When the dust of discourse and dissent on both sides of the Atlantic had finally settled, it was clear that the overriding verdict on Solzhenitsyn’s speech was negative, reinforcing the Russian exile’s sense of alienation and strengthening his desire to retreat into his fortress-like home in Vermont. In this domestic sanctuary, surrounded by no one except his wife and three sons, he could work unhindered, heedless of the clamor from a hostile world. Furthermore, it was in the security and seclusion of his home that the increasingly reclusive writer came alive in a way seldom seen except by his family and closest friends. His son Ignat regrets that the public image of his father is one of sternness and severity, stating that the “common public impression is entirely inaccurate”.
My father has many facets to his character that are often overlooked or else are unknown to those who see him merely as stern or severe. For example, he has several talents over and above his gifts as a writer. He has tremendous acting ability and as a young man felt attracted to the theater. He is also a brilliant teacher, and he gave my brothers and I daily lessons in history, algebra, geometry and physics. He had all of us in stitches with his imitations, whether of public figures or one of the family. He could do all the different voices. It was stand-up comedy. He would also use his powers as a mimic, and his talents as an actor, to great effect when telling a story. He was a great story-teller. He would change his voice for each of the characters. It was so funny. Yet he could also be terribly somber on occasion, if troubled by affairs in Russia or by some difficult chapter in his writing. The point is that my father is very dynamic. He has a very dynamic personality. But that does not make him unusually stern or severe. In fact, everybody who ever met him expecting to be confronted by this severity came away with the opposite impression.19
Ignat’s childhood memories of his father were an echo of Dimitri Panin’s memories of Solzhenitsyn during their days as prisoners in the Marfino sharashka thirty years earlier: “A man of exceptional vitality who is so constituted that he never seemed to get tired…. He often put up with our society simply out of courtesy, regretting the hours he was wasting on our idle pastimes. On the other hand, when he was in good form or allowed himself some time for a little amusement, we got enormous pleasure from his jokes, witticisms, and yarns.” On such occasions, Panin remembered, the flush on Solzhenitsyn’s cheeks deepened, and “his nose whitened, as if carved from alabaster”: “It was not often that one saw this side of him—his sense of humour. He had the ability to catch the subtlest mannerisms, gestures, and intonations—things that usually escape the rest of us—and then to reproduce them with such artistry that his audience literally rocked with laughter. Unfortunately, he only indulged himself in this fashion very occasionally among his close friends—and only if it was not at the expense of his work.”20
It is a great pity that this aspect of Solzhenitsyn’s character, his joie de vivre, his sense of humor, his abilities as a comic and a mimic, were lost on the general public. Why was the public image so much at variance with the reality? Was it a product of media stereotyping or merely a failure on the part of Solzhenitsyn to display his lighter side? Ignat believed the former to be the case:
I think it is because people, and particularly the press, think in stock responses. They already have a template for the image of Solzhenitsyn as “reclusive, severe, a modern-day Jeremiah”….
The trouble is that the press in the UK and the US did not read Solzhenitsyn’s books. Those who accuse him of the most outlandish views have not read his books. The only basis for the unjustifiable image is that his tone of voice and delivery is not what the West is used to. For instance, when my father made his controversial Harvard address, he was being genuine and passionate, but the depth of his passion was seen as impolite. Harsh. Perhaps this was made worse by the fact that he spoke in Russian and his words were heard through an interpreter. Possibly this depersonalized the passion making it sound harsher than it was. Either way, my father’s approach is not comprehended in Anglo-Saxon circles. His approach is not Anglo-Saxon. He is not polite enough for Anglo-Saxons. I would add, however, that this attitude to my father is confined only to the Anglo-Saxon world. It does not apply elsewhere. In France, for instance, he is truly widely read and widely appreciated. People there have really read what he wrote. In France, a man named Bernard Pivot hosts a highly popular television show on books, which in itself would be unimaginable in the US. My father has been interviewed by Pivot on three separate occasions, once in the seventies, once in the eighties, and once in the nineties. On each occasion the ratings went through the roof. One simply cannot imagine such a thing happening in the US or UK. In France, intellectual or spiritual issues, philosophy for instance, are taken seriously. In the Anglo-Saxon world they are sometimes trivialized or marginalized.21
Ignat Solzhenitsyn’s analysis of his father’s anomalous position in the Anglo-Saxon world arises from his own unique and privileged vantage point, not only as Solzhenitsyn’s son but as someone brought up straddling the Anglo-Saxon and the Russian cultural traditions. He and his brothers attended the local high school, receiving an American education, but spoke Russian at home and were given a Russian perspective through the home tutoring they received from their parents. In addition to the lessons and stories from their father, their mother gave them frequent lessons in Russian, especially Russian poetry. She was very enthusiastic about teaching her children the poetry of their homeland.22
“We were raised as Russians living in exile”, Ignat explains.
We followed current events as they unfolded, first through father, who would update the family on any pertinent news he may have gleaned that day from the BBC or VOA [Voice of America] (I remember distinctly father informing us of Soviet tanks invading Afghanistan, for instance), and later of course on our own, through newspapers and television. Russia’s past, present and future were always central in the family consciousness, and this was imbibed by us children naturally. Outside the home, when we began attending the local schools, we learned English, made friends, played sports, and did most of the things that kids in Vermont do. In retrospect, I certainly felt comfortable among our friends and neighbours, and the surrounding culture. The duality of Russia at home and America outside unfolded very naturally and with no effort to self-insulate or, vice versa, to integrate furiously.23
Ignat and his brothers also enjoyed a very loving relationship with both parents:
I think I can confidently speak for my brothers also, when I say that we have been fortunate to have such parents as ours. Burdened as they were by the seemingly impossible tasks of writing and publishing twenty volumes of father’s collected works with practically no help, and certainly without the stable of secretaries, editors, and publicists that most writers in America employ; and of fighting in the public arena for an understanding of the communist threat, etc., they were still able to devote more time and effort to our upbringing than less busy parents usually do. We were, and remain today, a very tightly knit family, and the stability and closeness of family life were quite wonderful. Of course I am very close with my father, and this has never been measured by the amount of hours he actually spent with us…. He could pack more into two hours than most fathers could in twenty.24