maple and Oak – Tim Good at Pixels.

O Holy Night – Hillsong Worship

Painting: Portrait of a Man with a Newspaper, oil on canvas by Andre Derain, 1911-1914; State Hermitage Museum, Russia. 

"The Noise of Time" by Julian Barnes

In 1962, the Soviet Russian publication Novy Mir published something rather remarkable – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by a  then little-known writer named Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008). Stalin had died in 1953; Nikita Khrushchev had given his famous Politburo speech denouncing the “cult of personality” in 1956. But still, no one in Soviet Russia openly acknowledged the existence of Soviet labor and prison camps that dwarfed those of Nazi Germany. Until One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a novel written and based on Solzhenitsyn’s own first-hand experience in the camps. It was a rare moment in Soviet literature, and it didn’t last long.

I was in high school in the late 1960s when I read a paperback edition of Denisovich. I was mesmerized. Then I read Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward and The First Circle. And I followed news of the author, and he was much in the news. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, and was not allowed to accept it (his wife did). August 1914 was published in 1971.

And then came détente, engineered by President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Leonid Brezhnev, and celebrating Solzhenitsyn was one way for the media to stick a thumb in Nixon’s eye. (In 1976, Solzhenitsyn fell out of favor with the Western press, and fell hard, after a speech at Harvard where he took the media to the woodshed and told the truth.)

Solzhenitsyn news reached fever pitch in late 1973 and early 1974. The manuscript for the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago had been smuggled out and published in the West. It was not a novel, but what Solzhenitsyn considered his great work – a historical account of the Soviet prison camps, an account that showed they didn’t start with Stalin but with Lenin. The Russians arrested Solzhenitsyn and deported him. His family was allowed to follow not long after, and he lived in Vermont until he returned to Russia after the Soviet regime collapsed.

Solzhenitsyn was one of tens of millions caught up in the murderous Soviet prison camp system. The entire Russian population, however, was caught in a system in which, if one were to survive, reality had to be denied on a daily basis. Poets, writers, artists, and musicians either had to bow the knee to the state or disappear into the Gulag. Or just disappear

In the novel The Noise of Time, British writer Julian Barnes tells the story of one musician and composer who often found himself on the razor’s edge of existence in the Soviet Union. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was the outstanding composer of the Soviet era in Russia; he also collaborated, however reluctantly, with the regime.

Barnes uses three events in Shostakovich’s life, in 1936, 1948, and 1960.

In 1936, while still a young man, Shostakovich finds himself increasingly the target of the regime, ostensibly because of an allegedly anti-Soviet opera based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The campaign against him has gone so far that he has been described in print as “an enemy of the people.” For a considerable period of time, he spends the night by the elevator of his apartment house, a suitcase by his side, waiting for the secret police to arrest him.

In 1948, Shostakovich is allowed to travel to New York to participate in a Soviet-arranged propaganda event and give a pre-approved (and pre-written) speech. In 1960, the composer is being driven by a state chauffeur, summoned to meet with “The Corncob,” a nickname for Kruschchev.

Julian Barnes

Barnes uses each event to tell the story of Shostakovich’s life under the Soviet regime, his marriages, his work, but most of all his grappling with survival as an artist during a time and with a regime that will not tolerate any deviance from the official line. Even as that line is constantly changing. It is easy to criticize, Shostakovich muses, but then those who do weren’t there. If they had been, they wouldn’t be here now.

In the hands of Barnes, that is what Shostakovich’s life becomes – a struggle between the art, the music, he is creating and survival in the face of a murderous regime that will grind down artistic integrity, originality, creativity, and innovation. It is a difficult time in which to survive physically, but the composer will come to realize that the most dangerous time is not when your life and freedom are constantly threatened but when they are not.

Barnes, born in 1946, is a novelist, essayist, short story writer, and translator. (I reviewed his novel Arthur and George here last year.)  His novel The Sense of an Ending won the Man Booker Prize in 2011.

The Noise of Time is a remarkable novel, relatively short, but packed with realities that stop the reader and constantly make him reflect and consider. It may be easy to shrug off Shostakovich as a Soviet collaborator, despite his artistic achievements, but then, we weren’t there.

Related:

My review of Arthur and George by Julian Barnes.

My review of The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.

Photograph: Dmitri Shostakovich in the 1930s.

Poets and Poems: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and “Prussian Nights”

It was first job out of college. I was a copy editor at a newspaper in Texas. Turnover was high, and with a few short months I was No. 2 on the copy desk. One of my tasks was sorting through all of the stories from wires services and deciding what should be included in the newspaper.

One day, in late 1973, we received a notice from the New York Times News Service. A manuscript of worldwide importance was soon to be published, and it promised enormous impact on world politics. A few weeks later, we learned what the manuscript was: The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a detailed and documented account of life in the Soviet Union’s huge network of labor camps.

Solzhentisyn had emerged as a writer during a small sliver of freedom in the early 1960s. His novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich had been published (or approved for publication) by the Soviet magazine Novy Mir in the early 1960s (translated into English in 1963). Two other manuscripts (Cancer Ward and The First Circle) had circulated in Russia via samizdat and then smuggled out to the West. The Soviets were not pleased when Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. When the non-fiction Gulag was published in early 1974, the Soviet Union responded almost immediately by expelling the writer from the country. He made his way first to Germany, and eventually settled in Vermont, where he continued to write fiction and non-fiction and edit the next two volumes of Gulag.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph by Nuzrath Nuzree via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.