Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1
An Anguished’ Love of Country: Solzhenitsyn’s Paradoxical Middle Path
The Ideological Deformation of Reality
Recovering Truth and Memory
A False Consensus
A “Lucid” Love of Country
An Exacting Patriotism
A War on Two Fronts
A New Mission
Self–Inflicted Wounds
The Pathologies of the Russian Right
Orthodox Universalism: The Other Extreme
The Question of Tone
A Theorist of Self–Government
Beyond Tired Polemics

Chapter 2
“The Active Struggle Against Evil”: Reflections on a Theme in Solzhenitsyn
Vorotyntsev and Stolypin
A Pusillanimous Monarch
Moral Freedom and Political Liberty
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
The Camp Revolts
Resisting Evil With Force

Chapter 3
Nicholas II and the Coming of Revolution
Conclusion

Chapter 4
The Artist as Thinker: Reflections In the First Circle
The Three Pillars
The Two Versions
“But We Are Only Given One Conscience, Too”
A Crucial Encounter
The Decisive Metanoia
Beyond Fanaticism and Skepticism
The Remarkable Continuities of Sotzhenitsyn’s Reflection

Chapter 5
A Phenomenology of Ideological Despotism: Reflections on Solzhenitsyn’s “Our Muzzled Freedom”
An Introduction: Theorizing Totalitarianism
The Soul and Barbed Wire
“Free Life” in a Totalitarian Regime
Constant Fear
Secrecy and Mistrust Complicity in the Web of Repression
Betrayal as a Form of Existence
Corruption versus Nobility
The Lie as a Form of Existence
Class Cruelty
Slave Psychology
Conclusion: Remembering Everything

Chapter 6
Two Critics of the Ideological “Lie”: Raymond Aron’s Encounter with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Letter to the Soviet Leaders
A Parisian Encounter
Solzhenitsyn and Sartre
Misconceptions About Russia
Two Spiritual Families?

Chapter 7
Solzhenitsyn, Russia, and the Jews Revisited
From Belligerence to Understanding
Rejecting the Temptation to Blame
Renegades and Revolutionaries
The Fortunes of Soviet Jewry 131 Repentance and Responsibility
Solzhenitsyn’s Moral Challenge
The Holocaust
Solzhenitsyn’s Non Possum

Chapter 8 The Binary Tales: The Soul of Man in the Soviet –and Russian–Twentieth Century 

Chapter 9 Freedom, Faith and the Moral Foundations of Self–Government: Solzhenitsyn’s Final Word to Russia and the West
A Life Rooted in Conscience
A State Prize
The Prospects for Repentance
An Archival Revolution
Two Revolutions
Two Hundred Years Together
Learning About the Past
Three Leaders
Building Democracy From the Bottom Up
A Meaningful Opposition
Parties and Popular Representation
Making Room for Small Businesses
A “National Idea”?
Russia and the West
The Future of Russian Literature
The Church in Russia Today
A Man of Faith and Reason
Three Prayers
An Encounter With the Polish Pope 1
Orthodoxy and the Neo–Pagan Temptation
A Calm and Balanced Attitude Toward Death

Notes

Appendix 1
“Really Existing Socialism” and the Archival Revolution
Wooden Words
Red Holocaust
Black Book
Gulag Memoirs
Testaments to Violence and Lies
History and the Totalitarian Temptation

Appendix 2
Introduction: Returning to ‘The Gulag’
The Gift of Incarnation

Index