Due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, we’ve been using some form of the slogan, Be smart and do your part! Stay home or six feet apart for several weeks now.
Needing some
artwork to help promote the four Ss of prevention- social distancing; soap
& sanitizer; stay home; and safely cough-I found myself thinking of
replacing the last part of that slogan with “Stay Home and Make Some Art.”
Who better in Cavendish to exemplify
that then Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn?
Having spent
eight years in a Gulag-prison labor camp, where he was deprived of the
opportunity to write in the manner he needed to, he then dealt with a repressive
Communist government once he was released. While the rest of the world
celebrated his literary works such as “As One Day in the Life of Ivan
Densovitch,” “Cancer Ward,” and “Gulag Archipelago,” he was “hunkered down.”
Coming to
Cavendish in 1976 gave him an opportunity he may have never thought
possible-wonderful light, quiet, mountains, four seasons, a supportive family
and a community that was willing to protect him from the prying eyes of the press
and the curious.
Was he a
recluse or was he really socially distancing for his art? I think the latter.
Just before
Vermont’s governor issued a statewide emergency shut down due to Covid-19,
Jennifer Stowell dropped off a copy of the Autumn 1983 Vermont Life,
which includes an article “The Solzhenitsyns of Cavendish.”
I’ve been
spending my “stay at home” time re reading this article.
The remotely
controlled gate and camera that have been installed at the entrance to the
driveway, and the fence around the property, have led people to conclude the
Solzhenitsyns dislike visitors and prefer to live in seclusion. Mrs.
Solzhenitsyn was eager to dispel that impression.
“it’s
absolutely not true,” she says. “Maybe it seems that way to people who want to
see him whom he doesn’t want to see. But he doesn’t have a feeling that we’re
secluded. …The necessity of having a gate and turning away visitors is “very unpleasant
for us.”…The fence, she adds is “just for snowmobiles and journalists.” When
we laugh at her remark, she adds quickly, sharing the humor with us, ”journalists
without agreement,” and then turning serious again, she continues, “because it
really interrupts his work and our lives.”
Her husband’s
lifestyle is Spartan, and his needs few, she says. “For him, two things are
important when he’s writing: quiet and lots of light. He’s completely
indifferent to cold. He can work in a cold room. And he’s completely
indifferent to food. He can eat the same thing day in and day out. He claims he
has everything he needs till the end of his life and doesn’t need more. I can’t
even persuade him to buy shirts and pants. He’s like many men-he hates to go
into stores. That was true in Moscow, long before we came to Vermont. But he
does like quiet and light.”
The article
includes photographs showing Solzhenitsyn chopping wood, writing and living the
Cavendish life, quietly, privately, and a distance from the town village.
This article
includes other insights that are quite relevant for our time. “Television, a
staple for many American youngsters, is watched very little by the author’s
three sons…The boys are allowed to watch one cartoon show each week, and the
oldest son, Yermolay, has the self-appointed task of watching the evening news
of television and reporting to the family the events of the day.”
That is a very
helpful tip. Once a day update is more than sufficient at a time when headlines,
news feeds and commentators can quickly bury you with information that will
either be reversed the next day or turn out not to be anywhere near as dreadful
as first thought.
Oh and the
shopping. Now that’s one we all need to take seriously. There is more than
enough to go around so absolutely no need for panic buying.
If we have to
be practicing social distancing and staying at home, we are as fortunate as
Solzhenitsyn was as we can walk in the woods and not see anyone if we so
choose. While he truly stayed home for his art, we will continue to do
our part and stay at home so we can keep each other safe.
I asked Ignat,
who is very much a part of the Cavendish family, to select some passages from
his father’s works that he thought maybe useful during these challenging times.
I particularly liked his choice From Repentance and
Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations: "After the Western ideal of
unlimited freedom, after the Marxist concept of freedom as acceptance of the
yoke of necessity—here is the true Christian definition of freedom. Freedom is
self-restriction! Restriction of the self for the sake of others!
However, even with our mountains and fresh air, as
everything has been shutting down, people are expressing how they feel the
world is closing in on them. I find myself turning to one of my favorite
Solzhenitsyn quotes for comfort, “We are creatures born with inner
freedom of will, freedom of choice-the most part of freedom is a gift to us at
birth. External, or social freedom is very desirable for the sake of
undistorted growth, but it is no more than a condition, a medium, and to regard
it as the object of our existence is nonsense. We can firmly assert our freedom
even in external conditions of unfreedom.” From Under the Rubble
Other quotes that
Ignat selected
From In the First Circle, Chapter 60 "The
great truth for Innokenty used to be that we are given only one life. Now,
with the new feeling that had ripened in him, he became aware of another law:
that we are given only one conscience, too.
From The Gulag Archipelago, Part 4, Chapter 1, “The
Ascent” Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good
and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political
parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human
hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even
within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.
And even in the best of all hearts, there remains… an unuprooted small corner
of evil.”
From his address to the International Academy of Philosophy,
Liechtenstein, 1993: "No, all hope cannot be pinned on science,
technology, or economic growth. The victory of technological civilization has
also instilled in us a spiritual insecurity. Its gifts enrich, but enslave us
as well. All is interests, we must not neglect our interests, all is a struggle
for material things; but an inner voice tells us that we have lost something
pure, elevated, and fragile. We have ceased to see the purpose."
*******
"It is up to us to stop seeing Progress (which cannot
be stopped by anyone or anything) as a stream of unlimited blessings, and to
view it rather as a gift from on high, sent down for an extremely intricate
trial of our free will.”
Be smart and do your part. Stay home or six
feet apart.
Keeping Cavendish Safe and Healthy
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