>the greatest author the Soviet Union produced was an anti-communist activist and ChristianIs there any truth to the observation that art is usually contrarian against the established system? Far right governments lead to great leftist art, far left governments lead to great conservative art etc.?
>>24691207Who?
>>24691207>one specific y is x>is all y x?Liberal arts is a joke
>>24691207almost there anon, writers/thinkers are transgressive and break rules no matter what ideology is in power, and often times feel constrained by anything telling them no, schizos will freak out under any yoke from the state.
>>24691207That's not Platonov.
>>24692625>I'm about to bless you with some words from the most famous anticommunist writer. Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble—and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination….Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, not suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers to not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions? Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago."
>>24692821"It’s high time to remember that our first allegiance is to the human race. And the human race broke away from the animal world through thought and speech. It is natural that these should be free. And if they are shackled—we return to our animal state.Glasnost, forthright and total glasnost—this is the first prerequisite for the health of any society, including our own. Whoever does not desire glasnost for our country is indifferent to his fatherland and thinks of nothing but his personal gain. Whoever does not desire glasnost for his fatherland—does not wish to cleanse it from diseases, but, rather, to drive them inside, there to fester."
>>24692822"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!Once understood and adopted, this principle diverts us—as individuals, in all forms of human association, societies, and nations—from outward to inward development, thereby giving us greater spiritual depth.
>>24692824From The Red Wheel, October 1916, Chapter 6“War is not the vilest form of evil, not the most evil of evils. An unjust trial, for instance, that scalds the outraged heart, is viler. Or murder for gain, when the solitary murderer fully understands the implications of what he means to do and all that the victim will suffer at the moment of the crime. Or the ordeal at the hands of a torturer. When you can neither cry out nor fight back nor attempt to defend yourself. Or treachery on the part of someone you trusted. Or mistreatment of widows or orphans. All these things are spiritually dirtier and more terrible than war.”
>>24692847Was just reading about the Russian old believers. From 20 million to 1 million after the commies. The Christians who live closest to God Aways get it the worst.
>>24691207But anon, that's not Mikhail Bulgakov
>>24692857Many came to America but I've never met oneRelocationsIn 1968, a group of four families from the Harbintsy group decided to resettle on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, motivated by the desire to seek a remote and isolated place to preserve their ways and keep their children within the Old Believer faith. With the help of the Tolstoy Foundation, they purchased a large plot of land near Anchor Point, Alaska, at an auction. They named their new village Nikolaevsk, after Saint Nicholas. The village grew as more Old Believers from Oregon came to Nikolaevsk.The Old Believers in Alaska found jobs on local fishing boats and assisted local boat-builders. Soon they were able to build their own boats and qualify for fishing licenses, a lucrative occupation.In the years that followed, a similar settlement was founded in Canada, northeast of Edmonton, Alberta. Other villages were established in various locations of Alaska as well.Schisms and ConflictsThe priesthood issue: In the early 1980s, a group of elders felt compelled to seek out a valid Old Believer priesthood. After searching in likely areas of the world, they concluded that the Belokrinitsa Metropolia, an Old Believer community in Braila, Romania, which had priests, was valid. The two Nastavniks of Alaska and Oregon, already fully knowledgeable in the Old Rite, traveled to Braila to learn the functions of a priest and receive the laying on of hands to become priests. Upon return to their respective homes, they, along with their congregations, built and blessed churches complete with altar and relics. The congregations of the churches were made up of a mix of members from all three of the original groups from China and Turkey.
>>24692887>forgot linkhttps://oldbelievers.uoregon.edu/history-of-old-believers-in-oregon/
>>24691207All I know is every other Russian writer regards him as a hack
>>24692930He seems a serious and bitter man, and his writing more akin to ponderous lectures. Nevertheless I'll be posting him all day.
>>24692625Based Dugin. West has fallen, HATO troons lost, third empire reborn.
>>24692887From an interview with Daniel Kehlmann, "'Conscience' of Russia Speaks", New York Times (2006)"The Communist dictatorship cried out for a sure and immediate resistance. However I on multiple occasions also asked Western countries not to equate Soviet Communism with Russia itself and with Russian history. Alas, many camps in the West drew no such distinction. The policy of western powers toward Russia after the fall of the Soviet dictatorship changed little in terms of rigidity. That is deeply disappointing. But things went even worse in Russia itself. Before a national recovery could take place (in the 1990s), both morally and economically the forces of darkness quickly won the upper hand; the most unprincipled thieves enriched themselves through the unimpeded plundering of the nation’s property, anchoring society’s cynicism and the moral harm already perpetrated. That was a great catastrophe for the whole of Russia."
>>24693999>For Dougin Followers/Russian soul knowers,Does Russia consider itself now to the "true west" the actual heirs of Rome free of filth and influence or, are they something else? Russia stands alone and above Europe?
I mean, he’s a great author, but just because he was heavily promoted by the CIA so westerners actually know who he is doesn’t make him the best. He isn’t even the best promoted by the CIA, that was be PasternakIt goes without saying that any author from the Soviet Union who was promoted in the west was anti communist just like any contemporary western author promoted in the Soviet Union would surely have been communist
>>24694057"Having traveled far and wide across Russia these past four years, having watched, having listened, I am willing to state, under oath if need be: No, our Spirit yet lives! In its core it is uncorrupted! There, in the meeting halls—I didn’t say it, people would tell me, would try to convince me: “Just save the soul of the people! The rest will save itself.”Yes, the Spirit is capable of reversing the direction of even the most fatal process. It can pull us back even from the brink. Some will find this difficult to believe. But those who in their lives have come to see the justness and might of a higher power above us—those will believe that, despite a crushing century for Russians, there is hope for us yet. It has not been taken away."
>>24692625Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, good (fic) writer. though best isnt what id raise (gulag archipeligo is actual dogshit)
>>24694445actually. thats too harsh, while its bad for history, its not at all bad a book given the level to which it resinated with so many in the union and served more as his dedication against stalinism. just wish people would read actually history books alongside it
>>24691207That's not a picture of Sholokhov tho.
>>24694115>just because he was heavily promoted by the CIA so westernersHow do I get a job as the CIA book handler promoting freedom loving authors?
>>24694481wait for the inevitable cold war 2 against china
>>24692625>>>/co/
>>24692930That's because other Russian writers were all cucks for the state.
I think what's needed to be a great writer is a belief in the transcendent, a firm convinction that there is a reality above and beyond the merely material. So for Solzhenitsyn it seems less important that he is a dissident and more important that he is a Christian.It doesn't quite have to be God; for other artists it has been Art itself, or Beauty, or Truth. But you need a belief that raises you from the mud to make great art.
>>24691207He tries too hard to emulate traditional Russian style in his books. He uses obsolete words and sometimes invents new ones, and he struggles to sound wise and wistful, to evoke this unique, national, "Russian" feel. It's hard to explain, but you'd feel it immediately. I find it really funny and enjoy his style. Others may find it artificial, or even repulsive for this very reason. He's extremely far from being the greatest Soviet author anyway.
A lot of art is reactionary sure but saying he was the greatest author from the Soviet Union is a huge stretch
>>24691207Read his works in Russian
>>24695934Reactionaries are the right-wingers capable of producing great art. There's a big meme about how conservatives can't make art, and it's kind of true, but that doesn't mean there's no right-wing art. People are just looking at the wrong kind of right-winger.
From The Gulag Archipelago, Part 4, Chapter 1, “The Ascent” "It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good…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. "
