Alexandre Soljenitsyne citations

Sur Alexandre Soljénitsyne

fr
À propos de la devise de la République française : Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

L'Erreur de l'Occident

Le déclin du courage

Le Déclin du courage

Le Déclin du courage

Le déclin du courage

L’Archipel du Goulag

L’Archipel du Goulag

Une journée d'Ivan Denissovitch

Le Déclin du courage

Le déclin du courage

Cancer Ward

Contestable philosophie, certainement. Il serait plus sûr de répondre : ne m'apprends pas à périr à ta façon, laisse moi périr à la mienne. Seulement, voilà, de toute façon ils ne vous laisseront pas…
L’Archipel du Goulag

L’Archipel du Goulag

Source: Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals

Source: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Source: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)

Interview with Joseph Pearce, Sr. (2003)
Contexte: In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion. This is one point.
Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.

Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.
Variant translation, as quoted in TIME (25 February 1974).
Nobel lecture (1970)
Contexte: Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another

Nobel lecture (1970)
Contexte: Violence, less and less embarrassed by the limits imposed by centuries of lawfulness, is brazenly and victoriously striding across the whole world, unconcerned that its infertility has been demonstrated and proved many times in history. What is more, it is not simply crude power that triumphs abroad, but its exultant justification. The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, justice nothing.

Nobel lecture (1970)
Contexte: Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words. Art inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to a high spiritual experience. Through art we are sometimes visited — dimly, briefly — by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking.
Like that little looking-glass from the fairy-tales: look into it and you will see — not yourself — but for one second, the Inaccessible, whither no man can ride, no man fly. And only the soul gives a groan...

Interview with Joseph Pearce, Sr. (2003)
Contexte: Of course, one cannot declare that only my faith is correct and all other faiths are not. Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God. One must not have any negative attitude to any religion but nonetheless the depth of understanding God and the depth of applying God's commandments is different in different religions. In this sense we have to admit that Protestantism has brought everything down only to faith.
Calvinism says that nothing depends on man, that faith is already predetermined. Also in its sharp protest against Catholicism, Protestantism rushed to discard together with ritual all the mysterious, the mythical and mystical aspects of the Faith. In that sense it has impoverished religion.

Nobel lecture (1970)
Contexte: We, holding Art in our hands, confidently consider ourselves to be its masters; boldly we direct it, we renew, reform and manifest it; we sell it for money, use it to please those in power; turn to it at one moment for amusement — right down to popular songs and night-clubs, and at another — grabbing the nearest weapon, cork or cudgel — for the passing needs of politics and for narrow-minded social ends. But art is not defiled by our efforts, neither does it thereby depart from its true nature, but on each occasion and in each application it gives to us a part of its secret inner light.

Source: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

The First Circle (1968)
Source: Двести лет вместе

Source: Cancer Ward

Source: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Source: Cancer Ward

Source: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Source: The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation V-VII

Source: The First Circle

Source: The First Circle

Source: The First Circle

Source: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Nobel lecture (1970)
Contexte: Archeologists have not discovered stages of human existence so early that they were without art. Right back in the early morning twilights of mankind we received it from Hands which we were too slow to discern. And we were too slow to ask: FOR WHAT PURPOSE have we been given this gift? What are we to do with it?
And they were mistaken, and will always be mistaken, who prophesy that art will disintegrate, that it will outlive its forms and die. It is we who shall die — art will remain. And shall we comprehend, even on the day of our destruction, all its facets and all its possibilities?