We Have Ceased to See the Purpose

This collection brings together ten of Nobel Prizewinner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns most memorable and consequential speeches, delivered in the West and in Russia between 1972 and 1997. Following his exile from the USSR in 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn lived and traveled in the West for twenty years before the fall of Communism allowed him to return home to Russia. The majority of the speeches collected in this volume straddle this period of exile, contemplating the materialism prevalent worldwideforcibly imposed in the socialist East, freely chosen in the capitalist Westand searching for humanitys possible paths forward. In beautiful yet haunting and prophetic prose, Solzhenitsyn explores the mysterious purpose of art, the two-edged nature of limitless freedom, the decline of faith in favor of legalistic secularism, andperhaps most centrallythe power of literature, art, and culture to elevate the human spirit. These annotated speeches, including the timeless Nobel Lecture and Harvard Address, have been rendered in English by skilled translators, including Solzhenitsyns sons. The volume includes an introduction to the speeches, brief background information about each speech, and a timeline of the key dates in Solzhenitsyns life.