Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, R.I.P.

Thursday August 07, 2008

By Ellis Washington

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008

Now he belongs to the Ages.

– Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war. Epitaph uttered at Lincoln's death bed, April 15, 1865

Prologue

I, like many lovers of great literature, was deeply saddened by the headline on the New York Times last Monday, "Reverence but no outpouring for Solzhenitsyn." Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) Russian dramatist, novelist, historian, was a prolific writer and a gargantuan intellect. His magnum opus is his legendary – "The Gulag Archipelago" (3 vols., 1973-78).

Other revelatory writings, like "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," (1962) eloquently and profoundly detailed the horrors of Lenin and Stalin's complex network of prison camps throughout Russia; a pernicious, omnipresent evil Solzhenitsyn knew first hand having spent eight years in Stalin's Gulag (1945-53). For his singular courage, alerting the world of the notorious Soviet Gulag, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974, but eventually repatriated in 1994.

Despite this horrific ordeal in the Gulag that would have broken most strong men, Solzhenitsyn lived a long, fruitful life just shy of nine decades. Truly the world must know that a giant of literature and a champion of human rights now belongs to the Ages.

Solzhenitsyn Commencement Address, Harvard University, circa 1978

It was my junior year in high school when Solzhenitsyn gave his famous commencement address at Harvard University – "A World Split Apart" – a singular and trenchant condemnation of the excesses of modern American culture. Although I attended a famous prep school (Cass Technical High), I was not introduced to the writings of Solzhenitsyn until my own self-searching at Harvard 10 years later.

What controversial things did Solzhenitsyn say to the Harvard Faculty and students, and why were his words met with such disdain and ridicule, even to this day? Let's examine the opening paragraph for starters:

Harvard's motto is "Veritas." Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us as soon as our concentration begins to flag, all the while leaving the illusion that we are continuing to pursue it. This is the source of much discord. Also, truth seldom is sweet; it is almost invariably bitter. A measure of truth is included in my speech today, but I offer it as a friend, not as an adversary.

As if quoting the words of Jesus and repeatedly using the word "evil" regarding the Soviet Union four years before President Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech wasn't bad enough, Solzhenitsyn had the gall to criticize the intellectual foundation of the modern liberal academy – moral relativism, humanism, progressivism, socialism, deconstructionism, logocentricism or any of that clap trap faire many of the youthful minions for four years were indoctrinated under at Harvard.

No, no, no, Solzhenitsyn had a message from God based on truth and like Elijah, the prophet of antiquity, would not be deterred by the witchcrafts, Baal worship and paganisms of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.

Solzhenitsyn in his Harvard commencement address said, "I have spent all my life under a communist regime and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed." Continuing he said, "But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either. A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man's noblest impulses."

In a wonderful tribute to Solzhenitsyn in 2003 by the writers at National Review, Jay Norlinger wrote:

Solzhenitsyn says, "The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and of course in the United Nations." … I love that "of course," before "in the United Nations." For me, it is one of the most priceless parts of the whole speech. I have been studying the U.N. with particular concentration lately, and I am incessantly quoting Solzhenitsyn. If he received royalties, he'd be even richer: The United Nations is not so much the united nations as the united governments or regimes, no better and no worse than those regimes on the whole.

Contemporary news accounts said that Solzhenitsyn's speech was interrupted with periodic applause, but also some intermittent boos and hissing, particularly from the student section. Is anyone surprised by this response, for what else would you expect from students indoctrinated and propagandized for four or more years at Harvard on the endless variations of how to hate America and Western civilization?

As a contrast to Solzhenitsyn we had the intellectual pygmy, Garry Trudeau, who created the Doonesbury cartoon as our commencement speaker (DePauw University, 1983) and he was treated like a Solzhenitsyn with thunderous applause and not one "booo" or hiss!

Solzhenitsyn famously respects neither his critics nor particularly cares what even his admirers have to say as Norlinger quoted the Book of Common Prayer: "He was immune to praise" and in applying Solzhenitsyn's august words to the Harvard graduates of 1978, the master seem to follow the logic his son, Igant, who spoke of his famous father, "He could have written 'The Red Wheel' or kept up with his critics – but he couldn't have done both."

In the turbulent and angst-ridden political times of the late 1970s Solzhenitsyn spoke candidly and authoritatively regarding the recently ended and controversial Vietnam War with these words of condemnation to the war protest movement of whom he contended were examples of many in the U.S. whom did not understand the Vietnam War.

He rhetorically asks if the American antiwar proponents now realize the effects their actions had on Vietnam: "But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there?"

Near the conclusion of his commencement address at Harvard, Solzhenitsyn spoke these prophetic words of truth: "It [Western intellectuals] has made man the measure of all things on earth – imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now paying for the mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility."

To this magnificent, singular summary of modern culture all I can add is the plea – Why don't we ever hear this kind of rhetoric today from our political leaders, Republicans or Democrats?

Epilogue

Solzhenitsyn, last Sunday evening, deservedly ascended the steps of Parnassus. His work here in the mortal plain that vexed him with their vanities is completed, his name, revered across the world and his memory like Lincoln "now belongs to the Ages" while the legions of idealistic, self-important youth that heard the august, prescient words of a modern-day prophet in his commencement speech at Harvard in 1978, the sum of their memory, their life's work and their collective contributions to God and humanity abide within the abyss of irrelevance.

Rest in Peace, Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, for truly you now belong to the Ages.

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Ellis Washington, former editor at The Michigan Law Review and law clerk at The Rutherford Institute, is a graduate of John Marshall Law School and a lecturer and freelance writer on constitutional law, legal history, political philosophy and critical race theory. He has written over a dozen law review articles and several books, including "The Inseparability of Law and Morality: The Constitution, Natural Law and the Rule of Law" (2002), "Beyond the Veil: Essays in the Dialectical Style of Socrates" and He has just completed the manuscript to his latest book, "The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust" (2007).

Washington's latest book, "The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust," can be pre-ordered by calling 800-462-6420, promotion code "UPREPUB."

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