The sun has reached it midday zenith, and I’m still staring at the blank page on my desk. I had promised myself that I would begin writing about Akeksandr Solzhenitsyn’s In The First Circle—a key part of a book project that I’m calling, “The Renewal of the Conservative Imagination.” But pen won’t go to paper, and not surprisingly, I suppose. Solzhenitsyn writes big, as it were, and it’s hard sometimes to know where to start.
Moreover, there is Solzhenitsyn’s life story. Swept up in the reassertion of Stalinist repression toward the end of World War II, he spent eight years in the Soviet Gulag, a reality he would chronicle and fix in the world’s imagination. And not just fix, but also interpret. For according to Solzhenitsyn, the vast prison system of the Soviet Union reflected the essence of communism, not an aberration.
But many have written about Solzhenitsyn’s political legacy. What interests me is somewhat different. It’s his moral and religious vision.
In The First Circle was the first novel Solzhenitsyn wrote (and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote), and I think it’s fair to say that it reflects most fully what he thought he learned in Gulag. It’s a Russian novel —a sprawling narrative of ninety-six chapters and countless characters that the reader must juggle in his head as the many threads of action unfold across hundreds of pages.
The expansiveness of the novel is reinforced by the events that spark the narrative. A Soviet diplomat has decided to betray his country, calling the United States embassy to reveal that a Soviet spy has stolen American nuclear secrets. The rest of the novel revolves around this fateful phone call, with a great deal of the action taking place in a special prison devoted to scientific work. There various technical problems are solved that allow for the traitor to be identified and arrested.
So, we have a big Russian novel keyed to great events —the conflict of East and West during the Cold War, nuclear weapons, and ultimately the chilling possibility of a world-destroying nuclear holocaust. And yet, with the stage set, the novel does not go outward toward a world-historical perspective, but instead goes inward, not just into the evil world of the Soviet prison system, but into the deeply personal ways in which moral truths infiltrate a world of lies.
The novel turns on secrets inside secrets rather than big public events or pronouncements. Most of the characters live inside a secret prison —and in that prison they must keep secret their efforts to discern and live in accord with the truth. These efforts —the true meaning of which hidden even from those who undertake them —define the center of the novel. It’s the diplomat’s fragile grip on moral truth, the prisoner Gleb Nerzhin’s awakening, Sologdin’s efforts to forge a moral armor —do not control the way the narrative unfolds, at least if one thinks in terms of events. Who gets arrested and when and how remains under the control of the secret police. Rather, these inner moral awakenings are at the center in a deeper way, tipping the scales of human destiny.
In his Nobel Prize lecture Solzhenitsyn wrote, “One word of truth outweighs the world.” By my reading, In The First Circle was written to bear witness to that conviction. It’s as if Solzhenitzsyn were saying, “Look, see the tiniest, more fragile irruptions of moral truth into human life. See just a few men hidden away, buried by worldly power, who have allowed themselves to be romanced by moral truth. They outweigh the world.”
I can just see readers scratching their heads. What’s this have to do with renewing the conservative imagination? Well, I’ve got to finish the darn book to be able to put it well, but I can say this.
Social conservatives (like me, for example) are often afflicted by despair, a feeling that the tides of history are going out, and the power of moral truths are waning. In the twilight we wring our hands, and perhaps we decide to make our peace with the present age.
It’s useful, therefore, to read Solzhenitsyn, who lived in a society far, far more demoralized, a place where moral despair seemed the only rational disposition. He reminds us in such a powerful way of the deathless potency of moral truth.
I remember when I finished In The First Circle. Some words of Jesus came to my mind: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40). And they do.
January 5th, 2011 | 12:49 pm
Sweet, I just ordered In the First Circle a couple days ago.
January 5th, 2011 | 12:59 pm
I wonder if Solzhenitsyn is being mis-read. As Mr. Reno said above, “It’s useful, therefore, to read Solzhenitsyn, who lived in a society far, far more demoralized, a place where moral despair seemed the only rational disposition.” I do not dispute that reading Solzhenitsyn is useful, but that Soviet culture was “far, far more demoralized.”
In fact, in his Harvard address, Solzhenitsyn argued that *our* culture is perhaps the more demoralized one; furthermore, his position was precisely that the Russian people were in a superior position so as to *not* fall into despair, in contrast to the West, which has wasted such spiritual resources.
Cf.: “But should I be asked, instead, whether I would propose the West, such as it is today, as a model to my country, I would frankly have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through deep suffering, people in our own country have now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just enumerated are extremely saddening.
A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human personality in the West while in the East it has become firmer and stronger. Six decades for our people and three decades for the people of Eastern Europe; during that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. The complex and deadly crush of life has produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting personalities than those generated by standardized Western well-being. Therefore, if our society were to be transformed into yours, it would mean an improvement in certain aspects, but also a change for the worse on some particularly significant points.”
(http://old.nationalreview.com/document/document060603.asp)
January 5th, 2011 | 1:13 pm
Great a man as he was, Solzhenitsyn was prone to view the world through the prism of a Russocentrism verging on Third Romism. Certainly, his description of Soviet society–which can be carried forward into Russian society today–bears little resemblance to the actuality. In that regard, he was prone to make invidious comparisons–the grubby reality of Western spiritual life, against the pristine ideal of the “Russian soul”.
As one who has traveled throughout Eastern Europe since the fall of the Cold War, and whose daughter has just returned from a semester in St. Petersburg, I have to say that for corruption, cynicism, and mind-numbing materialism, it’s hard to beat Russia today. Yes, more and more people describe themselves as “believers”, more and more people are being baptized. But participation in the life of the Church remains weak, and Orthodoxy is more of a cultural identifier than an integrated way of life for most.
The Russian people are spiritually deprived, and are desperately seeking spiritual nourishment (which explains the success of cults like the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses), but if you are looking for people who live more closely to the Christian ideal, well, there is nothing else to say but that the United States has Russia beat three ways to Sunday in that regard–for all our faults.
Which does not necessarily speak well of us, as it does leave Russia condemned by the very yardstick Solzhenitsyn tried to apply.
January 5th, 2011 | 3:01 pm
I’m with Stuart. Just because Solzhenitsyn’s diagnosis is correct does not mean his prescription is. He long retained this fanciful notion of Russian spirituality born of suffering that must eventually prevail. This belief in this form is more prevalent among the more mystic, especially Eastern Christians; there are Western forms (see below). It is certainly not unchristian, but it does rather take one strand of the faith and go a long way unattended.
It pays to remind ourselves constantly that novels are, uh, fiction. When done well, they can condense truth. But ultimately, these events did not happen. Cf. Yancy’s What’s So Amazing About Grace? in which one of his primary illustrations that when Christians display radical grace it will work, is…Jean Valjean. Or the pacifist belief that if we are really nice to other countries and give them stuff, they will be transformed and won’t hate us. Or the belief more common on the right, that if the Christians will all just get more righteous, God will bless our land. (“If my people…”) It seemed to work for OT Israel in special circumstances. Everyone else – the evidence is thin. Except in fiction.
The reality is we are called to truth and moral behavior whether it will work or not, and even if we are certain it will not work. The reality is that millions of Christians far more righteous than I have been martyred, instantly forgotten, with no justice rising from the ashes. We engage the long twilight struggle anyway.
January 5th, 2011 | 5:17 pm
This is a fabulous discussion that I very much need personally. Dr. Reno and his interlocutors have given me a number of “apples of gold in settings of silver” to help me resist the temptation to despair.
It all started last Friday evening. My wife and I ventured downtown with another couple on New Year’s Eve, where our goal was to dance the night away to the soulful tunings of Hazel Miller and her band. The evening was going along wonderfully. Delightful conversation with our dear friends; bubbly champagne; dancing with the most wonderful woman in the world. It was a new year’s celebration for the record books.
Then, about an hour before midnight as we were dancing to a slow number, I noticed two other couples dancing near us. One couple was two gay men and the other couple was two lesbians. And do you know what struck me the most about this scene? The complete banality of it all. The homosexual couples mixed seamlessly with the rest of us. No one stared. No one whispered. No one acted as anything was even remotely amiss.
Various thoughts ran through my head at that moment: The culture war is over, and we lost. Is there any sense in resisting anymore? Should I just make my peace with a fait accompli? What kind of world is it going to be for my children? Those two couples don’t seem to be hurting anyone, so is the fact that we lost really such a bad thing?
These are the thoughts of a social conservative on the verge of despair. Dr. Reno writes that such as we “are often afflicted by despair, a feeling that the tides of history are going out, and the power of moral truths are waning. In the twilight we wring our hands, and perhaps we decide to make our peace with the present age.” Not just waning Dr. Reno. At that moment I felt as if there were no longer any power in moral truth at all. I was even tempted to believe that it was not even the truth at all. Knowing that I am not the only one tempted to despair makes my struggle easier.
Thank you for reminding me of Solzhenitsyn. If anyone ever had reason to despair it was he. The Gulag was specifically designed to crush the spirit and it did crush millions; yet he persevered. Let us follow his example.
AVI’s comments were, as usual, very cogent. I have been too focused on keeping score in the culture war. Bearing witness to the truth (and the Truth) by no means ensures that we will “win.” Indeed, we may “lose,” as countless millions of nameless martyrs have lost in the past. Let us never forget that “martyr” means “witness,” and we are called to bear witness to the truth without heed to temporal consequences.
I am grateful I stopped by FT today, and I resolve to resist the temptation to despair, to give up, and to accommodate. With God’s unending and freely given grace, I will persevere.
January 5th, 2011 | 6:42 pm
“Various thoughts ran through my head at that moment: The culture war is over, and we lost. Is there any sense in resisting anymore? Should I just make my peace with a fait accompli? What kind of world is it going to be for my children? Those two couples don’t seem to be hurting anyone, so is the fact that we lost really such a bad thing?
These are the thoughts of a social conservative on the verge of despair.”
I feel your pain, Barry.
I don’t know what to say, except to say, “Keep fighting the good fight!”
January 6th, 2011 | 9:24 am
Just for clarification: I consider Christian pacifism an honorable creed even though I do not subscribe to it – if, it is indeed taken with the idea that we forego resistence simply in obedience to several passages of scripture. The more common idea, that Christ and the scriptures teach that nonresistance is a tactic that will ultimately be successful, I reject. It works sometimes if your oppressor has significant moral awareness than can be appealed to – see Civil Rights in the 50′s and 60′s or the independence of India from UK. When that is not present, the success rate is far less. I have never been able to track down the quote, so I may be in error, but Ho Chi Minh said “Had Minister Gandhi been born in a French colony, he would have long since gone on to discover the nature of afterlife.”
January 6th, 2011 | 10:22 am
A.V.I.: not sure about the Ho Chi Minh quote, but Orwell said, and I think better:
“There is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his own struggle against the British government. The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to command publicity…. He believed in “arousing the world”, which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing. It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the régime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing?”
(http://www.george-orwell.org/Reflections_of_Ghandi/0.html)
January 7th, 2011 | 4:47 am
[...] Leer completo: “Moral Awakening” [...]
January 7th, 2011 | 5:40 pm
“This belief in this form is more prevalent among the more mystic, especially Eastern Christians; there are Western forms (see below).”
Well, I am one of those Eastern Christians, but I’m also not blind. And that form of Orthodox mysticism is really more a form of Russian nationalism than anything else.
January 8th, 2011 | 2:27 am
First let me compliment Mr. Reno for his superb essay on Solzhenitsyn’s novel. He is particularly illuminating on the priority assigned by Solzhenitsyn – in terms of overall literary structure – to the inward development of moral and spiritual insight of the characters as opposed to the powerful and ominous external forces that rule the world in which these characters find themselves.
Concerning the comments of readers, I submit that the section of Sozhenitsyn’s Harvard speech to which reference is made needs to be seen in context. The address to Harvard graduates was made in 1978, relatively soon after Solzhenitsyn’s eviction from the Soviet Union, where he had been surrounded by an extraordinary group of loyal friends who helped him in various ways with truly amazing dedication despite the risks to themselves. (He has described this in “”Invisible Allies.”) In the Harvard speech, Solzhenitsyn was addressing representatives of the American elite who, he felt – fairly or unfairly – were unlikely to act in similarly self-sacrificial ways. He was appalled by the way the United States of that time seemed to back away from confronting the communists in their active intrusions into Central America and Africa. It would be inappropriate to generalize on the basis of this specific text, and especially to apply it to the situation today.
January 13th, 2011 | 1:21 pm
The key to understanding Solzhenitsyn at his most fundamental level(not easy)……is to understand that the great Russian writers(Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn) are not enthralled with the Enlightenment.
Russia did not experience this movement the way Western society did.
And all three of those writers are religious mystics who reject completely the West’s materialistic world view.
This is crucial to understand and is largely why he was misunderstood by Harvard and the West.
Cancer Ward is a better novel of his in my opinion.
But…..”You can only control someone as long as you don’t deprive him of everything…..when a man has lost everything…..he’s free again.”
From the First Circle………..and one of my favorite quotes.
January 13th, 2011 | 1:40 pm
PS……….it’s a great honor to have Professor Klimoff on this discussion.
His own work is stellar. And his contributions to Westerners’ understanding of the late, great AIS are invaluable.
January 17th, 2011 | 6:51 am
So, Barry, what do you think would be the correct response to those two couples who, as you yourself note, were simply enjoying their evening and harming no one?
January 18th, 2011 | 7:55 am
Barry said:
“And do you know what struck me the most about this scene? The complete banality of it all. The homosexual couples mixed seamlessly with the rest of us. No one stared. No one whispered.”
You were staring, Barry. And you were whispering.
January 18th, 2011 | 9:21 am
Barry, the despair should be over the banality of your own moral vision. Morality means gays aren’t allowed to dance in public? The culture war is lost because there is no staring and whispering?
Thank goodness America is still trending closer to Sweden than Saudi Arabia, despite your efforts.
Nice Darwin => Hitler post over on Uncommon Descent, BTW. Nothing like a blood libel to put you back on the track of moral truth.
January 18th, 2011 | 6:15 pm
Barry likes to think in absolutes but I am sure that a spritual ancestor of his would have had the exact same thoughts 50 years ago seeing a mixed race couple dancing. Social Conservatism is just society minus 50 years. Social conservatives of their various times fought against desegregation, civil liberties, women voting, freeing of the slaves.
Barry’s spiritual descendant of 50 years will be convinced it was those evolutionists who were against civil liberties for gays.
January 19th, 2011 | 5:05 am
“The culture war is over, and we lost.”
Nothing was lost – the culture is changing, that’s all. In many ways it’s growing up – how about you?
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact