lies | Gladsome Lights

To commemorate the death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, August 3, 2008, this year I give you a link to his essay, “Live Not by Lies,” with an introduction to it, and excerpt from it. The website of the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center has a wealth of the author’s writings and speeches, a list of events and publications related to his legacy, his biography, and more. They have put up a new page dedicated to excerpts of his writings over the course of almost forty years on the topic of Ukraine, beginning with, “Russia and the Ukraine are united in my blood, my heart, my thoughts.” First the introduction to the essay:

On the day Solzhenitsyn was arrested, February, 12, 1974, he released the text of “Live Not by Lies.” The next day, he was exiled to the West, where he received a hero’s welcome. This moment marks the peak of his fame. Solzhenitsyn equates “lies” with ideology, the illusion that human nature and society can be reshaped to predetermined specifications. And his last word before leaving his homeland urges Soviet citizens as individuals to refrain from cooperating with the regime’s lies. Even the most timid can take this least demanding step toward spiritual independence. If many march together on this path of passive resistance, the whole inhuman system will totter and collapse.

— by Edward E. Ericson, Jr. and Daniel J. Mahoney, The Solzhenitsyn Reader

Here is one short excerpt from the essay:

“Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies begin (and many see this line differently)—step back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scales of the Ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the lies will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world.”

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It won’t take long to read the whole essay here: “Live Not by Lies.”

“A lie seeks to make true something that has no true existence. It is an ‘alternate,’ make-believe universe to the one in which we live. Our desire for alternatives (and our fear of reality) are among the many motivations behind lies. It is revealing, however, to think about the nature of lies (which also reveals the nature of the truth). It is, at the very least, a matter of existence.”

“That which is true, is that which truly exists. As such, it is always its own strongest argument. If it truly exists, it will continue whether I believe in it or not. The truth does not require ideology. This carries the corollary of a lack of anxiety. If the truth abides, whether I believe it or not, then I am not bound to ‘make it so’ through the efforts of a culture war. It is, rather, for me to live it, to give thanks for it, and enjoy its fruit in the world.”

-Father Stephen Freeman, in this article: “‘Make It So!’ vs. ‘Let It Be!'”