Literary Treasures | A Conversation on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn with Ralph Wood

An interesting discussion of Eastern Orthodox faith, as reflected in Solzhenitsyn’s characters and writings.

Ralph C. Wood, Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University, explores the Orthodox character of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s literary imagination. Almost all accounts of Solzhenitsyn’s faith cast it in generically religious terms. Even when critics attend to his Christianity, they usually fail to note that he was a confessing Russian Orthodox believer. This may be due to academic ignorance about the distinctive character of Orthodoxy, as if it were but an Eastern version of Roman Catholicism. To correct this mistake, Dr. Wood will show how Eastern Christianity often dwells in tension, even in occasional conflict, with its Western counterpart. Though Solzhenitsyn never turned his poetry and fiction into apologetics, he tapped the deep veins of his native Russian Orthodoxy in his imaginative work. Its liturgical phrases and rites may have risen to the surface without his awareness. This makes them even more remarkable when they flower in his most carefully crafted story, “Matryona’s Home.”