A Russian prophet

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. Life's complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper and more interesting characters than those produced by standardised Western well-being ... It is true, no doubt, that a society cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness, as is the case in our country. But it is also demeaning for it to elect such mechanical legalistic smoothness as you have. After the suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor and by intolerable music.

The resentment which greeted this caustic analysis of capitalist materialism and Enlightenment thinking may explain why Solzhenitsyn’s reputation declined quickly thereafter.

His later novels, part of a gigantic historical cycle about the Russian Revolution, were largely ignored. Perhaps his powers were declining and perhaps his focus on Russia’s destiny was puzzling for Western readers. But ultimately Solzhenitsyn was sidelined because his unwavering belief that life was a battle between good and evil, between transcendent spirituality and degrading materialism, was regarded as too simplistic, even too threatening, in a society which spurned firm convictions.

Solzhenitsyn regarded himself first and foremost as an artist, not as an historian or politician. He had faith that his art could liberate men from the most humiliating servitude of all, living in the sty of their own lies. “One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world,” he said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech; a message that is needed today more than ever.