Back in 2023, we observed the 40th anniversary of a blistering and prophetic speech that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn delivered on receiving the Templeton Prize. Stephen Meyer discussed the speech that year at the Dallas Conference on Science and Faith, noting Solzhenitsyn’s call to be prepared not just spiritually but intellectually to answer the challenges of atheism.
Solzhenitsyn said, citing Dostoevsky, “[I]t has already come to pass that the demon of evil, like a whirlwind, triumphantly circles all five continents of the earth.”
Atheism’s Intellectual Challenge
Meeting atheism’s intellectual challenge is one way of summarizing our mission at the Center for Science and Culture. Meanwhile, the demon of evil circles, sometimes uncloaked, other times cloaked in various guises, including the guise of faith.
That’s a baleful image, but Solzhenitsyn also had hope. I was just watching another wonderful interview by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution, on Uncommon Knowledge, this time with Solzhenitsyn’s son, the pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn. The musician is himself fascinating to hear and see as a blend of Russian and American, as well as a beautiful artist.
Seeing Things that Others Cannot
There are many striking themes in the conversation, about music, musical instrument, and more, but I was particularly impressed by this. The son says his father always knew he would someday be able to leave exile in the West (the family lived in Cavendish, Vermont), and return physically to Russia. That had major implications:
He saw many things that other people couldn’t see somehow. And his physical return to Russia was one of those things.
One might say, well, what’s the big deal? It’s a big deal. Well, in one’s life, it’s a big deal.
In other words, in his personal life, it would have been and was and would be a big deal, of course, but especially so because the idea, after everything that had transpired, of Solzhenitsyn physically returning to Russia will have meant that Russia had become free, that Communism had fallen, that Russia had been unimaginably transformed.
And of course, those were exactly the conditions that transpired and that obtained by the time he did return.
In other words, he foresaw the defeat, at least the temporary defeat, of the demon of evil. That’s an encouraging thing. Perhaps you will feel encouraged, too, by this terrific and valuable conversation: