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Echoes of Pochvennichestvo in Solzhenitsyn's August 1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Wayne Dowler
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Extract

A notable characteristic of Solzhenitsyn's earlier works, from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovichto Cancer Ward, was their apparent philosophical and aesthetic eclecticism. Their author seemed neither to reveal the intellectual origins of his work nor to articulate in his novels a coherent philosophy of history or theory of art. One critic was forced to conclude that artistically Solzhenitsyn was an “eclectic with conservative leanings” whose main concern was with truth and honesty in literature. The publication of August 1914 tended at first to allay this feeling. Parallels of both form and content could be drawn between the new novel and Tolstoy's War and Peace. Further reflection, however, suggests that the comparison with Tolstoy raises as many difficulties as it resolves. But this does not mean that the riddle of the origins of Solzhenitsyn's thought remains insoluble. When examined in conjunction with the Nobel Prize lecture and the programmatic letter of September 5, 1973, to the Kremlin leaders, August 1914 does reveal the sources of Solzhenitsyn's philosophical and aesthetic views.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 1975 , pp. 109 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1975

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References

1. Brown, Deming, “ Cancer Ward and The First Circle,” Slavic Review, 28, no. 2 (June 1969): 312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Only a few examples need be cited: Solzhenitsyn disputes Tolstoy’s major thesis that it is the movement of the masses, not the actions of leaders, which determines the outcome of events, and he rejects Tolstoy’s assertion that men cannot control human suffering. Tolstoy divides his attention almost evenly between war and peace, but only about one-tenth of August 1914 is devoted to peace. The polyphonic structure of August 1914 is a device used by Dostoevsky as well as Tolstoy.

3. Pochvennichestvo is best translated as the “native soil movement” and pochvenniki as the “men of the soil.”

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6. No comprehensive study of pochvennichestvo has been published in any language. The summary above has been condensed from my own doctoral dissertation, “The ‘Native Soil’ Movement (Pochvennichestvo) in Russian Social and Political Thought, 1850-1870” (London University, 1973).

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8. Ibid., p. 32.

9. Anon. [F. M. Dostoevsky], “Dva lageria teoretikov,” Vremia, October 1861, p. 159. The authorship of all the anonymous and pseudonymous articles cited in this study has been established by Soviet and Western scholars.

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11. Ibid., p. 377.

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14. Ibid., p. 504.

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17. Anon. [F. M. Dostoevsky], “N. A. Dobroliubov,” Vremia, March 1862, p. 46. In August 1914 Olda Orestovna remarks that it is the error of hasty thinking to “point to a branch and pass it off as the whole tree” (Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, p. 503).

18. Solzhenitsyn, Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, p. 18.

19. Ibid., p. 17.

20. Ibid., p. 134.

21. Ibid., p. 309.

22. Cf. A. A. Grigor'ev, “Neskol'ko slov o zakonakh i terminakh organicheskoi kritiki,” Sochineniia, vol. 1: Kritika, ed. V. S. Krupitsch (Villanova, 1970), p. 212, and Anon. [Dostoevsky], “N. A. Dobroliubov,” p. 45.

23. Dostoevsky, F. M., “Ob" iavlenie za 1862 g.,” Biografiia, pis'ma , i zametki iz zapisnoi knizhki F. M. Dostoevskago (St. Petersburg, 1883), p. 32.Google Scholar

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28. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 38.

29. Solzhenitsyn, Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, p. 537.

30. Dostoevsky, “Neizdannyi Dostoevskii,” p. 158.

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33. “So here again at every step and in every direction, it is IDEOLOGY that prevents us from building a healthy Russia.” Solzhenitsyn, “Letter to the Soviet Leaders,” p. 35 (Solzhenitsyn’s emphasis).

34. Dostoevsky, “Neizdannyi Dostoevskii,” p. 176.

35. Solzhenitsyn, Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, p. 373 (Solzhenitsyn’s emphasis).

36. Solzhenitsyn, “Letter to the Soviet Leaders,” p. 36.

37. Solzhenitsyn, Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, p. 373.

38. F. M. Dostoevsky, “Knizhnost' i gramotnost',” Vremia, August 1861, p. 45.

39. Solzhenitsyn, Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, pp. 449-51.

40. The author of a recent article maintains that August 1914 reveals Solzhenitsyn as a fatalist. See Windle, Kevin, “The Theme of Fate in Solzhenitsyn’s August 1914,” Slavic Review, 31, no. 2 (June 1972): 399–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. Solzhenitsyn, Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, p. 109. In any future war with China, Solzhenitsyn warns, the “last root of the Russian people will be extirpated” ( “Letter to the Soviet Leaders,” p. 33).

42. Solzhenitsyn illustrates this point in a brief but powerful aside. It is a pity, he writes, that no photographs were taken of the common soldiers, the “gray heroes” of World War I, because since then the “make-up of our nation has changed, our features have altered, and no camera can ever again find those trusting bearded faces, those friendly eyes, those deliberate and selfless expressions” (Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, p. 355).

43. Ibid., p. 350.

44. Ibid., p. 483.

45. Ibid., p. 224. Solzhenitsyn has no doubt that history repeats itself; he berates the Soviet leaders for their insulation from the “inner life” of Russia ( “Letter to the Soviet Leaders,” p. 36).

46. Solzhenitsyn, Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, pp. 566-68.

47. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektstia, p. 50. Cf. A. A. Grigor'ev, “Stikhotvoreniia N. Nekrasova,” Vremia, July 1862, p. 23.

48. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 32. Cf. F. M. Dostoevsky, “Riad statei o russkoi literature: G. —bov i vopros ob iskusstve,” Vremia, January-February 1861, p. 200.

49. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 10.

50. Grigor'ev, A. A., “Kriticheskii vzgliad na osnovy, znachenie i priemy sovremennoi kritiki,” Literaturnaia kritika (Moscow, 1967), p. 324.Google Scholar

51. Labedz, Leopold, ed., Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (London, 1970), p. 8.Google Scholar

52. Dostoevsky, “G. —bov i vopros ob iskusstve,” pp. 173-74.

53. Camus argues that art is both the affirmation and the rejection of existence and that the artist is destined to stand between the two schools of criticism. Camus, Albert, Discours de Suède (Paris, 1958), pp. 54–55.Google Scholar

54. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 6.

55. Ibid., p. 10. Cf. Dostoevsky, “G. —bov i vopros ob iskusstve,” pp. 196-97.

56. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 34. Cf. Dostoevsky, “G. —bov i vopros ob iskusstve,” p. 204.

57. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 12. Grigor'ev wrote in 1861 that genuine poetry “cannot be opposed to truth… .” Anon. [A. A. Grigor'ev], “Iavleniia sovremennoi literatury,” Vremia, March 1861, p. 67.

58. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 12.

59. Dostoevsky, “G. —bov i vopros ob iskusstve,” p. 193.

60. Cf. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 12, and Anon. [F. M. Dostoevsky], “Svistok i Russkii Vestnik,” Vremia, March-April 1861, p. 76.

61. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 30.

62. Anon. [A. A. Grigor'ev], “Neskol'ko slov o Ristori,” Vremia, January-February 1861, p. 156.

63. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 46.

64. Ibid., p. 8. Later in the lecture Solzhenitsyn relates the idea of the tyranny of progress to Dostoevsky’s phrase “becoming a slave to silly little progressive ideas” (P. 38).

65. Solzhenitsyn, “Letter to the Soviet Leaders,” p. 34.

66. Solzhenitsyn, Nobelevskaia lektsiia, p. 38.