I was still puzzled by the mystery of why Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had permitted me, an unknown writer, to visit him for an interview when he had spurned the advances of many better-known authors. The mystery was solved by his wife, Natalya, soon after she had welcomed me. In my previous essay, we concluded with my [...]
On the morning after my arrival in Moscow, I was picked up at the appointed hour by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s eldest son, who drove me to Solzhenitsyn’s home, secluded deep within a wood of towering pine trees. As I stepped out of the car, I felt that I was stepping into the greatest adventure of my [...]
Professor Edward E. Ericson, Jr. was an intellectual father to me. He shared the belief of the Russians that great literature can change lives, and that true literature which does not forget God or man or the particularities of life is ultimately more powerful than politics or even political philosophy. It might be mom or [...]
Socrates in the Underworld: On Plato’s Gorgias, by Nalin Ranasinghe (192 pages, St. Augustine Press, 2009) Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Peter Augustine Lawler as he reflects on how Socrates models both rightly-ordered eros and logos, in contrast to the Stoics and Sophists. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher [...]
“Sketches of Exile” is a real gift for those who admire Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, enabling us to see his first years of exile, in Switzerland and the United States, through his eyes. We should be grateful for these sketches and the insight they offer, as well as for their glimpses of the lovable man behind the publicly [...]
We should not confuse or conflate Russian President Vladimir Putin with Soviet leaders, such as Josef Stalin. They are as different as the proverbial chalk and cheese. Nowhere is this more evident than the way in which Mr. Putin has shown himself to be a great admirer of the anti-Soviet dissident, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Special [...]
The twentieth century produced many giants and many heroes. Some of these were both heroes and giants, and one must include in this number the giant and heroic figure of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The twentieth century produced many giants and many heroes. Yet many of the giants were not heroes, and many of the heroes were [...]
“Who today still speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Who, one wonders, would ask such a question? The answer, surprisingly enough, is a certain Adolf Hitler who asked it rhetorically as a means of justifying the German invasion of Poland in 1939. The annihilation to which Hitler referred was the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by [...]
A rare breed of humans knows the limits of its time and is less concerned with its immediate relevancy and more with what it leaves behind. If we are to cultivate a similar vision, we must learn to be such “dinosaurs”… Edward E. Ericson, Jr., was a dinosaur. When I call Ericson a dinosaur, I’m [...]
There are moves afoot to whip up the old Cold War angst and anger and to resurrect enmity towards Russia. Liberals in the West, outraged at Russia’s resistance to their decadent agenda, are caricaturing Russia as an enemy of Western “values.” In 1998 I had the inestimable pleasure and honour of interviewing Alexander Solzhenitsyn at [...]
At first sight, it would seem that G.K. Chesterton and Alexander Solzhenitsyn have very little in common. The one has a reputation for jollity and rambunctiousness, the other for sobriety and solemn sternness. One penned swashbuckling fantasies about lovable eccentrics, the other wrote gritty works of realism set in prison camps or cancer wards. Although [...]
Vladimir Putin is not a saint and none but a fool would seek to canonize him, but nor is he a tyrant and none but fools should seek to demonize him. In these days of acrimonious political mud-slinging, there seems to be almost nothing upon which the radicals on the left and the reactionaries on [...]
Socrates in the Underworld: On Plato’s Gorgia, by Nalin Ranasinghe (192 pages, St. Augustine Press, 2009) Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Peter Augustine Lawler as he reflects on how Socrates models both rightly-ordered eros and logos, in contrast to the Stoics and Sophists. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher [...]
Joseph Pearce, author of the bestselling book, Race with the Devil: My Journey from Racial Hatred to Rational Love, has recently returned from a brief speaking tour of Spain promoting the Spanish edition of the book. This is an interview that he gave to a Spanish magazine, published for the first time in the English-speaking [...]