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Look Up
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on a world split apart
The prophet scorned the academic dress
of those who had invited him to their
Parnassus of the Ivy League. Why wear
their garb, when he intended not to bless
them, but to warn, and even to condemn
their way of life, their stewardship, their views
and their pretensions? Though he would refuse
their outward show, he would reveal to them
the secrets of their souls, and scorch them by
his unexpected and unwelcome theme.
Dressed in his olive jacket, he might seem
to them a kindred spirit, come to ply
them with some words of revolution, or
congratulations for a job well done.
But what the exile had to say, not one
of them expected, or had answer for.
He spoke about the world that they had made,
about its disregard of history,
its dedication to the urgency
of gaining more and more; the homage paid
to individual rights at the expense
of proven standards of morality.
He chided them, and said they could not see
that they no different were from those against
whom they presumed to stand. He said the world
was split apart, but not politically
(as everyone who heard him thought that he
might say). To their amazement, he unfurled
a different kind of world-split. On the one
hand, those who struggled for the rights of man
(as they regarded them), who had a plan
for mundane happiness, to be hard won
by politics and economics and,
if necessary, military might—
a vision of a world where every right
was granted, everyone could take his stand
on his own chosen ground, and do what he
preferred—within the bounds of law, of course.
The captive East, he argued, was no worse
or better than the West might seem to be.
Their vision was the same, although their means
diverged in many ways. Each sought to make
the most of present moments, and to take
advantage of the other, stealing scenes,
dispatching armies here and there, and when
they could, securing gains and trumpeting
their victories. Their split was not the thing
he wanted to impress on them, not then,
though he had written on that split before;
and, when they read the topic he proposed,
his high-born hosts can only have supposed
that this would be his chosen theme once more.
But it was not. The split he spoke about
was not quite au courant within the halls
of academe, amid the ivy walls
of Harvard’s hallowed ground. But with no doubt
or hesitation, he pursued his theme:
The world had, in its vanity and pride,
detached itself from God, set Him aside,
and chosen to pursue a foolish dream
of independence from the will of God.
In East and West alike, the interests of
prosperity and power rose high above
all other matters. Socialism trod
down people in the East, while in the West
a loss of will to stand for truth and right
was leaving freedom captive to a night
of deepening despair, from which the best
thoughts even of the brightest men would not
be able to deliver us. For we
had turned away from God’s morality
to seek one of our own. And we forgot
that all our rights and freedoms came to us
because we are His image-bearers. Now,
flush with the rights of man, we know not how
to live, nor whom to love, nor what to trust.
No God restrains our passions now; but more
than ever, self-restraint is our great need.
Yet neither our best efforts nor our creed
of self-reliance can our hope restore.
Can we not see that drinking from the cup
of mere autonomy and passion would
destroy us? Let us therefore do the good
and right thing and return to looking up.
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T. M. Moore is Principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife and editor, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
That was a powerful poem, well put. The longer I stay on this earth the more I see the need to ‘look up’.
Solzhenitsyn was booed at Harvard when he made that brilliant speech, because he refused to suck up to the audience of arrogant left-liberal narcissists who were sitting before him. He told them quite bluntly that they were symptoms of a moribund, decaying West, with no more claims to moral authority than the Communist dictatorship that had persecuted and exiled him.
Thank you, Mr. Moore, for reminding us of Solzhenitsyn, and especially of his great speech at Harvard, which I had the privilege of hearing in person. I was then a graduate student, and had read Solzhenitsyn’s books in English since high school. To me and, I believe, to most of those present, the speech was warm, inspiring, and well-received. The great man said what you say he did, but he did not intend to scorn or scorch. He was clearly still on a spiritual journey himself, and recalled his own faults and wanderings while he criticized not only East and West at that time, but in past centuries. Such a broad perspective became more and more beautiful as Solzhenitsyn reminded us of forgotten values in history and traditional culture. Knowing his writings, I was not surprised but uplifted at his call for a return to God. I felt much affirmed as a beginning professional in literature when President Derek Bok presented the honorary degree of Litt.D. to Solzhenitsyn, both of them with smiles glowing on their faces. The last sentence in your poem best reflects my memories of that inspirational day.
Your poem sums up the thrust of Solzhenitsyn’s commencement address beautifully.
A few excerpts from the New York Times article of June 9, 1978:
I can only imagine Solzhenitsyn’s horror at the state of the world today. One thing is certain… if he were alive today he would not be invited to speak again.
Thank you very much, Mr. Moore, for this moving narrative of what must have been quite a dramatic experience to those who heard the speech. I think the word “narrative” came to mind because you have brought a speech alive by telling it like a story with a good deal of suspense. I now want to read more Solzhenitsyn.
Thanks to all for your comments. We need more voices like Solzhenitsyn’s today.
Like Margaret, I had the privilege of being in the presence of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn. In my case he came through the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Germany before continuing on to the states. He spoke to us with a similar message, and I was then privileged to meet him. In my Russian literature class, I had to take a test on some of his works. Thank you for bringing back those memories.
To any interested parties:
See the comment of Jeremy Kee at The Imaginative Conservative” (August 2023) —
Solzhenitsyn’s address at Harvard was “a speech that was greeted by a chorus of boos.”
T.M., having recently read Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago”, I thank you wholeheartedly for this timely and adeptly written poem that taps into the very core of a courageous, wise, and humble man I have come to admire greatly. Every telling line of your poem is significant, but these heartrending and powerful words jump out at me: “Now, / flush with the rights of man, we know not how / to live, nor whom to love, nor what to trust.” They point clearly to the huge problem we face in today’s society – an age-old problem that we should have learned from. I hope this devastating observation encourages those who relate to your words to look further than the earthly for solutions.
He was a great man. His best line, I think, came in an essay entitled, “As Breathing and Consciousness Return.” He was addressing the question of how to bring down the Soviet megalith, and he insisted that all that would be necessary was for everyone who truly loved Mother Russia to take a single moral step within their own power. Think: The candlelight revolution of 1989. Lovers of this country should take note. Thanks for your kind assessment of the poem, Susan.