dCEC publishes previously untranslated Solzhenitsyn titles
Notre Dame’s direct relationship with the Solzhenitsyn family began in 2017 when, O. Carter Snead, then-director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture (dCEC), persuaded the family to make Notre Dame Press the publisher of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s formerly untranslated volumes.
At the same time, Notre Dame established itself as the “American home for studying Solzhenistyn” through a variety of academic pursuits including conferences, postdoctoral research fellowships, publication of his work, and extensive collections in the library archives relating to Solzhenistyn’s life and work.
Aleksandr Solzhenistyn, born into the Russian Revolution in 1918, grew up impoverished before being conscripted into the Red Army in the second World War. A private, anti-Stalin letter that Solzhenitsyn penned condemned him to eight years in the gulag; these years became foundational for the remainder of his life’s work.
Following the war, Solzhenitsyn wrote fervently against communism and was exiled from Russia until 1994. Through poetry and prose, his prolific tomes won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970 and a number of other prestigious awards including an honorary degree from Notre Dame, which he politely declined in 1977. The following year, in 1978, Solzhenitsyn agreed to give the commencement address at Harvard University. In this now famous address, Solzhenistyn criticized not only the communist totalitarianism of his native land, but also the materialism and moral corruption of the West.
Margaret McManaway, Senior Associate Director of the dCEC, who managed the Solzhenistyn series when it first began at Notre Dame, credits the Harvard address with leading to a “decline in interest in his thought” because it offended the “intellectual elites.” However, she said, “I think [Solzhenitsyn] remains as relevant as ever.”
McManaway described how the dCEC persuaded the Solzhenitsyn family to publish Solzhenitsyn’s writings through the dCEC and Notre Dame Press. She told the Rover, “Professor Snead pitched to the Solzhenitsyn family: Other presses will do a fine job with translating and publishing this work, but we actually believe what your father was talking about.” These shared beliefs include Solzhenitsyn’s ideas about the “crisis of materialism, a crisis of faith, lack of faith, the idea of fighting back against totalitarianism, [and] the breakdown of faith and culture in the West.”
McManaway continued, “When professor Snead said that to the Solzhenitsyn family, they were like, ‘Yes, where do we sign? This is where we want our father’s legacy to live.’”
In 2018, Snead commented on the partnership: “Because of the convergence between Solzhenitsyn’s deep solicitude for Christianity, the West, human flourishing, the best of the Russian tradition and the mission of the center, the Solzhenitsyn family selected Notre Dame as the publishing home of Solzhenitsyn’s unpublished and untranslated works.” Snead continued, “We aim to inspire a new generation with his legacy.”
The publications began in 2017 with the release of The Red Wheel: March 1917. This is the first book of the third installment of Solzhenytsin’s magnum opus, a ten-volume narrative of the Russian Revolution. Marian Schwartz, an American translator of Russian literature, is in the process of translating the remainder of this work. The next edition, book one of node IV will become available in November.
The most recent Solzhenitsyn series release is a collection of Solzhenitsyn’s greatest speeches titled We Have Ceased to See the Purpose. The book was edited by Ignat Solzhenistyn, son of Aleksandr, with whom the university maintains a relationship.
The university has also amassed one of America’s most extensive collections of writings by and related to Solzhenistyn, housed in the Hesburgh Library. In 2018, Hesburgh Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections displayed a special exhibit of Solzhenytsin materials. Also in 2018, Solzhenitsyn’s thought played a major role in the dCEC’s Fall Conference, Higher Powers, where Ignat Solzhenitsyn delivered the keynote address.
Snead contended that, alongside figures of Solzhenitsyn’s own day such as Pope John Paul II, “Nobody lived a more powerful witness to the truth about the human person’s right to dignity, freedom, and human flourishing than this great writer.”
Caleb Vaughan is a sophomore chemical engineering student. If anyone is interested in translating his works into Russian, he can be reached at cvaugha2@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Picryl
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