Solzhenitsyn

by Joseph Pearce

  The hedonism inherent in a materialist view of life is an important component in the rise of consumerism and liberal morality. Another component is legalism, the juridical.

  Current modernity boasts of the fact that everything is in accordance with “the law”. In modern society, if one is correct from the legal point of view, then no one will demand of him or her a higher level of moral action. A famous statement of modernity is “that which is not prohibited by law is permitted”, which is a rejection of applying a moral valuation to action. In truth, the legal measure, the juridical way of measuring, is lower than the ethical. It is the atmosphere of spiritual or soul-connected mediocrity. In the foundations of current Western morality, we have both hedonism and legalism.

  In biblical terms, this juridical approach would be called pharisaical, and it has become the foundation upon which selfishness, the lowest common denominator of mankind, has been established in law as the highest common factor of modern morality. The moral essence of humanity has been forgotten, “so that now for the past few decades the most fashionable slogan is human rights”.

  But human obligations, human duties, people forget. You cannot have rights without obligations. They must be in balance, if indeed obligations are not to be greater. Just as it is impossible to say to myself that I will breathe with my left lung, but I will not breathe with my right—they both need to work together—in such a way, duty and . . . right must go together. Our situation has become so twisted that we now even have the expression that there is an ideology of human rights. And what is that? That is anarchism, known for a long time, and so we are moving toward this anarchism.

  The fact that modernity makes a virtue out of selfishness is one of the keys to its enduring success. Solzhenitsyn claims that Protestantism made a major contribution to this:

  Of course, one cannot declare that only my faith is correct and all the other faiths are not. Of course, God is endlessly multi-dimensional, so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God. One must not have any negative attitude to any religion, but nonetheless, the depth of understanding God and the depth of applying God’s commandments is different in different religions. In this sense, we have to admit that Protestantism has brought everything down only to faith. Calvinism says that nothing depends on man, that faith is already predetermined, and also in its sharp protest against Catholicism, Protestantism rushed to discard, together with ritual, all the mysterious, the mythical, and mystical aspects of the faith. In that sense, it has impoverished religion.

  Agreeing with G. K. Chesterton’s view that each heresy takes a part of the truth and caricatures it until only a distortion of the truth remains, Solzhenitsyn maintained that this falling away from the truth in recent centuries could have apocalyptic consequences. “If mankind does not subordinate itself to moral demands, to moral conditions, then egos will destroy the world.” Taking the example of the ecological crisis, he believed that, like so many of society’s other problems, it has an irreligious origin.

  Having left religion, man has forgotten that he is part of a unified creation. He has stopped thinking of himself as part of nature, and so we move to a destruction of the environment to such an extent that perhaps we will destroy the environment before we destroy society. As we can see by the number of international conferences where the United States and other leading countries are refusing to take measures to stem the destruction of the environment. This is a direct path toward the destruction of the world.

  Confronted with such a doomsday scenario, was the only hope a return to religion? “Not a return to religion,” Solzhenitsyn replied, “but an elevation toward religion. The thing is that religion itself cannot but be dynamic, which is why return is an incorrect term.” There could be no return to the past.

  On the contrary, in order to combat modern materialistic mores, as religion must, to fight nihilism and egotism, religion must also develop, must be flexible in its forms, and it must have a correlation with the cultural forms of the epoch. Religion always remains higher than everyday life. In order to make the elevation toward religion easier for people, religion must be able to alter its forms in relation to the consciousness of modern man.

  Solzhenitsyn’s call for a dynamic dialogue between religion and modern culture seemed at variance with the implicit sympathy for the Old Believers evident in The Gulag Archipelago and several of his other works. “I spoke exclusively through the historical aspect, the historical plane, the historical lens”, Solzhenitsyn explained. The Old Believers were

  treated amazingly unjustly, because of some very insignificant, trifling differences in ritual which were promoted with poor judgment and without much sound basis. Because of these small differences, they were persecuted in very many cruel ways, they were suppressed, they were exiled. From the perspective of historical justice, I sympathize with them and I am on their side, but this in no way ties in with what I have just said about the fact that religion in order to keep together with mankind must adapt its forms toward modem culture. In other words, do I agree with the Old Believers that religion should freeze and not move at all? Not at all!

  Related to this from a Western point of view was the debate within the Catholic Church in the 1960s at the time of the Second Vatican Council. One side welcomed the Council because it modernized the Church, while the other, the traditionalists, saw it as a surrender to the modern values with which Christianity was essentially at war. Solzhenitsyn referred to the similar difficulties facing the Russian Orthodox Church:

  A question peculiar to the Russian Orthodox Church is, should we continue to use Old Church Slavonic, or should we start to introduce more of the contemporary Russian language into the service? I understand the fears of both those in the Orthodox and in the Catholic Church, the wariness, the hesitation, and the fear that this is lowering the Church to the modern condition, the modern surroundings. I understand this fear, but alas, I fear that if religion does not allow itself to change, it will be impossible to return the world to religion because the world is incapable on its own of rising as high as the old demands of religion. Religion needs to come and meet it somewhat.

  This perennial tension between tradition and reform in religious affairs was at the heart of Chesterton’s image of the Church as a heavenly chariot careering through the centuries, reeling but erect. It was, however, a little surprising to find Solzhenitsyn, so often perceived as the arch-traditionalist, apparently coming down on the side of the reformers. Perhaps it was time to apply a liturgical litmus test. Was there a point at which relevance to the modern world would sever religion’s links with its traditional tenets? Take, for example, the issue of women priests, which has caused such division in the Anglican church.

  “Certainly there are many firm boundaries which cannot and should not be changed”, Solzhenitsyn replied. “When I speak of some sort of correlation between the cultural norms of the present, it is really only a small part of the whole thing.” There was a pause, punctuated by a mirthful, almost youthful gleam in the aging blue eyes. “Certainly, I do not believe that women priests is the way to go!” he continued, chuckling infectiously.

  This infectious chuckling was another aspect of Solzhenitsyn’s demeanor that came as something of a surprise. Somehow, it seemed at variance with the pugnacity of his public image. The mirth and the relaxed humor were as much a part of his general character as the seriousness with which he approached many of the subjects under discussion. One example of Solzhenitsyn’s effervescence emerged when he was shown a list of Western writers with whom he shared an affinity. Solzhenitsyn was, I suggested, part of the same network of minds as these writers who had also adopted traditional Christianity as a response to modernity. He cast his eyes over the list, reading the names of Chesterton, Belloc, Eliot, C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, Sassoon, Sitwell, Waugh, and Newman: “I do know that such writers exist,” he quipped with the same recurrent chuckle, “and I also know that they are equally unpopular in the West!”
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  Did he believe that the outlook of such writers, taken together with the socioeconomic vision of E. F. Schumacher, was the key to society rediscovering its sanity? “I do believe that it would be the key, but I don’t believe this will happen, because people succumb to fashion, and they suffer from inertia, and it is hard for them to come round to a different point of view.” Did this pessimism, for want of a better word, apply to society’s prospects of rediscovering, or rising to, religion? There was a potent pause, during which his soul’s azure windows visibly saddened. “I would have to say that the road is very difficult, and the hope is very small, but it is not excluded. History has in different questions laid out some tremendous turnabouts and curves.” In that case, did he see the likelihood that religious belief would continue much as it was at present, the preserve of a misunderstood minority? “Yes, I do, but that doesn’t mean that believers should let their hands drop or that they should give up.”

  In Russia at least, there were grounds for a limited degree of optimism. Since the fall of communism, there had been an increase in the number of Christianity’s adherents. “Many under an atheistic press, a vice grip, had forgotten, so we do have something of a return to Christianity. Yet simultaneously, there is a decay of values that accompanies the rise of the consumer society. It is a simultaneous process.” The present upheavals in Russia made it difficult to determine what the future held in store. “For the entire future of Russia, I would say that the situation is in a balance, and it is unclear which way this balance will go. As this is true for the whole of Russia, and all the issues to do with Russia, it is also unclear to what degree the development of Christianity will be intertwined in Russia and will influence the way the whole country goes. We cannot predict that now.”

  Amidst the confusion, many in Russia had even begun to rue the downfall of communism. “In any case,” Solzhenitsyn laughed, “many people here condemn me and censure me by saying, ‘Well, you demolished it, but what do we have now?’ ” Although few would venture to suggest that Solzhenitsyn was a communist, he has often been smeared by association with the extreme nationalists who have risen from the ashes of communism’s collapse. It is interesting, therefore, that he rejects unequivocally any racial basis for nationhood. “Much in man is determined not so much by his physical side or by blood but by the spirit”, he insisted. “For instance, I often speak of Russians, and I am asked, ‘Who are the Russians? Russia covers large territories with different peoples mixed together. You cannot trace the blood.’ I answer, ‘He who is Russian is so by spirit, is so by heart, by the direction of his loyalties and interests. So there is a spiritual unifying of people and not a blood-based one.’ ”

  It is one of Solzhenitsyn’s most passionately held beliefs that this spiritual basis is central to any understanding of life itself, as much for individual people as for whole peoples. One of the leitmotifs of his novel Cancer Ward, he explained, was “the correlation, the relationship, between the physical and spiritual facets of love. It is tied with the direct development of the book’s plot, since before Oleg there stands the possibility of the loss of the physical side, and the question that lies before him is what might be left to hope for, to live for. . . . Love without the spiritual side is not love.” Linked with this spiritual dimension was the characterization of the female characters in the book, who are developed with strength and sympathy but in an implicitly anti-feminist, although not anti-feminine, direction. “I do feel that feminism is anti-natural”, Solzhenitsyn asserted.

  It does destroy the feminine, and in so doing, it also destroys mankind. It disassembles the female side of mankind, and the male side also suffers. This is one of the manifestations of the fact that people have lost the high image of man as a creation of God. Instead we have this unbridled, almost frenzied, moving about of liberalism, which fails to understand human nature itself, not just the feminine, but human existence, being blinded by this wild, liberal dancing.

  Spiritual preoccupations aside, Solzhenitsyn’s greatest love remains his work. Even at eighty, his eyes glistened and the words rolled ebulliently from his lips as he discussed his writing. He was happy to talk about his past work, but, as he said, “the favorite work is always the one on which you are currently working.” It was with added enthusiasm, therefore, that he spoke about the eight double-part short stories he had written since his return to Russia. “It is a special kind of genre”, he explained.

  These two parts need to be linked by something. Sometimes they are linked by the same characters, but in very different time periods perhaps. Sometimes characters, completely disparate, would seem at first glance to have nothing in common with each other whatsoever, and the trick there is to try to guess what is the common theme linking each part. In some ways, this creates an additional space, an additional dimension, so this link that you have to guess at is not present in either the first part or in the second part, but in putting the two together one is able to deduce something else.

  In continuing to define new genres, even in his latter years, Solzhenitsyn was highlighting the apparent paradox embodied by the marriage of creative innovation and cultural tradition. This is a facet of his work that Michael Nicholson finds particularly exciting. “Solzhenitsyn has been more concerned than most writers with the practical problems attached to his writings”, Nicholson states. It is a “fascinating struggle not between genius and mediocrity, but with the problem of preventing the weight of the material from steam-rolling you flat.” The difficulties have been overcome by innovation. “He uses subtitles that define new genres. The Gulag Archipelago was ‘an experiment in literary investigation’. The First Circle has no linear development beyond about three days; it works on parallel echoes and circular images.” Even One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, one of the most understated of Solzhenitsyn’s works, is “a novel which is bursting at the seams with the impulse to say far more than it can, so you get a terrific tension here. The text seeps these emblematic, symbolic moments.”5

  One sublimely beautiful passage in Cancer Ward includes what purports to be a definition of the meaning of life itself: “The meaning of existence was to preserve unspoiled, undisturbed and undistorted the image of eternity which each person is born with—as far as possible.”6 Did Solzhenitsyn believe that his own life and work had succeeded in preserving this image of eternity? “I certainly try—that in every work there are such moments when I try to preserve the image of eternity—in each one of my works. Of course, not throughout the entire scope of the work, and that, I would add, applies to life as well as work. And I would also add that the older a person becomes, the more they are concerned with such issues, such questions.”

  This led to a discussion of the rarely discerned similarities between Solzhenitsyn’s starkly “realist” novels and J. R. R. Tolkien’s supposedly “escapist” fantasies. Tolkien had defined those moments when a work succeeds in preserving or perceiving the image of eternity as the “sudden joyous ‘turn’ ”, the “sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth . . . a brief vision . . . a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world”.7 “Yes, yes”, Solzhenitsyn exclaimed, concurring wholeheartedly. “In many of the episodes and certainly in the wider flow of events in my work, I tried to both see, locate, and to evoke toward life such a turn.”

  Tolkien and Solzhenitsyn also shared a preoccupation in their work with the ennoblement of souls through the trials and tribulations of adversity. “It is not only the pure souls that are able to rise, but those which have resilience and strength”, Solzhenitsyn explained:

  Long periods of well-being and comfort are in general dangerous to all. After such prolonged periods, weak souls become incapable of weathering any kind of trial. They are afraid of it. But strong souls in such periods are still able to mobilize and to show themselves, and to grow through this trial. Difficult trials and sufferings can facilitate the growth of the soul. In the West, there is a widespread feeling that this is masochism, that if we highly val
ue suffering, this is masochism. On the contrary, it is a significant bravery when we respect suffering and understand what burdens it places on our soul.

  It is, however, very important to differentiate between the form of ennoblement epitomized by the Crucifixion and Resurrection, and the triumph of the will espoused in the Nietzschean maxim “Every blow which doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger.” “When we speak of ‘crucifixion’ and ‘resurrection’, the image foremost in our minds is that of Christ, and the image of those who followed the path of martyrdom or suffering in the context of Christianity. It is the pure struggle of spirituality against suffering or trial. In Nietzsche, we see the physical counter-stance against suffering. It is almost like a training, almost like a sparring. These are phenomena of different natures: one is spiritual, the other is physical.”

  Encouraged by Solzhenitsyn’s ready acceptance of the affinity between his own creative vision and that of Tolkien, I ventured to read him two quotes from Tolkien that appeared to encapsulate the spirit of his own work:

  [T]he essence of a fallen world is that the best cannot be attained by free enjoyment, or by what is called “self-realization” (usually a nice name for self-indulgence, wholly inimical to the realization of other selves); but by denial, by suffering. [“Absolutely . . . absolutely”, Solzhenitsyn whispered.]

  Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. . . . There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.8