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| Soltzhenitsyn |
As a young writer Solzhenitsyn made no secret of his desire to become his generation's Tolstoy, hence his novels of monumental scope like this one which is actually the first of four massive volumes in a series about the birth of the Soviet Union. August 1914 was the first of this series which he called The Red Wheel.
He conceived the book while himself a soldier entering Prussia from the East during World War II, echoing the movements of the First World War. This first volume is over 800 pages. The second, November 1916, is two volumes in length. The third, March 1917, is four volumes and April 1917, the last, is not yet translated.
While reading chapter 42--I'm halfway through the book now--I was reminded again what it is that so thrills me about great literature. It's the manner in which the author orchestrates situations which reveal deeper insights into human motivation and the human situation. In this case, three men are in a bar drinking beer. One is an old man who has seen much and lived long, whose perspective on the emerging war is very different from the two youth who have recently finished school and volunteered to join the army in a wave of national enthusiasm. Over a series of beers the characters relax and become increasingly engaged. The reader is that proverbial fly on the wall observing and listening in.
“Yes indeed, a pure Hegelian,” Kotya proudly and uncompromisingly confirmed. “And he—" poking Sanya’s chest—"is a Tolstoyian.”
“A Tolstoyian?” The old man looked sideways in amazement, sizing up Kotya's shy and diffident companion. "Great heavens! Why then are you going to war?"
He saw, however, that Sanya was excruciatingly aware of the muddle in his mind. Sanya looked pitifully at Varsonofiev, smoothing the soft corn-colored hair back from his forehead.
"I'm not a pure Tolstoyan anymore."
Sanya apologetically attempts to explain.
This brief sequence signals to the reader that some serious fun is about to emerge along with a deeper penetration into the heart of the matter. Why are we here? And what is our role in the midst of it all?
As every Russian knew, Tolstoy had been born into aristocracy -- privilege that enabled him to become an influential writer (War and Peace, Anna Kareninina and many other volumes). Later in life he experienced a profound moral/spiritual crisis and became a Christian anarchist and pacifist. His ideas on non-violent resistance later influenced Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is why Varsonofiev raised his eyebrows regarding Sanya being a Tolstoyan. How is it that you are in uniform heading to the front then?
Varsonofiev proceeds to toy with and challenge both of his drinking companions in the pages that follow. At one point Varsonofiev asks how Sanya and Tolstoy came to part company. Kotya answers for his friend after Sanya demurs.
"It was the cart!"
Sanya thought a bit and nodded. “Yes… some literate person wrote to Tolstoy. The Russian state, he said, was like an overturned cart, and it was very hard going, very awkward dragging along – how long, he wondered, would working people have to go on doing it? Wasn’t it time to get it back on its wheels? And Tolstoy answered: “Get it back on its wheels and those who turned it over will jump in and make you pull them, and you’ll be no better off.” Well what Tolstoy told them was: “Let the wretched cart look after itself! Just ignore it altogether! Unharness yourselves, go each his own way, in freedom. Then your lives will be easier.“
That conversation continues until a little further on the old man begins to challenge Kotya's own claim to be a follower of Hegel.
Vasonofiev settled down to enjoy himself, fingers interlaced on the table. “But if you are a Hegelian you must take a positive view of the state.”
“Well, I… I suppose I do,” Kotya agreed with some hesitation.
“The state does not like sharp breaks with the past. Gradualness is what it likes. Sudden breaks, leaps, are fatal to it,” the old man said.
As they talk and drink, Varsonofiev continues to zero in on the implications of what these young people are really saying.
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| Russian army, WWI. Public domain. |
Sanya concentrated… “A populist is someone who loves the people. Believes in their spiritual strength. Puts their eternal interests higher than his own petty short-term advantage. Lives not for himself, but for the people and their happiness.”
“Happiness?” Varsonofiev asks.
“Why yes, their happiness.”
Varsonofiev’s eyes bored into him like searchlights from under the protective covering of his sweeping eyebrows. “For the majority of people happiness means being well fed, well clad, generally well off, the full satisfaction of their needs, doesn’t it? But if you think of it, it will take a whole century to feed and clothe everybody. A century before you think of their eternal interests—because poverty, slavery, ignorance and inefficient government stand in the way. To abolish or reform all these things, all this, will take how many—three generations of populists?”
“Well… it might, I suppose.”
Varsonofiev continued: “And all these populists—for whom nothing will do but to save the whole people all at once—will do nothing to save themselves in the meantime. And they feel compelled, don’t they, to dismiss as worthless anyone who does not sacrifice himself for the people—anyone, that is, who practices one of the arts, or inquires into the ultimate meaning of life, or, worse still, turns to religion and the salvation of his own soul?”
* * * *
Yes, novels like War and Peace or August 1914 and others appear to be massive mountains of words, but as the saying goes, "There's gold in them there hills."
What makes reading great literature so satisfying and rewarding is seeing how the ancient themes have such relevance again in our current historical moments. Of this, much more can be said.
AFTERWORD
A longer, more fully developed version of this post can be found on Medium.
Why great literature is so satisfying to read.
Solzhenitsyn's August 1914: How Fiction Enables Us to Get Closer to the Truth
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