“Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn delineates his idyllic time in rural
Vermont, where he had the freedom to work, spend time with his
family, and wage a war of ideas against the Soviet Union and other
detractors from afar. At his quiet retreat . . . the Nobel laureate
found . . . ‘a happiness in free and uninterrupted work.’”
—Kirkus Reviews This compelling account concludes Nobel
Prize–winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s literary memoirs of his
years in the West after his forced exile from the USSR following
the publication of The Gulag Archipelago. The book reflects both
the pain of separation from his Russian homeland and the chasm of
miscomprehension between him and Western opinion makers. In Between
Two Millstones, Solzhenitsyn likens his position to that of a grain
that becomes lodged between two massive stones, each grinding
away—the Soviet Communist power with its propaganda machine on
the one hand and the Western establishment with its mainstream
media on the other. Book 2 picks up the story of Solzhenitsyn’s
remarkable life after the raucous publicity over his 1978 Harvard
Address has died down. The author parries attacks from the Soviet
state (and its many fellow-travelers in the Western press) as well
as from recent émigrés who, according to Solzhenitsyn, defame
Russian culture, history, and religion. He shares his unvarnished
view of several infamous episodes, such as a sabotaged meeting with
Ronald Reagan, aborted Senate hearings regarding Radio Liberty, and
Gorbachev’s protracted refusal to allow The Gulag Archipelago to
be published back home. There is also a captivating chapter
detailing his trips to Japan, Taiwan, and Great Britain, including
meetings with Margaret Thatcher and Prince Charles and Princess
Diana. Meanwhile, the central themes of Book 1 course through this
volume, too—the immense artistic quandary of fashioning The Red
Wheel, staunch Western hostility to the historical and future
Russia (and how much can, or should, the author do about it), and
the challenges of raising his three sons in the language and spirit
of Russia while cut off from the homeland in a remote corner of
rural New England. The book concludes in 1994, as Solzhenitsyn bids
farewell to the West in a valedictory series of speeches and
meetings with world leaders, including John Paul II, and prepares
at last to return home with his beloved wife Natalia, full of
misgivings about what use he can be in the first chaotic years of
post-Communist Russia, but never wavering in his conviction that,
in the long run, his books would speak, influence, and convince.
This vibrant, faithful, and long-awaited first English translation
of Between Two Millstones, Book 2, will fascinate Solzhenitsyn's
many admirers, as well as those interested in twentieth-century
history, Russian history, and literature in general.
General
Imprint: |
University of Notre Dame Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
The Center for Ethics and Culture Solzhenitsyn Series |
Release date: |
September 2023 |
Firstpublished: |
2020 |
Authors: |
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
|
Translators: |
Clare Kitson
• Melanie Moore
|
Foreword by: |
Daniel J Mahoney
|
Dimensions: |
234 x 156mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
584 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-268-10901-1 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-268-10901-X |
Barcode: |
9780268109011 |
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