beauty will save the world essay

Can Beauty Save the World?

Dostoyevsky once let drop the enigmatic phrase: “Beauty will save the world.” What does this mean? For a long time it used to seem to me that this was a mere phrase. Just how could such a thing be possible? When had it ever happened in the bloodthirsty course of history that beauty had saved anyone from anything? Beauty had provided embellishment certainly, given uplift—but whom had it ever saved?

However, there is a special quality in the essence of beauty, a special quality in the status of art: the conviction carried by a genuine work of art is absolutely indisputable and tames even the strongly opposed heart. One can construct a political speech, an assertive journalistic polemic, a program for organizing society, a philosophical system, so that in appearance it is smooth, well structured, and yet it is built upon a mistake, a lie; and the hidden element, the distortion, will not immediately become visible. And a speech, or a journalistic essay, or a program in rebuttal, or a different philosophical structure can be counterposed to the first—and it will seem just as well constructed and as smooth, and everything will seem to fit. And therefore one has faith in them—yet one has no faith.

It is vain to affirm that which the heart does not confirm. In contrast, a work of art bears within itself its own confirmation: concepts which are manufactured out of whole cloth or overstrained will not stand up to being tested in images, will somehow fall apart and turn out to be sickly and pallid and convincing to no one. Works steeped in truth and presenting it to us vividly alive will take hold of us, will attract us to themselves with great power- and no one, ever, even in a later age, will presume to negate them. And so perhaps that old trinity of Truth and Good and Beauty is not just the formal outworn formula it used to seem to us during our heady, materialistic youth. If the crests of these three trees join together, as the investigators and explorers used to affirm, and if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up to that very place and in this way perform the work of all three.

And in that case it was not a slip of the tongue for Dostoyevsky to say that “Beauty will save the world,” but a prophecy. After all, he was given the gift of seeing much, he was extraordinarily illumined.

And consequently perhaps art, literature, can in actual fact help the world of today.

SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What does Beauty mean to you? Can you share a story that illustrates Beauty also performing the work of Truth and Good? What practice helps you bring this Beauty into your work and life?

Add Your Reflection

6 past reflections.

On Aug 18, 2020 olivia wrote :

Post your reply, on oct 28, 2017 marc wrote :.

This question will generate a different answer from different people, but perhaps beauty is something that invites us to rise up beyond what we thought possible, because it speaks truth. I am a huge fan of music, and I tend to listen for beauty in music, which is to say that I like to feel that the artist is expressing what is truth to him/her. I have also read books that are beautiful. I try to bring this beauty into my work and life by remembering to be true to my values and ideals. This is often a challenge, since many forces pull us in directions that encourage us to be someone else, but when I can remember, it is empowering to feel this beauty.

On Feb 3, 2016 Ramesh Narayan wrote :

 What did Dostoyevsky mean by Beauty? Beauty is a very relative term. What is beautiful for me might not be so for someone else. Everyone has his or her own definition of beauty. Beautiful eyes, beautiful face, beautiful grace, beautiful body language, beautiful occasion, beautiful nature, beautiful morning, beautiful crowd, beautiful music, beautiful this, beautiful that.....Yes, beauty is certainly a blend of truth, good and many more things that are beautiful.

On Dec 15, 2015 Craig wrote :

I feel that there is a truth to what Dostoyevsky said, but that it is far more esoteric than what Solzhenitsyn has written about here. My sense is that Beauty resonates with us in a way that is beyond the intellectual mind, under the table of the ego. As Rashimi wrote, Beauty pulls us toward it perhaps because it reminds us that we are one with it already; Beauty tickles our hearts in that place where we are not separate from anything. I felt a bit saddened reading this piece. Did Solzhenitsyn contradict his meaning with his form? To my ear, the way he expressed his ideas did not sing or dance. Where did the poetry go? Was his beauty was lost in translation? Or is beauty so relative, as David has suggested, that another reader found beauty here that I missed, because I did not have the ears to hear it? I will continue to ponder the notion that untrue ideas cannot fit into a beautiful form—yet I see an attempt to convey that very thing in advertising on a daily basis. And many of us are hooked by it, seduced... The ancient Hindu story of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk is a wonderful story to study when we wish to look at the place, the need, and the power of Beauty. It's a tale of how Beauty did save the world. In that myth, Divinity alternates between manifesting and hiding, between the numinous and the seductive, found among the perceptual world—then hopelessly lost—and only recovered again by going deep, deep within.

On Dec 15, 2015 Rashmi wrote :

 Beauty certainly pulls me towards it.

On Dec 13, 2015 david doane wrote :

(Curious that I seem to struggle more with what to say about this topic than with any topic so far.)   For me, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or more accurately, in the soul of the beholder.  Beauty is that which catches my attention and touches my soul in a positive way, and I feel some amount of awe, joy, and appreciation.  There is a Greek saying that a thing of beauty is a joy forever.  Beauty stimulates my senses and imagination, and I am caught up in it, present to it and with it and disconnected from other realities of life for a few or many moments.  For me, an example of Beauty is a ballerina performing impeccably with grace and balance which simultaneously opens me to the impeccable grace and balance of Truth and Good.  The practice of being in the present, seeing and responding to what is happening brings Beauty into my work and life.  I suppose what appears as beauty pulls out a sliver of Beauty that is in the beholder.

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Home » Beauty will save the world – Fyodor Dostoevsky

Beauty will save the world – Fyodor Dostoevsky

What is the Meaning of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Quote: “Beauty will save the world”?

In the realm of literature and philosophical musings, Fyodor Dostoevsky, the renowned Russian author, left behind a powerful quote that has captivated readers and thinkers for generations. The quote, “Beauty will save the world,” holds deep meaning and invites us to explore the profound implications it carries. This article aims to unravel the essence of this enigmatic statement, delving into its various interpretations and shedding light on its significance.

The Context of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Quote

Fyodor Dostoevsky, known for his profound and introspective writings, included the quote “Beauty will save the world” in his novel “ The Idiot “. The novel explores the complexities of human nature and the contrast between the inherent beauty of the protagonist’s soul and the corrupted world surrounding him. Within this context, the quote becomes a beacon of hope, suggesting that beauty possesses the potential to bring salvation and transform the world.

The Interpretations of Beauty

Beauty as aesthetic pleasure.

One interpretation of Dostoevsky’s quote focuses on beauty as a source of aesthetic pleasure. In this view, beauty, whether found in nature, art, or human actions, has the power to evoke deep emotional responses. It transcends the mundane and touches the core of our being, lifting our spirits and reminding us of the inherent goodness and harmony in the world.

Beauty as Moral Transformation

Another interpretation sees beauty as a catalyst for moral transformation. According to this perspective, experiencing beauty awakens our inner virtues and inspires us to pursue higher ideals. The encounter with beauty prompts introspection and encourages us to align our actions with principles such as compassion, empathy, and justice.

Beauty as Redemption

A more profound interpretation suggests that beauty serves as a means of redemption. It implies that the transformative power of beauty can restore individuals and societies, healing the wounds inflicted by the darkness and suffering that often pervade the world. Beauty, in this sense, becomes a force that leads to salvation and renewal.

Beauty and its Relationship with the World

Dostoevsky’s quote hints at the interconnectedness between beauty and the world. It suggests that the world, with its struggles and imperfections, can find solace and redemption through encounters with beauty. By appreciating and nurturing beauty, we become agents of change, fostering harmony and inspiring others to embrace a more profound understanding of life.

Beauty’s Power to Inspire Change

Individual transformation.

Beauty has the power to transform individuals from within. When we encounter something truly beautiful, whether it’s a captivating piece of art, a breathtaking landscape, or an act of kindness, it can deeply touch our souls. These experiences have the potential to awaken dormant aspirations, reshape our perspectives, and drive us towards personal growth and self-improvement.

Societal Transformation

Furthermore, beauty can catalyze societal transformation. Throughout history, art, literature, and music have sparked revolutions, challenged societal norms, and fostered cultural progress. By appealing to the universal sense of beauty, creators can inspire collective action and ignite movements that bring positive change to the world.

The Role of Art in Manifesting Beauty

Art plays a pivotal role in manifesting beauty and conveying its transformative power. Whether through paintings, sculptures, literature, or music, artists capture the essence of beauty and offer it to the world. Through their creations, they provoke emotions, encourage introspection, and challenge conventional wisdom. Moreover, all these efforts are in service of revealing the profound truths and the redemptive potential of beauty.

Challenges and Critiques

Despite the profound message conveyed by Dostoevsky’s quote, it also faces challenges and critiques. Skeptics argue that beauty alone cannot solve the complex problems and conflicts of the world. They contend that practical actions, grounded in ethics and reason, are necessary to effect lasting change. However, proponents of Dostoevsky’s view assert that beauty serves as a catalyst, inspiring and nurturing the virtues needed to navigate the challenges we face.

The Timelessness of Dostoevsky’s Quote

Dostoevsky’s quote continues to resonate across time and cultures because it taps into the universal longing for meaning and redemption. It reminds us that amidst the chaos and suffering in the world, beauty holds the power to inspire, transform, and save. Regardless of its various interpretations, the essence of the quote lies in its capacity to evoke a deep sense of hope and a call to action.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s quote, “Beauty will save the world,” encapsulates a profound truth that transcends time and space. It invites us to recognize the transformative power of beauty in our lives and in the world around us. Whether through aesthetic pleasure, moral transformation, or societal change, beauty has the capacity to elevate our existence and bring about redemption. Let us embrace and nurture beauty in all its forms, knowing that by doing so, we become active participants in the salvation of the world.

Dive into Fyodor Dostoevsky’s profound quotes, exploring the depths of human existence

Must Read Books by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Beauty will save the world

“Beauty will save the world” - Dostoevsky 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn also wrestled with this line in his 1970 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and we're lucky to be privy to his chain of thought here: 

"One day Dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic remark: “Beauty will save the world”. What sort of a statement is that? For a long time I considered it mere words. How could that be possible? When in bloodthirsty history did beauty ever save anyone from anything? Ennobled, uplifted, yes – but whom has it saved? There is, however, a certain peculiarity in the essence of beauty, a peculiarity in the status of art: namely, the convincingness of a true work of art is completely irrefutable and it forces even an opposing heart to surrender. It is possible to compose an outwardly smooth and elegant political speech, a headstrong article, a social program, or a philosophical system on the basis of both a mistake and a lie. What is hidden, what distorted, will not immediately become obvious. Then a contradictory speech, article, program, a differently constructed philosophy rallies in opposition – and all just as elegant and smooth, and once again it works. Which is why such things are both trusted and mistrusted. In vain to reiterate what does not reach the heart. But a work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force – they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them. So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through – then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfil the work of all three? In that case Dostoevsky’s remark, “Beauty will save the world”, was not a careless phrase but a prophecy? After all HE was granted to see much, a man of fantastic illumination. And in that case art, literature might really be able to help the world today? It is the small insight which, over the years, I have succeeded in gaining into this matter that I shall attempt to lay before you here today."

You can read the rest of his speech at NobelPrize.org

Dostoevsky, Solzenhitsyn and the current state of the world collectively inspired this illustration . We wanted to capture a sense of individuals connecting to a whole that is greater than the parts. Points of light suggest a globe at sunrise, then connect through sunrise into the shape of a magnolia flower. 

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• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Nobel Lecture

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nobel lecture.

English Russian (pdf)

Nobel Lecture in Literature 1970 *

Just as that puzzled savage who has picked up – a strange cast-up from the ocean? – something unearthed from the sands? – or an obscure object fallen down from the sky? – intricate in curves, it gleams first dully and then with a bright thrust of light. Just as he turns it this way and that, turns it over, trying to discover what to do with it, trying to discover some mundane function within his own grasp, never dreaming of its higher function.

So also we, holding Art in our hands, confidently consider ourselves to be its masters; boldly we direct it, we renew, reform and manifest it; we sell it for money, use it to please those in power; turn to it at one moment for amusement – right down to popular songs and night-clubs, and at another – grabbing the nearest weapon, cork or cudgel – for the passing needs of politics and for narrow-minded social ends. But art is not defiled by our efforts, neither does it thereby depart from its true nature, but on each occasion and in each application it gives to us a part of its secret inner light.

But shall we ever grasp the whole of that light? Who will dare to say that he has DEFINED Art, enumerated all its facets? Perhaps once upon a time someone understood and told us, but we could not remain satisfied with that for long; we listened, and neglected, and threw it out there and then, hurrying as always to exchange even the very best – if only for something new! And when we are told again the old truth, we shall not even remember that we once possessed it.

One artist sees himself as the creator of an independent spiritual world; he hoists onto his shoulders the task of creating this world, of peopling it and of bearing the all-embracing responsibility for it; but he crumples beneath it, for a mortal genius is not capable of bearing such a burden. Just as man in general, having declared himself the centre of existence, has not succeeded in creating a balanced spiritual system. And if misfortune overtakes him, he casts the blame upon the age-long disharmony of the world, upon the complexity of today’s ruptured soul, or upon the stupidity of the public.

Another artist, recognizing a higher power above, gladly works as a humble apprentice beneath God’s heaven; then, however, his responsibility for everything that is written or drawn, for the souls which perceive his work, is more exacting than ever. But, in return, it is not he who has created this world, not he who directs it, there is no doubt as to its foundations; the artist has merely to be more keenly aware than others of the harmony of the world, of the beauty and ugliness of the human contribution to it, and to communicate this acutely to his fellow-men. And in misfortune, and even at the depths of existence – in destitution, in prison, in sickness – his sense of stable harmony never deserts him.

But all the irrationality of art, its dazzling turns, its unpredictable discoveries, its shattering influence on human beings – they are too full of magic to be exhausted by this artist’s vision of the world, by his artistic conception or by the work of his unworthy fingers.

Archaeologists have not discovered stages of human existence so early that they were without art. Right back in the early morning twilights of mankind we received it from Hands which we were too slow to discern. And we were too slow to ask: FOR WHAT PURPOSE have we been given this gift? What are we to do with it?

And they were mistaken, and will always be mistaken, who prophesy that art will disintegrate, that it will outlive its forms and die. It is we who shall die – art will remain. And shall we comprehend, even on the day of our destruction, all its facets and all its possibilities?

Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words. Art inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to a high spiritual experience. Through art we are sometimes visited – dimly, briefly – by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking.

Like that little looking-glass from the fairy-tales: look into it and you will see – not yourself – but for one second, the Inaccessible, whither no man can ride, no man fly. And only the soul gives a groan …

One day Dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic remark: “Beauty will save the world”. What sort of a statement is that? For a long time I considered it mere words. How could that be possible? When in bloodthirsty history did beauty ever save anyone from anything? Ennobled, uplifted, yes – but whom has it saved?

There is, however, a certain peculiarity in the essence of beauty, a peculiarity in the status of art: namely, the convincingness of a true work of art is completely irrefutable and it forces even an opposing heart to surrender. It is possible to compose an outwardly smooth and elegant political speech, a headstrong article, a social program, or a philosophical system on the basis of both a mistake and a lie. What is hidden, what distorted, will not immediately become obvious.

Then a contradictory speech, article, program, a differently constructed philosophy rallies in opposition – and all just as elegant and smooth, and once again it works. Which is why such things are both trusted and mistrusted.

In vain to reiterate what does not reach the heart.

But a work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force – they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.

So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through – then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfil the work of all three?

In that case Dostoevsky’s remark, “Beauty will save the world”, was not a careless phrase but a prophecy? After all HE was granted to see much, a man of fantastic illumination.

And in that case art, literature might really be able to help the world today?

It is the small insight which, over the years, I have succeeded in gaining into this matter that I shall attempt to lay before you here today.

In order to mount this platform from which the Nobel lecture is read, a platform offered to far from every writer and only once in a lifetime, I have climbed not three or four makeshift steps, but hundreds and even thousands of them; unyielding, precipitous, frozen steps, leading out of the darkness and cold where it was my fate to survive, while others – perhaps with a greater gift and stronger than I – have perished. Of them, I myself met but a few on the Archipelago of GULAG 1 , shattered into its fractionary multitude of islands; and beneath the millstone of shadowing and mistrust I did not talk to them all, of some I only heard, of others still I only guessed. Those who fell into that abyss already bearing a literary name are at least known, but how many were never recognized, never once mentioned in public? And virtually no one managed to return. A whole national literature remained there, cast into oblivion not only without a grave, but without even underclothes, naked, with a number tagged on to its toe. Russian literature did not cease for a moment, but from the outside it appeared a wasteland! Where a peaceful forest could have grown, there remained, after all the felling, two or three trees overlooked by chance.

And as I stand here today, accompanied by the shadows of the fallen, with bowed head allowing others who were worthy before to pass ahead of me to this place, as I stand here, how am I to divine and to express what THEY would have wished to say?

This obligation has long weighed upon us, and we have understood it. In the words of Vladimir Solov’ev:

Even in chains we ourselves must complete That circle which the gods have mapped out for us.

Frequently, in painful camp seethings, in a column of prisoners, when chains of lanterns pierced the gloom of the evening frosts, there would well up inside us the words that we should like to cry out to the whole world, if the whole world could hear one of us. Then it seemed so clear: what our successful ambassador would say, and how the world would immediately respond with its comment. Our horizon embraced quite distinctly both physical things and spiritual movements, and it saw no lop-sidedness in the indivisible world. These ideas did not come from books, neither were they imported for the sake of coherence. They were formed in conversations with people now dead, in prison cells and by forest fires, they were tested against THAT life, they grew out of THAT existence.

When at last the outer pressure grew a little weaker, my and our horizon broadened and gradually, albeit through a minute chink, we saw and knew “the whole world”. And to our amazement the whole world was not at all as we had expected, as we had hoped; that is to say a world living “not by that”, a world leading “not there”, a world which could exclaim at the sight of a muddy swamp, “what a delightful little puddle!”, at concrete neck stocks, “what an exquisite necklace!”; but instead a world where some weep inconsolate tears and others dance to a light-hearted musical.

How could this happen? Why the yawning gap? Were we insensitive? Was the world insensitive? Or is it due to language differences? Why is it that people are not able to hear each other’s every distinct utterance? Words cease to sound and run away like water – without taste, colour, smell. Without trace.

As I have come to understand this, so through the years has changed and changed again the structure, content and tone of my potential speech. The speech I give today.

And it has little in common with its original plan, conceived on frosty camp evenings.

From time immemorial man has been made in such a way that his vision of the world, so long as it has not been instilled under hypnosis, his motivations and scale of values, his actions and intentions are determined by his personal and group experience of life. As the Russian saying goes, “Do not believe your brother, believe your own crooked eye.” And that is the most sound basis for an understanding of the world around us and of human conduct in it. And during the long epochs when our world lay spread out in mystery and wilderness, before it became encroached by common lines of communication, before it was transformed into a single, convulsively pulsating lump – men, relying on experience, ruled without mishap within their limited areas, within their communities, within their societies, and finally on their national territories. At that time it was possible for individual human beings to perceive and accept a general scale of values, to distinguish between what is considered normal, what incredible; what is cruel and what lies beyond the boundaries of wickedness; what is honesty, what deceit. And although the scattered peoples led extremely different lives and their social values were often strikingly at odds, just as their systems of weights and measures did not agree, still these discrepancies surprised only occasional travellers, were reported in journals under the name of wonders, and bore no danger to mankind which was not yet one.

But now during the past few decades, imperceptibly, suddenly, mankind has become one – hopefully one and dangerously one – so that the concussions and inflammations of one of its parts are almost instantaneously passed on to others, sometimes lacking in any kind of necessary immunity. Mankind has become one, but not steadfastly one as communities or even nations used to be; not united through years of mutual experience, neither through possession of a single eye, affectionately called crooked, nor yet through a common native language, but, surpassing all barriers, through international broadcasting and print. An avalanche of events descends upon us – in one minute half the world hears of their splash. But the yardstick by which to measure those events and to evaluate them in accordance with the laws of unfamiliar parts of the world – this is not and cannot be conveyed via soundwaves and in newspaper columns. For these yardsticks were matured and assimilated over too many years of too specific conditions in individual countries and societies; they cannot be exchanged in mid-air. In the various parts of the world men apply their own hard-earned values to events, and they judge stubbornly, confidently, only according to their own scales of values and never according to any others.

And if there are not many such different scales of values in the world, there are at least several; one for evaluating events near at hand, another for events far away; aging societies possess one, young societies another; unsuccessful people one, successful people another. The divergent scales of values scream in discordance, they dazzle and daze us, and in order that it might not be painful we steer clear of all other values, as though from insanity, as though from illusion, and we confidently judge the whole world according to our own home values. Which is why we take for the greater, more painful and less bearable disaster not that which is in fact greater, more painful and less bearable, but that which lies closest to us. Everything which is further away, which does not threaten this very day to invade our threshold – with all its groans, its stifled cries, its destroyed lives, even if it involves millions of victims – this we consider on the whole to be perfectly bearable and of tolerable proportions.

In one part of the world, not so long ago, under persecutions not inferior to those of the ancient Romans’, hundreds of thousands of silent Christians gave up their lives for their belief in God. In the other hemisphere a certain madman, (and no doubt he is not alone), speeds across the ocean to DELIVER us from religion – with a thrust of steel into the high priest! He has calculated for each and every one of us according to his personal scale of values!

That which from a distance, according to one scale of values, appears as enviable and flourishing freedom, at close quarters, and according to other values, is felt to be infuriating constraint calling for buses to be overthrown. That which in one part of the world might represent a dream of incredible prosperity, in another has the exasperating effect of wild exploitation demanding immediate strike. There are different scales of values for natural catastrophes: a flood craving two hundred thousand lives seems less significant than our local accident. There are different scales of values for personal insults: sometimes even an ironic smile or a dismissive gesture is humiliating, while for others cruel beatings are forgiven as an unfortunate joke. There are different scales of values for punishment and wickedness: according to one, a month’s arrest, banishment to the country, or an isolation-cell where one is fed on white rolls and milk, shatters the imagination and fills the newspaper columns with rage. While according to another, prison sentences of twenty-five years, isolation-cells where the walls are covered with ice and the prisoners stripped to their underclothes, lunatic asylums for the sane, and countless unreasonable people who for some reason will keep running away, shot on the frontiers – all this is common and accepted. While the mind is especially at peace concerning that exotic part of the world about which we know virtually nothing, from which we do not even receive news of events, but only the trivial, out-of-date guesses of a few correspondents.

Yet we cannot reproach human vision for this duality, for this dumbfounded incomprehension of another man’s distant grief, man is just made that way. But for the whole of mankind, compressed into a single lump, such mutual incomprehension presents the threat of imminent and violent destruction. One world, one mankind cannot exist in the face of six, four or even two scales of values: we shall be torn apart by this disparity of rhythm, this disparity of vibrations.

A man with two hearts is not for this world, neither shall we be able to live side by side on one Earth.

But who will co-ordinate these value scales, and how? Who will create for mankind one system of interpretation, valid for good and evil deeds, for the unbearable and the bearable, as they are differentiated today? Who will make clear to mankind what is really heavy and intolerable and what only grazes the skin locally? Who will direct the anger to that which is most terrible and not to that which is nearer? Who might succeed in transferring such an understanding beyond the limits of his own human experience? Who might succeed in impressing upon a bigoted, stubborn human creature the distant joy and grief of others, an understanding of dimensions and deceptions which he himself has never experienced? Propaganda, constraint, scientific proof – all are useless. But fortunately there does exist such a means in our world! That means is art. That means is literature.

They can perform a miracle: they can overcome man’s detrimental peculiarity of learning only from personal experience so that the experience of other people passes him by in vain. From man to man, as he completes his brief spell on Earth, art transfers the whole weight of an unfamiliar, lifelong experience with all its burdens, its colours, its sap of life; it recreates in the flesh an unknown experience and allows us to possess it as our own.

And even more, much more than that; both countries and whole continents repeat each other’s mistakes with time lapses which can amount to centuries. Then, one would think, it would all be so obvious! But no; that which some nations have already experienced, considered and rejected, is suddenly discovered by others to be the latest word. And here again, the only substitute for an experience we ourselves have never lived through is art, literature. They possess a wonderful ability: beyond distinctions of language, custom, social structure, they can convey the life experience of one whole nation to another. To an inexperienced nation they can convey a harsh national trial lasting many decades, at best sparing an entire nation from a superfluous, or mistaken, or even disastrous course, thereby curtailing the meanderings of human history.

It is this great and noble property of art that I urgently recall to you today from the Nobel tribune.

And literature conveys irrefutable condensed experience in yet another invaluable direction; namely, from generation to generation. Thus it becomes the living memory of the nation. Thus it preserves and kindles within itself the flame of her spent history, in a form which is safe from deformation and slander. In this way literature, together with language, protects the soul of the nation.

(In recent times it has been fashionable to talk of the levelling of nations, of the disappearance of different races in the melting-pot of contemporary civilization. I do not agree with this opinion, but its discussion remains another question. Here it is merely fitting to say that the disappearance of nations would have impoverished us no less than if all men had become alike, with one personality and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colours and bears within itself a special facet of divine intention.)

But woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against “freedom of print”, it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another. Silent generations grow old and die without ever having talked about themselves, either to each other or to their descendants. When writers such as Achmatova and Zamjatin – interred alive throughout their lives – are condemned to create in silence until they die, never hearing the echo of their written words, then that is not only their personal tragedy, but a sorrow to the whole nation, a danger to the whole nation.

In some cases moreover – when as a result of such a silence the whole of history ceases to be understood in its entirety – it is a danger to the whole of mankind.

At various times and in various countries there have arisen heated, angry and exquisite debates as to whether art and the artist should be free to live for themselves, or whether they should be for ever mindful of their duty towards society and serve it albeit in an unprejudiced way. For me there is no dilemma, but I shall refrain from raising once again the train of arguments. One of the most brilliant addresses on this subject was actually Albert Camus’ Nobel speech, and I would happily subscribe to his conclusions. Indeed, Russian literature has for several decades manifested an inclination not to become too lost in contemplation of itself, not to flutter about too frivolously. I am not ashamed to continue this tradition to the best of my ability. Russian literature has long been familiar with the notions that a writer can do much within his society, and that it is his duty to do so.

Let us not violate the RIGHT of the artist to express exclusively his own experiences and introspections, disregarding everything that happens in the world beyond. Let us not DEMAND of the artist, but – reproach, beg, urge and entice him – that we may be allowed to do. After all, only in part does he himself develop his talent; the greater part of it is blown into him at birth as a finished product, and the gift of talent imposes responsibility on his free will. Let us assume that the artist does not OWE anybody anything: nevertheless, it is painful to see how, by retiring into his self-made worlds or the spaces of his subjective whims, he CAN surrender the real world into the hands of men who are mercenary, if not worthless, if not insane.

Our Twentieth Century has proved to be more cruel than preceding centuries, and the first fifty years have not erased all its horrors. Our world is rent asunder by those same old cave-age emotions of greed, envy, lack of control, mutual hostility which have picked up in passing respectable pseudonyms like class struggle, racial conflict, struggle of the masses, trade-union disputes. The primeval refusal to accept a compromise has been turned into a theoretical principle and is considered the virtue of orthodoxy. It demands millions of sacrifices in ceaseless civil wars, it drums into our souls that there is no such thing as unchanging, universal concepts of goodness and justice, that they are all fluctuating and inconstant. Therefore the rule – always do what’s most profitable to your party. Any professional group no sooner sees a convenient opportunity to BREAK OFF A PIECE, even if it be unearned, even if it be superfluous, than it breaks it off there and then and no matter if the whole of society comes tumbling down. As seen from the outside, the amplitude of the tossings of western society is approaching that point beyond which the system becomes metastable and must fall. Violence, less and less embarrassed by the limits imposed by centuries of lawfulness, is brazenly and victoriously striding across the whole world, unconcerned that its infertility has been demonstrated and proved many times in history. What is more, it is not simply crude power that triumphs abroad, but its exultant justification. The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, justice nothing. Dostoevsky’s DEVILS – apparently a provincial nightmare fantasy of the last century – are crawling across the whole world in front of our very eyes, infesting countries where they could not have been dreamed of; and by means of the hijackings, kidnappings, explosions and fires of recent years they are announcing their determination to shake and destroy civilization! And they may well succeed. The young, at an age when they have not yet any experience other than sexual, when they do not yet have years of personal suffering and personal understanding behind them, are jubilantly repeating our depraved Russian blunders of the Nineteenth Century, under the impression that they are discovering something new. They acclaim the latest wretched degradation on the part of the Chinese Red Guards as a joyous example. In shallow lack of understanding of the age-old essence of mankind, in the naive confidence of inexperienced hearts they cry: let us drive away THOSE cruel, greedy oppressors, governments, and the new ones (we!), having laid aside grenades and rifles, will be just and understanding. Far from it! . . . But of those who have lived more and understand, those who could oppose these young – many do not dare oppose, they even suck up, anything not to appear “conservative”. Another Russian phenomenon of the Nineteenth Century which Dostoevsky called SLAVERY TO PROGRESSIVE QUIRKS.

The spirit of Munich has by no means retreated into the past; it was not merely a brief episode. I even venture to say that the spirit of Munich prevails in the Twentieth Century. The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles. The spirit of Munich is a sickness of the will of successful people, it is the daily condition of those who have given themselves up to the thirst after prosperity at any price, to material well-being as the chief goal of earthly existence. Such people – and there are many in today’s world – elect passivity and retreat, just so as their accustomed life might drag on a bit longer, just so as not to step over the threshold of hardship today – and tomorrow, you’ll see, it will all be all right. (But it will never be all right! The price of cowardice will only be evil; we shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.)

And on top of this we are threatened by destruction in the fact that the physically compressed, strained world is not allowed to blend spiritually; the molecules of knowledge and sympathy are not allowed to jump over from one half to the other. This presents a rampant danger: THE SUPPRESSION OF INFORMATION between the parts of the planet. Contemporary science knows that suppression of information leads to entropy and total destruction. Suppression of information renders international signatures and agreements illusory; within a muffled zone it costs nothing to reinterpret any agreement, even simpler – to forget it, as though it had never really existed. (Orwell understood this supremely.) A muffled zone is, as it were, populated not by inhabitants of the Earth, but by an expeditionary corps from Mars; the people know nothing intelligent about the rest of the Earth and are prepared to go and trample it down in the holy conviction that they come as “liberators”.

A quarter of a century ago, in the great hopes of mankind, the United Nations Organization was born. Alas, in an immoral world, this too grew up to be immoral. It is not a United Nations Organization but a United Governments Organization where all governments stand equal; those which are freely elected, those imposed forcibly, and those which have seized power with weapons. Relying on the mercenary partiality of the majority UNO jealously guards the freedom of some nations and neglects the freedom of others. As a result of an obedient vote it declined to undertake the investigation of private appeals – the groans, screams and beseechings of humble individual PLAIN PEOPLE – not large enough a catch for such a great organization. UNO made no effort to make the Declaration of Human Rights, its best document in twenty-five years, into an OBLIGATORY condition of membership confronting the governments. Thus it betrayed those humble people into the will of the governments which they had not chosen.

It would seem that the appearance of the contemporary world rests solely in the hands of the scientists; all mankind’s technical steps are determined by them. It would seem that it is precisely on the international goodwill of scientists, and not of politicians, that the direction of the world should depend. All the more so since the example of the few shows how much could be achieved were they all to pull together. But no; scientists have not manifested any clear attempt to become an important, independently active force of mankind. They spend entire congresses in renouncing the sufferings of others; better to stay safely within the precincts of science. That same spirit of Munich has spread above them its enfeebling wings.

What then is the place and role of the writer in this cruel, dynamic, split world on the brink of its ten destructions? After all we have nothing to do with letting off rockets, we do not even push the lowliest of hand-carts, we are quite scorned by those who respect only material power. Is it not natural for us too to step back, to lose faith in the steadfastness of goodness, in the indivisibility of truth, and to just impart to the world our bitter, detached observations: how mankind has become hopelessly corrupt, how men have degenerated, and how difficult it is for the few beautiful and refined souls to live amongst them?

But we have not even recourse to this flight. Anyone who has once taken up the WORD can never again evade it; a writer is not the detached judge of his compatriots and contemporaries, he is an accomplice to all the evil committed in his native land or by his countrymen. And if the tanks of his fatherland have flooded the asphalt of a foreign capital with blood, then the brown spots have slapped against the face of the writer forever. And if one fatal night they suffocated his sleeping, trusting Friend, then the palms of the writer bear the bruises from that rope. And if his young fellow citizens breezily declare the superiority of depravity over honest work, if they give themselves over to drugs or seize hostages, then their stink mingles with the breath of the writer.

Shall we have the temerity to declare that we are not responsible for the sores of the present-day world?

However, I am cheered by a vital awareness of WORLD LITERATURE as of a single huge heart, beating out the cares and troubles of our world, albeit presented and perceived differently in each of its corners.

Apart from age-old national literatures there existed, even in past ages, the conception of world literature as an anthology skirting the heights of the national literatures, and as the sum total of mutual literary influences. But there occurred a lapse in time: readers and writers became acquainted with writers of other tongues only after a time lapse, sometimes lasting centuries, so that mutual influences were also delayed and the anthology of national literary heights was revealed only in the eyes of descendants, not of contemporaries.

But today, between the writers of one country and the writers and readers of another, there is a reciprocity if not instantaneous then almost so. I experience this with myself. Those of my books which, alas, have not been printed in my own country have soon found a responsive, worldwide audience, despite hurried and often bad translations. Such distinguished western writers as Heinrich Böll have undertaken critical analysis of them. All these last years, when my work and freedom have not come crashing down, when contrary to the laws of gravity they have hung suspended as though on air, as though on NOTHING – on the invisible dumb tension of a sympathetic public membrane; then it was with grateful warmth, and quite unexpectedly for myself, that I learnt of the further support of the international brotherhood of writers. On my fiftieth birthday I was astonished to receive congratulations from well-known western writers. No pressure on me came to pass by unnoticed. During my dangerous weeks of exclusion from the Writers’ Union the WALL OF DEFENCE advanced by the world’s prominent writers protected me from worse persecutions; and Norwegian writers and artists hospitably prepared a roof for me, in the event of my threatened exile being put into effect. Finally even the advancement of my name for the Nobel Prize was raised not in the country where I live and write, but by Francois Mauriac and his colleagues. And later still entire national writers’ unions have expressed their support for me.

Thus I have understood and felt that world literature is no longer an abstract anthology, nor a generalization invented by literary historians; it is rather a certain common body and a common spirit, a living heartfelt unity reflecting the growing unity of mankind. State frontiers still turn crimson, heated by electric wire and bursts of machine fire; and various ministries of internal affairs still think that literature too is an “internal affair” falling under their jurisdiction; newspaper headlines still display: “No right to interfere in our internal affairs!” Whereas there are no INTERNAL AFFAIRS left on our crowded Earth! And mankind’s sole salvation lies in everyone making everything his business; in the people of the East being vitally concerned with what is thought in the West, the people of the West vitally concerned with what goes on in the East. And literature, as one of the most sensitive, responsive instruments possessed by the human creature, has been one of the first to adopt, to assimilate, to catch hold of this feeling of a growing unity of mankind. And so I turn with confidence to the world literature of today – to hundreds of friends whom I have never met in the flesh and whom I may never see.

Friends! Let us try to help if we are worth anything at all! Who from time immemorial has constituted the uniting, not the dividing, strength in your countries, lacerated by discordant parties, movements, castes and groups? There in its essence is the position of writers: expressers of their native language – the chief binding force of the nation, of the very earth its people occupy, and at best of its national spirit.

I believe that world literature has it in its power to help mankind, in these its troubled hours, to see itself as it really is, notwithstanding the indoctrinations of prejudiced people and parties. World literature has it in its power to convey condensed experience from one land to another so that we might cease to be split and dazzled, that the different scales of values might be made to agree, and one nation learn correctly and concisely the true history of another with such strength of recognition and painful awareness as it had itself experienced the same, and thus might it be spared from repeating the same cruel mistakes. And perhaps under such conditions we artists will be able to cultivate within ourselves a field of vision to embrace the WHOLE WORLD: in the centre observing like any other human being that which lies nearby, at the edges we shall begin to draw in that which is happening in the rest of the world. And we shall correlate, and we shall observe world proportions.

And who, if not writers, are to pass judgement – not only on their unsuccessful governments, (in some states this is the easiest way to earn one’s bread, the occupation of any man who is not lazy), but also on the people themselves, in their cowardly humiliation or self-satisfied weakness? Who is to pass judgement on the light-weight sprints of youth, and on the young pirates brandishing their knives?

We shall be told: what can literature possibly do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE. At its birth violence acts openly and even with pride. But no sooner does it become strong, firmly established, than it senses the rarefaction of the air around it and it cannot continue to exist without descending into a fog of lies, clothing them in sweet talk. It does not always, not necessarily, openly throttle the throat, more often it demands from its subjects only an oath of allegiance to falsehood, only complicity in falsehood.

And the simple step of a simple courageous man is not to partake in falsehood, not to support false actions! Let THAT enter the world, let it even reign in the world – but not with my help. But writers and artists can achieve more: they can CONQUER FALSEHOOD! In the struggle with falsehood art always did win and it always does win! Openly, irrefutably for everyone! Falsehood can hold out against much in this world, but not against art.

And no sooner will falsehood be dispersed than the nakedness of violence will be revealed in all its ugliness – and violence, decrepit, will fall.

That is why, my friends, I believe that we are able to help the world in its white-hot hour. Not by making the excuse of possessing no weapons, and not by giving ourselves over to a frivolous life – but by going to war!

Proverbs about truth are well-loved in Russian. They give steady and sometimes striking expression to the not inconsiderable harsh national experience:

ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WHOLE WORLD.

And it is here, on an imaginary fantasy, a breach of the principle of the conservation of mass and energy, that I base both my own activity and my appeal to the writers of the whole world.

*Delivered only to the Swedish Academy and not actually given as a lecture.

1. The Central Administration of Corrective Labour Camps.

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Can Beauty Save the World?

IS IT MORE ACCESSIBLE THAN THE TRUE & THE GOOD?

In Dostoevsky’s The Idiot , the dying Teréntyev asks Prince Myshkin, “Is it true, Prince, that you once said that beauty will save the world?” The thesis that beauty will save the world is arresting, but what are we to make of it? In his 1970 Nobel Prize lecture, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn affirms the thesis, though he admits that for a long time he could make no sense of the claim. Others say it is false. Isn’t beauty’s failure to save even itself the stuff of history? In its beauty, Baghdad fell to the Mongols; in its loveliness, Japan’s Heian met destruction. And are not artists all too often self-destructive? Though starkly different, Van Gogh and Thomas Kinkade shared a like fate.

Solzhenitsyn does not deny history’s lessons. But such reproval, he says, fails to see that barbarism cannot finally extinguish beauty. And while an artist who would create a private reality might fall beneath its burden, one who is harmony’s apprentice finds an enduring home. Yes, art falters; but there is also success. Even now a developing world literature speaks to us all.

Yet there is more. Beauty, Solzhenitsyn says, is a transcendental; it joins, in troika fashion, with truth and goodness. In our time, truth suffers institutional betrayal, and a legion of partisans subverts the good. Nonetheless, he tells us,

A work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched…come crashing down [and] convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and present it to us as a living force — they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.

Thus beauty holds a privileged position. Even if the “stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed [perhaps] the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through…and in so doing will fulfill the work of all three.” In short, we can still live in hope.

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The Meaning of Dostoevsky’s “Beauty Will Save the World”

• Essays Slider
• November 28, 2013

By Vladimir Soloviev

Dostoevsky not only preached, but, to a certain degree also demonstrated in his own activity this reunification of concerns common to humanity–at least of the highest among these concerns–in one Christian idea.

Being a religious person, he was at the same time a free thinker and a powerful artist. These three aspects , these three higher concerns were not differentiated in him and did not exclude one another, but entered indivisibly into all his activity. In his convictions he never separated truth from good and beauty; in his artistic creativity he never placed beauty apart from the good and the true.

And he was right, because these three live only in their unity. The good, taken separately from truth and beauty, is only an indistinct feeling, a powerless upwelling; truth taken abstractly is an empty word; and beauty without truth and the good is an idol. For Dostoevsky, these were three inseparable forms of one absolute Idea.

The infinity of the human soul–having been revealed in Christ and capable of fitting into itself all the boundlessness of divinity–is at one and the same time both the greatest good, the highest truth, and the most perfect beauty.

Truth is good, perceived by the human mind; beauty is the same good and the same truth, corporeally embodied in solid living form.

And its full embodiment–the end, the goal, and the perfection–already exists in everything, and this is why Dostoevsky said that beauty will save the world.

Source: Mind Your Maker

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Tasmanian Times

Solzhenitsyn: Beauty will save the world?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech 1970

AS THE SAVAGE, WHO IN BEWILDERMENT has picked up a strange sea–leaving, a thing hidden in the sand, or an incomprehensible something fallen out of the sky–something intricately curved, sometimes shimmering dully, sometimes shining in a bright ray of light–turns it this way and that, turns it looking for a way to use it, for some ordinary use to which he can put it, without suspecting an extraordinary one…

Alexander Solzhenitsyn Nobel Lecture (1970)

Translated from the Russian by F.D. Reeve

So we, holding Art in our hands, self-confidently consider ourselves its owners, brashly give it aim, renovate it, re-form it, make manifestoes of it, sell it for cash, play up to the powerful with it, and turn it around at times for entertainment, even in vaudeville songs and in nightclubs, and at times–using stopper or stick, whichever comes first–for transitory political or limited social needs. But Art is not profaned by our attempts, does not because of them lose touch with its source, Each time and by each use it yields us a part of its mysterious inner light.

But will we comprehend all that light? Who will dare say that he has DEFINED art? That he has tabulated all its facets? Perhaps someone in ages past did understand and named them for us, but we could not hold still; we listened; we were scornful; we discarded them at once, always in a hurry to replace even the best with anything new! And when the old truth is told us again, we do not remember that we once possessed it.

One kind of artist imagines himself the creator of an independent spiritual world and shoulders the act of creating that world and the people in it, assuming total responsibility for it–but he collapses, for no mortal genius is able to hold up under such a load. Just as man, who once declared himself the center of existence, has not been able to create a stable spiritual system. When failure overwhelms him, he blames it on the age-old discord of the world, on the complexity of the fragmented and torn modern soul, or on the public’s lack of understanding.

Another artist acknowledges a higher power above him and joyfully works as a common apprentice under God’s heaven, although his responsibility for all that he writes down or depicts, and for those who understand him, is all the greater. On the other hand, he did not create the world, it is not given direction by him, it is a world about whose foundations he has no doubt. The task of the artist is to sense more keenly than others the harmony of the world, the beauty and the outrage of what man has done to it, and poignantly to let people know. In failure as well as in the lower depths–in poverty, in prison, in illness–the consciousness of a stable harmony will never leave him.

All the irrationality of art, however, its blinding sudden turns, its unpredictable discoveries, its profound impact on people, are too magical to be exhausted by the artist’s view of the world, by his overall design, or by the work of his unworthy hands.

Archaeologists have uncovered no early stages of human existence so primitive that they were without art. Even before the dawn of civilization we had received this gift from Hands we were not quick enough to discern. And we were not quick enough to ask: WHAT is this gift FOR? What are we to do with it?

All who predict that art is disintegrating, that it has outgrown its forms, and that it is dying are wrong and will be wrong. We will die, but art will remain. Will we, before we go under, ever understand all its facets and all its ends?

Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words. Art warms even an icy and depressed heart, opening it to lofty spiritual experience. By means of art we are sometimes sent -dimly, briefly–revelations unattainable by reason.

Like that little mirror in the fairy tales–look into it, and you will see not yourself but, for a moment, that which passeth understanding, a realm to which no man can ride or fly. And for which the soul begins to ache…

2 DOSTOEVSKY ONCE ENIGMATICALLY let drop the phrase: “Beauty will save the world.” What does this mean? For a long time I thought it merely a phrase. Was such a thing possible? When in our bloodthirsty history did beauty ever save anyone from anything? Ennobled, elevated, yes; but whom has it saved?

There is, however, something special in the essence of beauty, a special quality in art: the conviction carried by a genuine work of art is absolute and subdues even a resistant heart. A political speech, hasty newspaper comment, a social program, a philosophical system can, as far as appearances are concerned, be built smoothly and consistently on an error or a lie; and what is concealed and distorted will not be immediately clear. But then to counteract it comes a contradictory speech, commentary, program, or differently constructed philosophy–and again everything seems smooth and graceful, and again hangs together. That is why they inspire trust–and distrust.

There is no point asserting and reasserting what the heart cannot believe.

A work of art contains its verification in itself: artificial, strained concepts do not withstand the test of being turned into images; they fall to pieces, turn out to be sickly and pale, convince no one. Works which draw on truth and present it to us in live and concentrated form grip us, compellingly involve us, and no one ever, not even ages hence, will come forth to refute them.

Perhaps then the old trinity of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty is not simply the dressed-up, worn-out formula we thought it in our presumptuous, materialistic youth? If the crowns of these three trees meet, as scholars have asserted, and if the too obvious, too straight sprouts of Truth and Goodness have been knocked down, cut off, not let grow, perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will work their way through, rise up TO THAT VERY PLACE, and thus complete the work of all three?

Then what Dostoevsky wrote–“Beauty will save the world”–is not a slip of the tongue but a prophecy. After all, he had the gift of seeing much, a man wondrously filled with light.

And in that case could not art and literature, in fact, help the modern world?

What little I have managed to learn about this over the years I will try to set forth here today.

TO REACH THIS CHAIR FROM WHICH the Nobel Lecture is delivered–a chair by no means offered to every writer and offered only once in a lifetime–I have mounted not three or four temporary steps but hundreds or even thousands, fixed, steep, covered with ice, out of the dark and the cold where I was fated to survive, but others, perhaps more talented, stronger than I, perished. I myself met but few of them in the Gulag Archipelago,1 a multitude of scattered island fragments. Indeed, under the millstone of surveillance and mistrust, I did not talk to just any man; of some I only heard; and of others I only guessed. Those with a name in literature who vanished into that abyss are, at least, known; but how many were unrecognized, never once publicly mentioned? And so very few, almost no one ever managed to return. A whole national literature is there, buried without a coffin, without even underwear, naked, a number tagged on its toe. Not for a moment did Russian literature cease, yet from outside it seemed a wasteland. Where a harmonious forest could have grown, there were left, after all the cutting, two or three trees accidentally overlooked.

And today how am I, accompanied by the shades of the fallen, my head bowed to let pass forward to this platform others worthy long before me, today how am I to guess and to express what they would have wished to say?

This obligation has long lain on us, and we have understood it. In Vladimir Solovyov’s words:

But even chained, we must ourselves complete That circle which the gods have preordained.

In agonizing moments in camp, in columns of prisoners at night, in the freezing darkness through which the little chains of lanterns shone, there often rose in our throats something we wanted to shout out to the whole world, if only the world could have heard one of us. Then it seemed very clear what our lucky messenger would say and how immediately and positively the whole world would respond. Our field of vision was filled with physical objects and spiritual forces, and in that clearly focused world nothing seemed to outbalance them. Such ideas came not from books and were not borrowed for the sake of harmony or coherence; they were formulated in prison cells and around forest campfires, in conversations with persons now dead, were hardened by that life, developed out of there.

When the outside pressures were reduced, my outlook and our outlook widened, and gradually, although through a tiny crack, that “whole world” outside came in sight and was recognized. Startlingly for us, the “whole world” turned out to be not at all what we had hoped: it was a world leading “not up there” but exclaiming at the sight of a dismal swamp, “What an enchanting meadow!” or at a set of prisoner’s concrete stocks, “What an exquisite necklace!”–a world in which, while flowing tears rolled down the cheeks of some, others danced to the carefree tunes of a musical.

How did this come about? Why did such an abyss open? Were we unfeeling, or was the world? Or was it because of a difference in language? Why are people not capable of grasping each other’s every clear and distinct speech? Words die away and flow off like water–leaving no taste, no color, no smell. Not a trace.

Insofar as I understand it, the structure, import, and tone of speech possible for me–of my speech here today–have changed with the years.

It now scarcely resembles the speech which I first conceived on those freezing nights in prison camp.

FOR AGES, SUCH HAS BEEN MAN’S nature that his view of the world (when not induced by hypnosis), his motivation and scale of values, his actions and his intentions have been determined by his own personal and group experiences of life. As the Russian proverb puts it, “Don’t trust your brother, trust your own bad eye.” This is the soundest basis for understanding one’s environment and one’s behavior in it. During the long eras when our world was obscurely and bewilderingly fragmented, before a unified communications system had transformed it and it had turned into a single, convulsively beating lump, men were unerringly guided by practical experience in their own local area, then in their own community, in their own society, and finally in their own national territory. The possibility then existed for an individual to see with his own eyes and to accept a common scale of values–what was considered average, what improbable; what was cruel, what beyond all bounds of evil; what was honesty, what deceit. Even though widely scattered peoples lived differently and their scales of social values might be strikingly dissimilar, like their systems of weights and measures, these differences surprised none but the occasional tourist, were written up as heathen wonders, and in no way threatened the rest of not yet united mankind.

In recent decades, however, mankind has imperceptibly, suddenly, become one, united in a way which offers both hope and danger, for shock and infection in one part are almost instantaneously transmitted to others, which often have no immunity. Mankind has become one, but not in the way the community or even the nation used to be stably united, not through accumulated practical experience, not through its own, good-naturedly so-called bad eye, not even through its own well-understood, native tongue, but, leaping over all barriers, through the international press and radio. A wave of events washes over us and, in a moment, half the world hears the splash, but the standards for measuring these things and for evaluating them, according to the laws of those parts of the world about which we know nothing, are not and cannot be broadcast through the ether or reduced to newsprint. These standards have too long and too specifically been accepted by and incorporated in too special a way into the lives of various lands and societies to be communicated in thin air. In various parts of the world, men apply to events a scale of values achieved by their own long suffering, and they uncompromisingly, self-reliantly judge only by their own scale, and by no one else’s.

If there are not a multitude of such scales in the world, nevertheless there are at least several: a scale for local events, a scale for things far away; for old societies, and for new; for the prosperous, and for the disadvantaged. The points and markings on the scale glaringly do not coincide; they confuse us, hurt our eyes, and so, to avoid pain, we brush aside all scales not our own, as if they were follies or delusions, and confidently judge the whole world according to our own domestic values. Therefore, what seems to us more important, more painful, and more unendurable is really not what is more important, more painful, and more unendurable but merely that which is closer to home. Everything distant which, for all its moans and muffled cries, its ruined lives and, even, millions of victims, does not threaten to come rolling up to our threshold today we consider, in general, endurable and of tolerable dimensions.

On one side, persecuted no less than under the old Romans, hundreds of thousands of mute Christians give up their lives for their belief in God. On the other side of the world, a madman (and probably he is not the only one) roars across the ocean in order to FREE US from religion with a blow of steel at the Pontiff! Using his own personal scale, he has decided things for everyone.

What on one scale seems, from far off, to be enviable and prosperous freedom, on another, close up, is felt to be irritating coercion calling for the overturning of buses. What in one country seems a dream of improbable prosperity in another arouses indignation as savage exploitation calling for an immediate strike. Scales of values differ even for natural calamities: a flood with two hundred thousand victims matters less than a local traffic accident. Scales differ for personal insults: at times, merely a sardonic smile or a dismissive gesture is humiliating, whereas, at others, cruel beatings are regarded as a bad joke. Scales differ for punishments and for wrongdoing. On one scale, a month’s arrest, or exile to the country, or “solitary confinement” on white bread and milk rocks the imagination and fills the newspaper columns with outrage. On another, both accepted and excused are prison terms of twenty-five years, solitary confinement in cells with ice-covered walls and prisoners stripped to their underclothing, insane asylums for healthy men, and border shootings of countless foolish people who, for some reason, keep trying to escape. The heart is especially at ease with regard to that exotic land about which nothing is known, from which no events ever reach us except the belated and trivial conjectures of a few correspondents.

For such ambivalence, for such thickheaded lack of understanding of someone else’s far-off grief, however, mankind is not at fault: that is how man is made. But for mankind as a whole, squeezed into one lump, such mutual lack of understanding carries the threat of imminent and violent destruction. Given six, four, or even two scales of values, there cannot be one world, one single humanity: the difference in rhythms, in oscillations, will tear mankind asunder. We will not survive together on one Earth, just as a man with two hearts is not meant for this world.

WHO WILL COORDINATE THESE SCALES of values, and how? Who will give mankind one single system for reading its instruments, both for wrongdoing and for doing good, for the intolerable and the tolerable as they are distinguished from each other today? Who will make clear for mankind what is really oppressive and unbearable and what, for being so near, rubs us raw–and thus direct our anger against what is in fact terrible and not merely near at hand? Who is capable of extending such an understanding across the boundaries of his own personal experience? Who has the skill to make a narrow, obstinate human being aware of others’ far-off grief and joy, to make him understand dimensions and delusions he himself has never lived through? Propaganda, coercion, and scientific proofs are all powerless. But, happily, in our world there is a way. It is art, and it is literature.

There is a miracle which they can work: they can overcome man’s unfortunate trait of learning only through his own experience, unaffected by that of others. From man to man, compensating for his brief time on earth, art communicates whole the burden of another’s long life experience with all its hardships, colors, and vitality, re-creating in the flesh what another has experienced, and allowing it to be acquired as one’s own.

More important, much more important: countries and whole continents belatedly repeat each other’s mistakes, sometimes after centuries when, it would , seem, everything should be so clear! No: what some nations have gone through, thought through, and rejected, suddenly seems to be the latest word in other nations. Here too the only substitute for what we ourselves have not experienced is art and literature. They have the marvelous capacity of transmitting from one nation to another despite differences in language, customs, and social structure–practical experience, the harsh national experience of many decades never tasted by the other nation. Sometimes this may save a whole nation from what is a dangerous or mistaken or plainly disastrous path, thus lessening the twists and turns of human history.

Today, from this Nobel lecture platform, I should like to emphasize this great, beneficent attribute of art.

Literature transmits condensed and irrefutable human experience in still another priceless way: from generation to generation. It thus becomes the living memory of a nation. What has faded into history it thus keeps warm and preserves in a form that defies distortion and falsehood. Thus literature, together with language, preserves and protects a nation’s soul.

(It has become fashionable in recent times to talk of the leveling of nations, and of various peoples disappearing into the melting pot of contemporary civilization. I disagree with this, but that is another matter; all that should be said here is that the disappearance of whole nations would impoverish us no less than if all people were to become identical, with the same character and the same face. Nations are the wealth of humanity, its generalized personalities. The least among them has its own special colors, and harbors within itself a special aspect of God’s design.)

But woe to the nation whose literature is cut off by the interposition of force. That is not simply a violation of “freedom of the press”; it is stopping up the nation’s heart, carving out the nation’s memory. The nation loses its memory; it loses its spiritual unity–and, despite their supposedly common language, fellow countrymen suddenly cease understanding each other. Speechless generations are born and die, having recounted nothing of themselves either to their own times or to their descendants. That such masters as Akhmatova and Zamyatin were buried behind four walls for their whole lives and condemned even to the grave to create in silence, without hearing one reverberation of what they wrote, is not only their own personal misfortune but a tragedy for the whole nation–and, too, a real threat to all nationalities.

In certain cases, it is a danger for all mankind as well: when HISTORY as a whole ceases to be understood because of that silence.

AT VARIOUS TIMES IN VARIOUS PLACES people have argued hotly, angrily, and elegantly about whether art and the artist should have a life of their own or whether they should always keep in mind their duty to society and serve it, even though in an unbiased way. For me there is no problem here, but I will not again go into this argument. One of the most brilliant speeches on this subject was Albert Camus’s Nobel lecture, the conclusions of which I happily support. Indeed, for decades Russian literature has leaned in that direction–not spending too much time in self-admiration, not flitting about too frivolously–and I am not ashamed to continue in that tradition as best I can. From way back, ingrained in Russian literature has been the notion that a writer can do much among his own people–and that he must.

We will not trample on the artist’s RIGHT to express exclusively personal experiences and observations, ignoring everything that happens in the rest of the world. We will not DEMAND anything of the artist, but we will be permitted to reproach him, to make requests, to appeal to him and to coax him. After all, he himself only partially develops his talent, the greater portion of which is breathed into him, ready-made, at birth and. along with it, responsibility for his free will. Even granting that the artist DOES NOT OWE anybody anything, it is painful to see how, retreating into a world of his own creation or into the vast spaces of subjective fancies, he CAN deliver the real world into the hands of self-seeking, insignificant, or even insane people.

Our twentieth century has turned out to be more cruel than those preceding it, and all that is terrible in it did not come to an end with the first half. The same old caveman feelings–greed, envy, violence, and mutual hate, which along the way assumed respectable pseudonyms like class struggle, racial struggle, mass struggle, labor-union struggle–are tearing our world to pieces. The caveman refusal to accept compromise has been turned into a theoretical principle and is considered to be a virtue of orthodoxy. It demands millions of victims in endless civil wars; it packs our hearts with the notion that there are no fixed universal human concepts called good and justice, that they are fluid, changing, and that therefore one must always do what will benefit one’s part.

. Any and every professional group, as soon as it finds a convenient moment TO RIP OFF A PIECE, unearned or not, extra or not, immediately rips it off, let all of society come crashing down if it will. As seen from outside, the mass of waste in Western society is approaching the limit beyond which the system will become metastable and must collapse. Violence, less and less restricted by the framework of age-old legality, brazenly and victoriously strides throughout the world, unconcerned that its futility has been demonstrated and exposed by history many times. It is not simply naked force that triumphs but its trumpeted justification: the whole world overflows with the brazen conviction that force can do everything and justice nothing. Dostoevsky’s DEMONS,2 a provincial nightmare of the last century, one would have thought, are, before our very eyes, crawling over the whole world into countries where they were unimaginable, and by the hijacking of planes, by seizing HOSTAGES, by the bomb explosions, and by the fires of recent years signal their determination to shake civilization apart and to annihilate it! And they may very well succeed. Young people, being at an age when they have no experience except sexual, when they have as yet no years of personal suffering and personal wisdom behind them, enthusiastically repeat our discredited Russian lessons of the nineteenth century and think that they are discovering something new. They take as a splendid example the Chinese Red Guard’s degradation of people into nonentities. A superficial lack of understanding of the timeless essence of humanity, a naive smugness on the part of their inexperienced hearts–We’ll kick out thosefierce, greedy oppressors, those governors, and the rest (we!), we’ll then lay down our grenades and machine guns, and become just and compassionate. Oh, of course! Of those who have lived their lives and have come to understand, who could refute the young, many DO NOT DARE argue against them; on the contrary, they flatter them in order not to seem “conservative,” again a Russian phenomenon of the nineteenth century, something which Dostoevsky called SLAVERY TO HALF-COCKED PROGRESSIVE IDEAS.

The spirit of Munich has by no means retreated into the past; it was not a brief episode. I even venture to say that the spirit of Munich is dominant in the twentieth century. The intimidated civilized world has found nothing to oppose the onslaught of a suddenly resurgent fang-baring barbarism, except concessions and smiles. The spirit of Munich is a disease of the will of prosperous people; it is the daily state of those who have given themselves over to a craving for prosperity in every way, to material well-being as the chief goal of life on earth. Such people–and there are many of them in the world today–choose passivity and retreat, anything if only the life to which they are accustomed might go on, anything so as not to have to cross over to rough terrain today, because tomorrow, see, everything will be all right. (But it never will! The reckoning for cowardice will only be more cruel. Courage and the power to overcome will be ours only when we dare to make sacrifices.)

We are also threatened by the catastrophe that the physically squeezed, constrained world is not allowed to become one spiritually; molecules of knowledge and compassion are not allowed to move across from one half of the world to the other. This is a grave danger: THE STOPPAGE OF INFORMATION between the parts of the planet. Contemporary science knows that such stoppage is the way of entropy, of universal destruction. Stoppage of information makes international signatures and treaties unreal: within the zone Of STUNNED SILENCE any treaty can easily be reinterpreted at will or, more simply, covered up, as if it had never existed (Orwell understood this beautifully). Within the zone of stunned silence lives–seemingly not Earth’s inhabitants at all–a Martian expeditionary force, knowing nothing whatever about the rest of the Earth and ready to trample it flat in the holy conviction that they are “liberating” it.

A quarter of a century ago, with the great hopes of mankind, the United Nations was born. Alas, in the immoral world it, too, became immoral. It is not a United Nations but a United Governments, in which those freely elected and those imposed by force and those which seized power by arms are all on a par. Through the mercenary bias of the majority, the UN jealously worries about the freedom of some peoples and pays no attention to the freedom of others. By an officious vote it rejected the review Of PRIVATE COMPLAINTS—the groans, shouts, and pleadings of individual, common PLAIN PEOPLE–insects too small for such a great organization. The UN never tried to make BINDING on governments, a CONDITION of their membership, the Declaration of Human Rights, the outstanding document of its twenty-five years–and thus the UN betrayed the common people to the will of governments they had not chosen.

One might think that the shape of the modern world is entirely in the hands of scientists, that they determine mankind’s technological steps. One might think that what will happen to the world depends not on politicians but specifically on the international cooperation of scientists. Especially because the example of individuals shows how much could be accomplished by moving together. But no; scientists have made no clear effort to become an important, independently active force of mankind. Whole congresses at a time, they back away from the suffering of others; it is more comfortable to stay within the bounds of science. That same spirit of Munich has spread its debilitating wings over them.

In this cruel, dynamic, explosive world on the edge of its ten destructions, what is the place and role of the writer? We send off no rockets, do not even push the lowliest handcart, are scorned by those who respect only material power. Would it not be natural for us, too, to retreat, to lose our faith in the steadfastness of good, in the indivisibility of truth, and merely to let the world have our bitter observations, as of a bystander, about how hopelessly corrupted mankind is, how petty men have become, and how difficult it is for lonely, sensitive, beautiful souls today?

We do not have even this way out. Once pledged to the WORD, there is no getting away from it: a writer is no sideline judge of his fellow countrymen and contemporaries; he is equally guilty of all the evil done in his country or by his people. If his country’s tanks spill blood on the streets of some alien capital, the brown stains are splashed forever on the writer’s face. If, some fatal night, his trusting friend is choked to death while sleeping, the bruises from the rope are on the writer’s hands. If his young fellow citizens in their easygoing way declare the superiority of debauchery over frugal labor, abandon themselves to drugs or seize HOSTAGES, the stink of it mixes with the writer’s breathing.

Will we have the impudence to announce that we are not responsible for the sores of the world today?

I AM, HOWEVER, ENCOURAGED BY A keen sense OF WORLD LITERATURE as the one great heart that beats for the cares and misfortunes of our world, even though each corner sees and experiences them in a different way.

In past times, also, besides age-old national literatures there existed a concept of world literature as the link between the summits of national literatures and as the aggregate of reciprocal literary influences. But there was a time lag: readers and writers came to know foreign writers only belatedly, sometimes centuries later, so that mutual influences were delayed and the network of national literary high points was visible not to contemporaries but to later generations.

Today, between writers of one country and the readers and writers of another, there is an almost instantaneous reciprocity, as I myself know. My books, unpublished, alas, in my own country, despite hasty and often bad translations have quickly found a responsive world readership. Critical analysis of them has been undertaken by such leading Western writers as Heinrich Boll. During all these recent years, when both my work and my freedom did not collapse, when against the laws of gravity they held on seemingly in thin air, seemingly ON NOTHING, on the invisible, mute surface tension of sympathetic people, with warm gratitude I learned, to my complete surprise, of the support of the world’s writing fraternity. On my fiftieth birthday I was astounded to receive greetings from well-known European writers. No pressure put on me now passed unnoticed. During the dangerous weeks when I was being expelled from the Writers’ Union, THE PROTECTIVE WALL put forward by prominent writers of the world saved me from worse persecution, and Norwegian writers and artists hospitably prepared shelter for me in the event that I was exiled from my country, Finally, my being nominated for a Nobel Prize was originated not in the land where I live and write but by Francois Mauriac and his colleagues. Afterward, national writers’ organizations expressed unanimous support for me.

As I have understood it and experienced it myself, world literature is no longer an abstraction or a generalized concept invented by literary critics, but a common body and common spirit, a living, heartfelt unity reflecting the growing spiritual unity of mankind. State borders still turn crimson, heated red-hot by electric fences and machine-gun fire; some ministries of internal affairs still suppose that literature is “an internal affair” of the countries under their jurisdiction; and newspaper headlines still herald, “They have no right to interfere in our internal affairs!” Meanwhile, no such thing as INTERNAL AFFAIRS remains on our crowded Earth. Mankind’s salvation lies exclusively in everyone’s making everything his business, in the people of the East being anything but indifferent to what is thought in the West, and in the people of the West being anything but indifferent to what happens in the East. Literature, one of the most sensitive and responsive tools of human , existence, has been the first to pick up, adopt, and assimilate this sense of the growing unity of mankind. , I therefore confidently turn to the world literature of the present, to hundreds of friends whom I have not met face to face and perhaps never will see.

My friends! Let us try to be helpful, if we are worth anything. In our own countries, torn by differences among parties, movements, castes, and groups, who for ages past has been not the dividing but the uniting force? This, essentially, is the position of writers, spokesmen of a national language, of the chief tie binding the nation, the very soil which the people inhabit, and, in fortunate circumstances, the nation’s spirit too.

I think that world literature has the power in these frightening times to help mankind see itself accurately despite what is advocated by partisans and by parties. It has the power to transmit the condensed experience of one region to another, so that different scales of values are combined, and so that one people accurately and concisely knows the true history of another with a power of recognition and acute awareness as if it had lived through that history itself–and could thus be spared repeating old mistakes. At the same time, perhaps we ourselves may succeed in developing our own WORLD-WIDE VIEW, like any man, with the center of the eye seeing what is nearby but the periphery of vision taking in what is happening in the rest of the world. We will make correlations and maintain world-wide standards.

Who, if not writers, are to condemn their own unsuccessful governments (in some states this is the easiest way to make a living; everyone who is not too lazy does it) as well as society itself, whether for its cowardly humiliation or for its self-satisfied weakness, or the lightheaded escapades of the young, or the youthful pirates brandishing knives?

We will be told: What can literature do against the pitiless onslaught of naked violence? Let us not forget that violence does not and cannot flourish by itself; it is inevitably intertwined with LYING. Between them there is the closest, the most profound and natural bond: nothing screens violence except lies, and the only way lies can hold out is by violence. Whoever has once announced violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose lying as his PRINCIPLE. At birth, violence behaves openly and even proudly. But as soon as it becomes stronger and firmly established, it senses the thinning of the air around it and cannot go on without befogging itself in lies, coating itself with lying’s sugary oratory. It does not always or necessarily go straight for the gullet; usually it demands of its victims only allegiance to the lie, only complicity in the lie.

The simple act of an ordinary courageous man is not to take part, not to support lies! Let that come into the world and even reign over it, but not through me. Writers and artists can do more: they can VANQUISH LIES! In the struggle against lies, art has always won and always will. Conspicuously, incontestably for everyone. Lies can stand up against much in the world, but not against art.

Once lies have been dispelled, the repulsive nakedness of violence will be exposed–and hollow violence will collapse.

That, my friends, is why I think we can help the world in its red-hot hour: not by the nay-saying of having no armaments, not by abandoning oneself to the carefree life, but by going into battle!

In Russian, proverbs about TRUTH are favorites. They persistently express the considerable, bitter, grim experience of the people, often astonishingly:

ONE WORD OF TRUTH OUTWEIGHS THE WORLD.

On such a seemingly fantastic violation of the law of the conservation of mass and energy are based both my own activities and my appeal to the writers of the whole world.

Notes 1. Gulag is the state prison-camp administration.

2. A reference to the novel known as The Possessed and The Devils, but which in Russian is literally The Demons.

ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. His most recent book is August 1914, the first part of a series of novels on which he is working, and of which October 1916 is to be the next part. His other books include One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The First Circle, Cancer Ward, and Stories and Prose Poems.

F. D. REEVE is a poet, novelist, and critic whose most recent book is The Blue Cat and Other Poems. His intimate knowledge of Russian was employed by the poet Robert Frost, who invited Mr. Reeve to accompany him as interpreter on his famous visit to the Kremlin.

Text published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1972 Digitized and Formatted in HTML by The Augustine Club at Columbia University, 1999

www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/ [email protected] Last update: September 24, 1999

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Beauty Will Save the World – But Which Beauty?

There are some quotations so arresting, so perfect in simplicity, that they never leave the memory. They are honeyed phrases for the mind: “Beauty will save the world,” says a prince in Dostoevsky’s unfortunately-titled The Idiot . [1] The prince speaks as one having authority: beauty will save the world. Or there is Keats in his “Ode on a Grecian Urn”: ” ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’-that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”. [2] Or St. Augustine saying to God in his Confessions , “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new”. [3] It is yet more surprising to find Genesis in league with each of the above, for in Genesis ‘s opening chapter the refrain so quietly insistent, “And God saw that it was good,” contains a Hebrew word which may be translated either as good or as beautiful . [4] The feel of the whole chapter changes if one hears God proclaim that the light, the sun, the greenery, the animals are all beautiful, and mankind very beautiful.

Ah, the riddle of beauty and the craft of these writers in phrasing that riddle. Indeed, our prince in The Idiot is asked, immediately after his triumphal statement about beauty, just which beauty will save the world? That is a much harder question, but the Prince affirms in response who will save the world. In considering “the Good, the True, and the Beautiful”-our 2005 conference’s title-a temptation arises to forget the Person in view of the principles. Abstract ideas, concepts, and theories can take the place of God who quite physically incarnates those principles. “Beauty is the splendor of truth,” ( veritatis splendor ) announces Plato, and he has the Forms in mind here, literally Ideas. As compelling as Plato’s picture is of Beauty and Truth being like two slopes to a mountain, this is far different in nature from a God-Man who also announces, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. [5] The latter statement makes the transcendent incarnate . Again, if Beauty will save the world, in Dostoevsky’s view, it will be a person . Moreover, every man and every woman strongly desires this beauty, mediated (as Gerard Manley Hopkins would put it) in ten thousand places. C. S. Lewis is no exception. The appetite for beauty comes inscribed into every soul and it is a very large appetite. “By nature men desire the beautiful,” says St. Basil the Great (circa 379 A.D.)-and I might stress that they desire it immensely. [6] One knows already about the thousands of books Lewis owned by the end of his life, many thousands in fact-books that held up the walls of The Kilns. But why he owned so many is a theological question. Why did he want so many? What archetypal story did he want to read? What was he searching for when he lovingly described the binding size and price of a new book to Arthur Greeves during their teenage pilgrimage? And once owned, why re-read them so assiduously ( The Iliad up to 10 times)? Plato himself describes the phenomenon in a famous section of his Symposium . [7] Men, Plato writes, have a thirst or an eros for the beautiful, and there are lesser satisfactions: endless beautiful bodies if one is a decadent Athenian, endless new ideas (analytic or imaginative) if one is a bookish Athenian, or endless C. S. Lewis conferences if one is an Anglo-philiac Athenian.

Appetites, however, want substance, and thus we come to the main course of this paper. The appetite for beauty is potentially misleading. Whether it is the character John in The Pilgrim’s Regress finding false joy in multiple brown girls or the millionaire finding transient beauty in his third car (or wife!), how can one see what kind of beauty satisfies? Which beauty will save the world? It was a dilemma of which Lewis was keenly aware. In one instance, he particularly admires J.R.R. Tolkien’s assertion in “On Fairy Stories” that “evil and ugliness seem indissolubly allied. We find it difficult to conceive of evil and beauty together. The fear of the beautiful [faerie] that ran through the elder ages almost eludes our grasp”. [8] Yet beautiful deceptions run throughout Lewis’s own storytelling. Thus one meets the indomitably beautiful Queen Jadis in Narnia; Edmund Pevensie was not an entire fool, for the queen is “a great lady, taller than any woman that Edmund had ever seen. She also was covered in white fur up to her throat and held a long straight golden wand in her right hand. Her face was white-not merely pale, but white like snow or paper or icing sugar, except for her very red mouth. It was a beautiful face”. [9] Evil and beautiful are here linked: and thus the directors have chosen Nicole Kidman to play the Queen in the coming film.

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“The World will be Saved by Beauty”

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s words, “The world will be saved by beauty,” speaks to our current moment. This quote, said to be one of the social activist’s Dorothy Day’s favorites, points out deep flaws in the world. The world needs to “be saved.”  Yet Dostoevsky offers hope of where the rescue will come from; from a source that is both abstract and sublime: beauty.

The sentiment is one I share.

The world will be saved by beauty.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

Beauty wrought from pain

A writer able to capture scenes of great beauty, Dostoevsky was no stranger to suffering. When he writes of the world needing to be saved, he writes from his own experiences of pain. Accused as a young man of participating in “socialist study circle,” in 1849 he was imprisoned and sentenced to death by firing squad. He was actually in the middle of being tied to a wooden pole, about to be executed when a sudden summons altered his sentence to hard labor in Siberia. He would go on to experience the death of his first wife and two of his four children. Throughout his life he lived in relative poverty due to a gambling addiction. These experiences deeply changed him and influenced his writings which exquisitely examine such issues as redemption and morality. [1]

Beauty inspiring service

Dostoevsky’s ability to write clearly and to capture beauty and pain inspired the service-oriented activism of Dorothy Day . In 1973, she wrote in The Catholic Worker , “I do not think I could have carried on with a loving heart all these years without Dostoevsky’s understanding of poverty, suffering, and drunkenness.” [2] A century later and in a very different culture, Dorothy Day’s advocacy and direct service of others was inspired and sustained by the stories of Dostoevsky. Not only did Dostoevsky call for beauty to save the world, the beauty he created connected to something within Dorothy Day and she set off to do her part to work to save others.

Beauty and connection in 2020

Hearing about Dorothy Day’s appreciation of Dostoevsky’s novels fills me with a sense of deep connection as I also have been inspired by them. Complicating the concept of beauty to incorporate wrenching pain also gives me hope as this moment. The country is experiencing deep pain, but viewed from the redemptive lens of beauty, I find hope.

Beauty is not a concrete concept with one definition. It is a concept that opens your imagination, that makes you pause, behold and wonder. The exact opposite of information rabbit holes which take you down ever narrow algorithmic corridors; beauty widens and expands and allows for connections that defy linear analysis. There is freedom in beauty’s infinite expression. I can marvel at your creative process and I can choose to share mine or I can watch as nature unfolds countless processes all around us.

At this moment when so much of our society seems broken and dysfunctional, where there is so much fear, anger and sadness, there is much to be gleaned from Dostoevsky’s faith in beauty to rescue us. It is brave to create beauty when there is fear and it may just save someone else.

[1] Robert Ellsberg  All Saint: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets and Witnesses for Our Time  (New York: Crossroads Publishing, 2004). [2] https://cjd.org/2000/06/01/dorothy-day-and-the-light-from-the-east-eastern-christianity-fathers-of-the-desert-dostoevsky/

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Full-time pastor. Author. Would-be mountaineer.

Brian zahnd is the founder and lead pastor of word of life church, a christian congregation located in the heartland of america in st. joseph, missouri. more..., on december 30, 2010 by brian zahnd, beauty will save the world.

A thousand years ago Prince Vladimir the Great, the pagan monarch of Kiev, was looking for a new religion to unify the Russian people. Toward this end Prince Vladimir sent out envoys to investigate the great faiths from the neighboring realms. When the delegations returned they gave the prince their reports. Some had discovered religions that were dour and austere. Others encountered faiths that were abstract and theoretical. But the envoys who had investigated Christianity in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople reported finding a faith characterized by such transcendent beauty that they did not know if they were in heaven or on earth.

Then we went to Constantinople and they led us to the place where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or earth, for on earth there is no such vision nor beauty, and we do not know how to describe it; we only know that God dwells among men. We cannot forget that beauty. —Primary Chronicle of the Sent by Prince Vladimir of Kiev-Rus to Constantinople

Upon receiving the report from the Constantinople delegation of the unearthly beauty they had witnessed in Christian worship, Prince Vladimir adopted Christianity as the new faith for the Russian people. What impressed the envoys and persuaded Prince Vladimir to embrace Christianity was not its apologetics or ethics, but its aesthetics—its beauty. Thus we might say it was beauty that brought salvation to the Russian people. Nine hundred years later the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky coined the enigmatic expression, “beauty will save the world.” What Dostoevsky meant by this mysterious quip has been a matter of much conjecture, but it certainly must somehow have been connected to Dostoevsky’s deep Christian faith.

Today there are many in the Western World who are in search of some form of spirituality to give them what materialism promises but is unable to deliver. Like Prince Vladimir they are seeking for a new spirituality. The Western Church as heirs of the Enlightenment remains tempted to respond to a renewed spiritual interest with logical arguments for the truth of Christianity (apologetics) and perhaps also by making the case for the moral goodness Christianity can produce (ethics). This is all fine. But what about beauty? Is it possible that what Prince Vladimir found most persuasive about Christianity in the tenth century and what Prince Myshkin advocated in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot is the very thing that could draw a new generation of spiritual seekers to faith in Jesus Christ? Is it possible that the Christian message can be communicated in terms of beauty? Along with apologetics and ethics is there also an aesthetics that belongs to the gospel of Jesus Christ? Yes! Beauty is integral to the gospel.

We are generally more accustomed to defend Christianity in terms of its truth and goodness. But beauty also belongs to the Christian faith. And beauty has a way of sneaking past our defenses and speaking to us in unique ways. To a generation suspicious of truth claims and unconvinced by moral assertions, beauty has a surprising allure. And everything about Jesus Christ is beautiful! His life, his miracles, his grace, his teaching—even his death, and certainly his resurrection—they are all inimitably beautiful. A Christianity enchanted by this beauty, formed by this beauty, and reflecting this beauty, has the opportunity to present to a skeptical and jaded world an aspect of the gospel that has been too rare for far too long. Where truth and goodness fail to win an audience, beauty may once again captivate and draw those it enchants into the kingdom of saving grace. It is possible to tell the Christian story in terms of beauty, because the story of Jesus Christ is breathtakingly beautiful!

On November 13, 2010 the eighty voice Chorus of Niagara gave a surprise performance of the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah in the food court at the Seaway Mall in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Unsuspecting shoppers are eating their fast food lunches in a place that seems infinitely removed from the sacred and beautiful. Then a young woman with a cell phone pressed to her ear stands to her feet and begins to sing the first melodious strains of the Hallelujah chorus. She is joined by a man who moments earlier had been eating his Arby’s lunch. Then what appears to be a mall custodian joins the growing chorus. Eventually all eighty voices of the choir are performing an exquisite rendition of Handel’s masterpiece. The shoppers in the food court are stunned. Some capture the moment on their cell phones. Others rise to join the time honored tradition of standing for the Hallelujah chorus. Some simply sit with faces full of wonder, while others wipe away tears. All are witnesses to a miracle—the modern banality of a shopping mall food court has been transformed into a cathedral of astonishing beauty.

A local photography company recorded the surprise performance in the Seaway Mall and posted it online. They hoped it might be viewed by as many as fifty thousand people. But within weeks it had been viewed tens of millions of times! Perhaps the thing that makes the video somewhat amusing is also what makes it deeply moving—its incongruence. The juxtaposing of high art and a shopping mall, the surprise of sacred music in a food court, seems to have a strange influence upon us. Why? As modern people do we harbor a deep-seated fear that we are losing all beauty? We have technology, convenience, security and a measure of prosperity, but where is the beauty? Where is the beauty that we know we cannot really live without? With this as our latent fear, a choir appearing out of nowhere and performing sacred Baroque music in a shopping mall is not unlike what the Gospel of Luke describes at the birth of Christ—

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

This “random act of culture” in Ontario is a perfect metaphor for how the church should position itself in the world. Instead of angry protesters shaking our fist at a secular culture, we are to be joyful singers transforming the secular with the sacred. Instead of alienated separatists sequestered in Christian enclaves, we are to transform food courts into cathedrals by our song. The church is to sing the melody of Christ in the malls of meaninglessness and once again astonish the modern world with the beauty of the gospel. Theologian Yves Congar advocates the idea of the church, not in protest or isolation to the world, but as the saving presence of Christ within the world.

The Church is not a special little group, isolated, apart, remaining untouched amidst the changes of the world. The Church is the world as believing in Christ, or, what comes to the same thing, it is Christ dwelling in and saving the world by our faith. —Yves M.-J. Congar, The Reasons for the Unbelief of our Time

Beautiful! Our task is not to protest the world into a certain moral conformity, but to attract the world to the saving beauty of Christ. We do this best, not by protest or political action, but by enacting a beautiful presence within the world. The Western church has had four centuries of viewing salvation in a mechanistic manner, presenting it as a plan, system or formula. It would be much better if we would return to viewing salvation as a song we sing. The book of Revelation (from which George Frideric Handel found the lyrics for his Hallelujah chorus) doesn’t have any plans or formulas, but it has lots of songs. The task of the church is to creatively and faithfully sing the songs of the Lamb in the midst of a world founded upon the beastly principles of greed, decadence, and violence. What is needed is not an ugly protest, but a beautiful song; not a pragmatic system, but a transcendent symphony. Why? Because God is more like a musician than a manager, more like an composer than a clerk keeping ledgers.

God is more like a cantor who chants his Creation into existence and rejoices everlastingly over its beautiful harmony. His song continues, and its melody moves and inspires humankind to restore beauty and harmony to a Creation that is fallen and misshapen.” —Vigen Guroian, The Melody of Faith: Theology in an Orthodox Key

Sin and Satan have stolen from humanity the song we were meant to sing with our Creator. We are bereft of beauty and missing melody. We are left with little more than inane Muzak in the malls of meaninglessness. It is into this world that the Son of God comes singing his song. The Singer invites us to join him in his song. To sing with the Son of God the beautiful song he brings is to join the company of the redeemed. It is the beauty that saves the world.

After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,) After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work, After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemists, the geologist, ethnologist, Finally shall come the poet worthy of that name, The true son of God shall come singing his songs. –Walt Whitman

Happy New Year!

(The painting is, of course, Starry Nigh t by Vincent Van Gogh)

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Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology

Beauty will save the world.

By Heather Eaton. Counterpoint Navigating Knowledge. June 30, 2021.

This famous and much discussed phrase from Prince Lev Nikolyaevich Myshkin in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot is that beauty will save the world. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrestled with the enigmatic idea in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1970. It is the title of numerous books and articles on classical art, theological/religious aesthetics, and the natural world. Many are mesmerized with this phrase, idea, image, or desire. Beauty will save the world. Hard to believe, yet is an intriguing union of ethics and aesthetics.

My interest here is not about art, philosophy, or religions. It is not particularly lofty. It is about beauty, mostly in the natural world, and how it transforms the self. Throughout my life, from a young child to now, (just a few years) the intricacies of nature—the incredible presence(s), and dazzling, deep, vibrant, and dynamic beauty—have often seized my attention and time. I have had remarkable, profound, and transformative experiences within nature. I have trekked to mountain vistas, caves, canyons, and waterways; sailed for weeks in the wind, waves, and silence of the Atlantic ocean; watched whales and swam with sharks; studied elephants in South Africa, Botswana, and Kenya; camped in the African bush and Canadian forests; and canoed wilderness waterways. I am acutely cognisant of these incredible privileges. Further, such experiences are the energy, and companions, and often reasons, that have propelled and sustained over thirty years of environmental work.

Read the full article here.  

Beauty Will Save the World

For a young college student, possessed of a boundless confidence in rational debate and political action, the implication that beauty alone could harbor such redemptive powers was unsettling, to say the least. It was the kind of idea one would expect of an Oscar Wilde or some other fin de siècle decadent; it seemed perilously close to a hedonistic endorsement of “art for art’s sake.” What of Truth and Goodness, the other two “transcendentals”? And yet here were two great Russian novelists, known for their stern, prophetic, and intensely moral sensibilities, as well as their stark depictions of nihilism and human degradation, applauding the redemptive force of beauty.

But the phrase stuck in my mind, and found corroboration in my studies of the role of the imagination in the social order. Like Solzhenitsyn, I have been won over by Dostoevsky’s wisdom.

Whereas I once believed that the decadence of the West could only be turned around through politics and intellectual dialectics, I am now convinced that authentic renewal can only emerge out of the imaginative visions of the artist and the mystic. This does not mean that I have withdrawn into some anti-intellectual Palace of Art. Rather, it involves the conviction that politics and rhetoric are not autonomous forces, but are shaped by the pre-political roots of culture: myth, metaphor, and spiritual experience as recorded by the artist and the saint.

My own vocation, as I have come to understand it, is to explore the relationship between religion, art, and culture in order to discover how the imagination may “redeem the time.”

In the process of discovering this vocation, conservatism played a somewhat paradoxical role: it both inspired and hampered my search. On the one hand, conservative thinkers helped me to understand what culture is, and they introduced me to the riches of our Western heritage. But on the other hand I found that conservatives were so deeply alienated from modern culture that they had retreated from any serious engagement with it. This retreat, it seems to me, has had damaging consequences for the long-term success of the conservative mission.

For a time, I concurred with most conservatives in their wholesale rejection of modern culture. But eventually I saw this as a very un-conservative position to take. A culture is a delicate, organic thing; however ill it may become, we simply cannot stop caring for it, shutting down the life-support machines. When a civilization truly dies, it cannot be easily resurrected.

In what follows, I’d like to retrace of few of the steps that led to my sense of vocation and current ambivalence about the conservative attitude toward culture and redemptive power of the imagination.

Literature in The Waste Land

I was singularly fortunate in having two distinguished conservative scholars, Russell Kirk and Gerhart Niemeyer, as teachers throughout my undergraduate years. They took me—a raw youth very much caught up in the ephemera of the present—and provided me with a past. By grounding me in the Western tradition, they taught me, in M.E. Bradford’s phrase, the importance of “remembering who we are.” Only then was I prepared to return to the present. Armed with that knowledge, I become aware that the crisis of modernity was not merely the work of Democrats and Communists, but the product of a deeper spiritual malaise.

The essence of modernity, according to Kirk and Niemeyer, is the denial that man can know and conform to the transcendent order, and that he must therefore construct his own order, as an extension of his mind. The motto of the modern project was first uttered by Francis Bacon, who said that “knowledge is power.” Later, Karl Marx would proclaim: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” The political expression of modernity, of course, is the ideological regime, founded on a rigid system of abstractions which are imposed on society by force.

But totalitarian regimes are not the only expression of ideology, or else the dissolution of the Soviet Union would signal the end of modernity. As Kirk, Niemeyer, and other conservatives, such as Richard Weaver, have pointed out, ideology also infects Western liberal societies. Though it can take many forms—logical positivism, radical feminism, deconstruction, and soon—ideology involves a fundamental alienation from being.

While ideology often claims the certain-ties of an absolutist intellectual system, its effects on the actual experiences of individuals tend to produce feelings of alienation and dislocation. The modern project, which began with the elevation of the self and the assertion of its nearly limitless power, has resulted in a world in which the individual self is a precarious fragment, without ties to true community or allegiance to legitimate authority.

Of course, the alienated self, wavering between dreams of power and bouts of angst, is the subject of most of modern art and literature. Given my love of literature, it was the work of the poets, novelists, and playwrights who explored the fallout of modernity that most attracted me, From Niemeyer I received insights into the novels of Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Arthur Koestler, and Thomas Mann. And from Kirk I was introduced to T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Wyndham Lewis—a group of extraordinary writers who were once known as the ‘Men of 1914.”

The figure of Eliot, however, loomed largest in my mind. Eliot was not only the subtlest chronicler of the modern malaise, but also the most reliable guide out of the morass. In poems like “Gerontion” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Eliot portrays, in dramatic monologues, the alienated, detached, and despairing modern self. Eliot’s The Waste Land gave the age its appropriate metaphor. Yet even in this poem of spiritual aridity, Eliot reveals his struggle for spiritual healing, listening to “What the Thunder Said.” From the images of hell and limbo in the early poems, Eliot moves on to the experience of purgatory in Ash Wednesday . Finally, Four Quartets speak of the irradiation of grace into the world, and of redemption through suffering. This final masterpiece records the journey of the isolated self toward integration, which includes a renewed sense of the presence of the past, and fleeting glimpses of union with God.

What gave added excitement to studying Eliot with Kirk was that he had known Eliot and Eliot’s friends, Wyndham Lewis and Roy Campbell. I have always been fascinated by the literary and intellectual communities formed by writers with similar insights into their age, such as Samuel Johnson’s “Club” and C.S. Lewis’s Inklings. These meetings of the minds seem to me to be the essence of living culture, models of artists-in-community engaged with the challenges and opportunities of their time. Even though Kirk had known these writers only in their later years, I felt somehow touched by their vital presence, a fellow participant in their imaginative endeavors.

Modernity vs. Modernism

But there was a contradiction in my thinking at the time that slowly worked itself up to the surface of my mind. Like many conservatives I extolled Eliot as the supreme critic of the modern wasteland, which had produced art and literature characterized by chaos and fragmentation, squalor and ugliness, egotism, sensual excess, and an obsession with primitive paganism as opposed to Western Christianity. Yet I counted among my heroes Eliot and Wyndham Lewis, whose works were prime examples of the aesthetics of High Modernism. How could these facts be reconciled?

When I compared Eliot’s works to those of Stravinsky and Picasso—two modern villains in the conservative hall of infamy—I could not help noticing striking similarities. All three employed the technique of fragmentation of time and space. One could plausibly argue that Eliot’s The Waste Land is a Cubist poem, a series of disjointed angles and multiple perspectives. Both Eliot and Picasso were aware that technology and ideology had fragmented our perception of reality; in their art, they used that fragmentation as a starting point, and sought to move through it to new visions of unity.

Another example of the conservative attack on “modern art” concerns the issue of paganism. Here too I found that the reality was more subtle than the caricature. Just as Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring evoked a pagan ritual and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon used African tribal masks, so Eliot in The Waste Land brought in primitive vegetation myths, as well as the insights of Buddhism and Hinduism. I found that all three artists were interested in paganism precisely because it seemed to possess the awe, sacramentality, and reverence for mystery that had been drained out of late nineteenth-century bourgeois liberal Christianity.

As it happens, Stravinsky, like Eliot, went on to become an orthodox Christian and a self-described “classicist.” Picasso did not make such a pilgrimage, nor did his life reflect a depth of spiritual understanding or moral rectitude. But to deny the imaginative insight Picasso possessed on the basis of his intellectual and moral failings, I came to realize, was both petty and closed-minded. Similarly, when I read D.H. Lawrence I found a penetrating critique of technology and the modern dichotomy between mind and body. Yet I have found that most conservatives prefer to dismiss Lawrence on the basis of his ideas about sexual liberation. Though it may seem a truism to most people, it eventually dawned on me that one can learn from an artist or thinker who asks the right questions, even if one may disagree with many of his answers.

Thus I was forced to account for the fact that many conservatives had succumbed to philistinism. Why did they utter these blanket condemnations of “modern art”? Why would anyone demand that art—a subtle medium, characterized by the indirections of irony, ambiguity, and hidden meaning—preach the “truth” directly? Why categorize artists and writers as good or bad in terms of ideology, rather than of imaginative vision?

The root of the problem, I believe, is a misunderstanding of, or aversion to, the nature of the imagination itself. Part of this can be traced to the Puritan and pragmatic strains in the American character. Conservatives have, by and large, focused their energies on political action and the theoretical work necessary to undertake action. The indirection of art, with its lack of moralizing and categorizing, strikes the pragmatic mind as being unedifying, and thus as inessential. Insofar as the great artists and writers of the past are admired, it is for their support of some idea, rather than for the complex, many-sided vision of their art.

The artist, like anyone else, is a representative of his time. His role, to paraphrase Hamlet, is to reveal “the form and pressure of the age.” By “pressure,” Shakespeare means impression or stamp. While it is true that some art can portray the ideal, the primary burden of art is to grapple with the reality of the present. Only by engaging the present can art achieve universal meaning. Modern artists create works that reflect modern conditions; they explore modernity, as it were, from the inside. The least imaginative of them reflect mere surfaces—such artists deserve censure. But the great artists dramatize the conflicts of their time, embedding meaning deep within their works.

It was Eliot himself who formulated the best response to those who want art merely to depict idealized forms of beauty. “We mean all sorts of things, I know, by Beauty. But the essential advantage for a poet is not to have a beautiful world with which to deal. It is to be able to see beneath both beauty and ugliness; to see the boredom, and the horror, and the glory.” Eliot’s perception is the natural extension of Dostoevsky’s prophecy that “Beauty will save the world.” Just as Christians believe that God became man so that He could reach into, and atone for, the pain and isolation of sin, so the artist descends into disorder so that he might discover a redemptive path toward order.

When it comes to culture, most conservatives are not conservative at all. As Burke, the father of modern conservatism, understood, the outward forms of society must change over time, but in such a way as to preserve the essence or underlying truth of human nature. So it is with art. Artistic styles begin in revolution (even the Gothic was a shock to the early Middle Ages), but such revolts are against a style which has ossified and lost touch with meaning. Eliot, Picasso, and Stravinsky wanted to break out of a lifeless and complacent materialism. They wanted art to be able to do more than describe the surface of things or provide uplifting images of an ideal world. They wanted to shock, not merely to be sensational, but in the sense that the artist can help us see the world anew, as if the for first time, with a shock of recognition.

Ironically, I found that Richard Weaver, with whom I agreed so thoroughly on most issues, represented the modern-art-is-degraded school of thought. In the chapter of Ideas Have Consequences entitled “Egotism in Work and Art,” Weaver presents the classic notion of the West as experiencing a straight line of descent from the high point of the Middle Ages to the nadir of the twentieth century. His dismissals of Romanticism, Modernism, and jazz appear to stem naturally from his critique of modernity. But even Weaver seems oblivious to the notion that artists can burrow inside the reigning worldview, however decadent, and emerge with insights that offer visions of order. He can satirize the self-indulgence of Shelley’s “I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed,” but he says nothing of Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s attempts to recover a sense of the self’s relation to transcendence. And his critique of jazz as mere incoherence is a colossal misconception of the high level of order embodied within improvisation.

Most conservatives think of culture as a museum, rather than as an organic continuity. They are all in favor of promoting the classics, but when it comes to contemporary culture, they have simply opted out. To be sure, the modern era has been cursed with a tremendous amount of shoddy, obscene, and meretricious art; certainly the scandalous and the sensational works by the Mapplethorpes, Warhols, and the Serranos have come to represent the art of our own time. One can argue, I think, that High Modernism reached its limit, and that it had to go the way of all artistic styles. But, to quote an ancient dictum: abusus non tollit usus . The abuse of a thing does not nullify its proper use. If conservatives would look about them, they would see that our century has also been blessed with a tremendous amount of superb art. It is another truism that art tends to flourish when civilizations are in crisis.

Politicization or Imagination ?

There is another aspect to the conservative abandonment of culture I find distressing: the increasing politicization within the conservative movement. I have witnessed a movement which began with the insights of thinkers like Kirk into the primacy of imaginative vision, or what Weaver called “the metaphysical dream,” turn into a highly politicized phenomenon in which there is more discussion of means than understanding of the ends of human existence.

Despite the gains which conservatives have made since 1980 in politics and economics, they have made precious little progress in the realm of culture. In other words, conservatives have not had much of an impact on the major cultural organs, such as the leading newspapers and magazines, nor have they made their presence felt in literature, criticism, and the visual and performing arts. Samuel Lipman’s recent lecture at the Heritage Foundation, “Can We Save Culture?” (reprinted in an abridged form in National Review , August 26, 1991), has called attention to this problem. Though Lipman does not penetrate deeply enough into the causes of the conservative retreat from culture, I strongly agree with his description of the symptoms and his concern.

As Lipman argues, liberals have always known the importance of culture; conservatives have left culture in their hands by default. That is why the neoconservatives, who are ex-liberals, have produced The New Criterion , the only serious journal of the arts emerging from a conservative perspective. The problem I have with The New Criterion is that its raison d’être is ultimately political. It is bound together primarily because its contributors object to the excesses of the Left’s cultural agenda. In other words, it does not arise from a shared aesthetic vision founded on a philosophical and theological understanding of human nature. On the other hand, I have to admit, with a good deal of chagrin, that traditionalist conservatives have been so beset by philistinism that they have produced no alternative of their own.

While such a state of affairs is distressing, it also implies that opportunities abound for conservatives — if they are willing to make the necessary investment of heart and mind. They cannot continue to trim the upper branches of politics while the roots of culture wither and die from inattention. Conservatives, above all, must once again put contemplation before action, or else their energies will be wasted.

In addition to the teaching I have done, my own efforts center around a quarterly publication which I am preparing to launch into the world, Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion . The purpose of Image might be summed up in the words of a character in Mark Helprin’s recent novel , A Soldier of the Great War . An Italian professor of aesthetics, a man who has been scarred by the cataclysms and tragedies of the modern world, tries to explain the power of art.

My conceits will never serve to wake the dead. Art has no limit but that. You may come enchantingly close, and you may wither under the power of its lash, but you cannot bring back the dead. It’s as if God set loose the powers of art so that man could come so close to His precincts as almost to understand how He works, but in the end He closes the door in your face, and says, Leave it to me. It’s as if the whole thing were just a lesson. To see the beauty of the world is to put your hands on the lines that run uninterrupted through life and through death. Touching them is an act of hope, for perhaps someone on the other side, if there is another side, is touching them, too.

If art cannot save our souls, it can do much to redeem the time, to give us a true image of ourselves, both in the horror and the boredom to which we can descend, and in the glory which we may, in rare moments, be privileged to glimpse.

Books mentioned in this essay may be found in The Imaginative Conservative  Bookstore .   This essay is reprinted here with the gracious permission of The Intercollegiate Review ( Fall 1991 ).

All comments are moderated and must be civil, concise, and constructive to the conversation. Comments that are critical of an essay may be approved, but comments containing ad hominem criticism of the author will not be published. Also, comments containing web links or block quotations are unlikely to be approved. Keep in mind that essays represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Imaginative Conservative or its editor or publisher.

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Culled from The Independent, a timely parallel report on a "A small dose of awe…" –

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/awe-therapy-could-improve-our-mental-health-and-make-us-nicer-7964858.html

The American composer Samuel Barber blends the old and new in a way that might satisfy Wolfe and his readers. Barber's Violin Concerto, Op. 14, features a plaintively romantic theme peppered with tense modernist episodes. Perhaps his greatest piece is "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" in which Barber sets to music James Agee's famous prose sketch. I recommend the recording with soprano Dawn Upshaw as the soloist; her performance is inimitable.

"The essence of modernity, according to Kirk and Niemeyer, is the denial that man can know and conform to the transcendent order, and that he must therefore construct his own order, as an extension of his mind."

This is absolutely brilliant. I love it. Thank you.

Great writing, and, two decades later, it's good to know that Mr. Wolfe has had success with Image.

I'm uncomfortable, though, with the use of Dostoevsky here. I've elaborated if anyone cares to read: http://wp.me/p2wJog-3F

Yes, some good writing, but I can’t get behind a Christian who keeps a personal “enemy list” to which he regularly adds names and crosses them off. I’ve heard people defend Wolfe’s list on the basis that only non Christians are on the list. It’s common knowledge that he’s some kind of hacker who retaliates against people who have defamed him. Maybe it’s justified to some degree, or maybe it’s egomania, but it just seems wrong, this kind of thing, for anybody who considers himself a Christian.

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The Beauty That Saves

This story is featured in the  winter 2020 issue of Lumen .

When Russian novelist and philosopher Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gave his Nobel lecture in 1970, he could have spoken on any topic he wanted. He could have shared his experiences of turmoil and perseverance living as an artist under Soviet censorship, but instead he spoke of the nature of art itself. He went to an extreme, selecting in his speech a quotation from Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Beauty will save the world.”

The more I read of Solzhenitsyn’s literary genius in Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West , edited by St. Thomas Catholic Studies professor David Deavel and former visiting professor Jessica Hooten Wilson, the more enchanted I was with Russian artistry. While American artistic and literary traditions have grappled with democracy, freedom and individuality, the Russian soul has never coalesced around a standard set of ideals. James Pontuso, a Solzhenitsyn and American Culture contributor, wrote, “To be Russian can mean a myriad of things ... there has never been a consensus on what Russia should become. Does Russia venerate tsarism, the Orthodox Church, the Third Rome, communism, liberal democracy, or autocracy? While Americans make things simple and comprehensible, Russians look for complexity in the simplest of things.” Such can be seen, Pontuso goes on, in Solzhenitsyn’s novel In the First Circle , which features a motley array of intellectual characters exiled by the Soviet state. Together the characters write and study in a prison-like university, not unlike the philosophers in Dante’s first circle of the inferno. In the characters’ variety, color and mutual suffering, Solzhenitsyn captures more than just his own experiences as an artist in the most lenient tier of the gulags. He demonstrates something about the human spirit which speaks between the lines of censorship.

My studies of Solzhenitsyn led me to The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis. The current exhibit is “Leaders and the Masses: Mega Paintings from Soviet Ukraine.” The largest of the collection is an astonishing 12-by-19-foot canvas depicting Stalin stoically advancing in a proscenium theater packed with applauding civilians. The color-packed massive scenes were intended for public spaces. Sponsored, crafted and exhibited under Stalin’s communist dictatorship, their objective was to affirm state agendas. Though the Ukrainian painters bowed to the artistic mode Stalin demanded, that the creations should be “nationality-specific in form and socialist in content,” their scenes are unconvincing beyond a first glance. The paintings are not satirical. Rather, they are beautiful fantasies of a functioning state, which I think makes them unsuccessful as propaganda.

The wonder of the museum’s exhibit is that, despite the limitations imposed on the artist, truth impresses in desolation. The lie on display dissolved under its own weightlessness, and the truth that the nation was suffering gurgled up in the negative space. In Soviet Russia the truth of daily human turmoil was a universal secret, evident even when cleverly framed. It is this truth that made the paintings beautiful.

I believe that this is what Solzhenitsyn meant when he quoted Dostoevsky’s “Beauty will save the world.” Solzhenitsyn drew on his Russian Orthodox faith and argued that turmoil, suffering and political unrest are ultimately brittle, their own sort of antithesis. In the Nobel lecture he went on to say, “A work of art bears within itself its own verification: Conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force – they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.”

In Solzhenitsyn and the American Culture there is an essay by Julianna Leachman. She compares the southern gothic mode of American Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor with Solzhenitsyn’s depiction of the gulags. Both authors show us the peril and terror of the human conundrum but also a golden thread of the human potential – of human virtue in the negative space. These two writers reveal to their readers the best remedy for a world estranged: reality. Art can speak where propaganda cannot, its secret ingredient being the beauty of truth. For the Christian, truth is unconquerable, and so in times of desolation it can emerge all the more starkly.

Truth is unconquerable, so in times of desolation it can emerge all the more starkly.

This past October, Murphy Institute, a partnership between the Center for Catholic Studies and the School of Law, hosted a book launch for the recently released Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West . The program featured several contributing authors who spoke on their respective chapters and was facilitated by editors Jessica Hooten Wilson and David Deavel. Published by Notre Dame Press, it is available for purchase at undpress.nd.edu/books/P03241 .

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Beauty Won’t Save the World Alone; Not Without Truth and Goodness

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October 3, 2012

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I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I have seen the truth—it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever.

The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that’s the chief thing, and that’s everything; nothing else is wanted—you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it’s an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times—but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness—that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once.

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Beauty Will Save the World: Metaphysical Rebellion and the Problem of Theodicy in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov (Modern Age, 2012)

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If the "metaphysics of the present" consists of a series of impositions, such as the centre and truth, and if this metaphysics dominates the Christian religion, it seems complicated for the Church to establish a sincere, interreligious dialogue. Even philosophers define the link between Christianity and metaphysics as an alliance capable of engendering violence. In this sense, it is noteworthy to mention the Derridean concept of difference, considering that the différance, as Derrida himself says, «nowhere exercises any authority». Well, we can ask ourselves, it is desirable that Christianity distance itself from metaphysics? How is it possible to reconcile Christian universalism with the current demand to listen seriously to other religious realities? This paper aims to show that those who enter a dialogue with sincerity and with respect for the other do not necessarily have to be exempt from certainties concerning the subject at hand, or in any case, renounce what, about this subject, they believe to be true. The true Christian that dialogues with the believers of other religions do not want to impose the "Good News".

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Aesthetics Research Lab

beauty changes everything

Can Beauty Save the World?

I remember hearing that Dostoevsky, in his book The Idiot , has a character utter the expression, “Beauty will save the world.” I immediately liked this expression, if for no other reason than hoping it might be true.

Years later, I finally got around to read  The Idiot . I kept waiting with anticipation for the famous line to appear on the pages. Everyone always says that the main character, Prince Myshkin, utters this statement, as if it were a climactic proclamation. To my astonishment, the phrase was finally uttered in a very unnoticeable way. It arrived in the book as second hand information, tacked onto a dying conversation. A group is discussing the existence of God, and they ask what could give life meaning, if God did not exist. And one character says (to Myshkin) didn’t you say that beauty will save the world.

I don’t know whether beauty can actually save the world. However, beauty demands to be observed and appreciated. Things that are supremely beautiful unite people as they stand in awe. So, beauty brings people together.

Beauty also enables people to break through the mundane facets of existence. People go to work, sit at a desk, greet their families, go to bed, and do it again and again. Yet beauty helps us realize the possible, and maybe catch a glimpse of what lies beyond the simulacra. So, beauty gives us hope.

Beauty unites us and gives hope. Whether or not beauty saves the world from everything, it certainly puts forth a tenacious (albeit sometimes subtle) effort.

For some interesting commentary on Dostoevsky’s famous line, see an excerpt from  Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Lecture .

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4 thoughts on “ Can Beauty Save the World? ”

Nice 🙂 I want to read it now

Like Liked by 1 person

The Idiot is a great book, but it does move a little slower (at certain points) than some of Dostoevsky’s other works.

I like your post!

On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 10:10 AM, Aesthetics Research Lab wrote:

> Michael R Spicher posted: “I remember hearing that Dostoevsky, in his book > The Idiot, has a character utter the expression, “Beauty will save the > world.” I immediately liked this expression, if for no other reason than > hoping it might be true. Years later, I finally got around t” >

Yes. Beauty is truth. Truth is beauty.

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Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age Kindle Edition

• Print length 381 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Intercollegiate Studies Institute
• Publication date April 8, 2014
• File size 1965 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

“An excellent book . . . A lengthy meditation on, and defense of, beauty as a necessary—and perhaps preeminent—transcendent for today”s culture . . . At once autobiography, cultural criticism, and a call to quietly but confidently man the easels in a world that would rather pick up a megaphone and head to the streets.” — Comment magazine

About the Author

Gregory Wolfe is the founder and editor of Image , one of America’s leading journals of literature and the arts. His books include Intruding upon the Timeless , Malcolm Muggeridge , and Sacred Passion . In 2005 he served as a judge in nonfiction for the National Book Awards. Wolfe serves as writer in residence at Seattle Pacific University, where he directs the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. He and his family live in Seattle.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00JBRUKIU
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Intercollegiate Studies Institute; 1st edition (April 8, 2014)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 8, 2014
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 1965 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 381 pages
• #391 in Aesthetics (Kindle Store)
• #494 in Christian Literature & Art (Kindle Store)
• #663 in Art History Criticism

About the author

Gregory wolfe.

Writer, teacher, publisher, and editor, Gregory Wolfe has been called "one of the most incisive and persuasive voices of our generation" (Ron Hansen). Both as a thinker and institution-builder, Wolfe has been a pioneer in the resurgence of interest in the relationship between art and religion--a resurgence that has had widespread impact both on religious communities and the public square. As an advocate for and exemplar of the tradition of Christian Humanism, Wolfe has established a reputation as an independent, non-ideological thinker--part gadfly, part peacemaker.

In 1989, Wolfe founded Image, which Annie Dillard has called "one of the best journals on the planet." Now one of America's top literary quarterlies, Image is a unique forum for the best writing and artwork that is informed by--or grapples with--religious faith. Material first published in Image has appeared in Harper's, Utne Reader, and the Wilson Quarterly as well as the Pushcart Prize anthology, Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, Best American Spiritual Writing, O. Henry Prize Stories, The Art of the Essay, New Stories from the South, and Best American Movie Writing. Image has also been nominated by Utne Reader for an Alternative Press Award for Spiritual Coverage. Recent, Image's Glen Workshop was featured on the public television program Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.

Since 2000, Wolfe has served as Writer in Residence at Seattle Pacific University, where he teaches English literature and creative writing. He is also the founder and director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at SPU, the first program of its kind to integrate a studio writing degree with intensive reflection upon the literary and aesthetic riches of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Wolfe has published over 200 essays, reviews, and articles in numerous journals, including Commonweal and First Things. His essays have been anthologized in collections such as The Best Christian Writing and The Best Catholic Writing.

Among his books are Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith, and Mystery (Square Halo, 2003), Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography (Eerdmans, 1997) and Sacred Passion: The Art of William Schickel (University of Notre Dame Press, 1998). Wolfe is also the editor of Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of IMAGE (Eerdmans, 2009), The New Religious Humanists: A Reader (Free Press, 1997) and the co-author of Books That Build Character (Touchstone, 1994), Climb High, Climb Far (Fireside, 1996), The Family New Media Guide (Touchstone, 1997), Circle of Grace: Praying with--and for--Your Children (Ballantine, 2000), and Bless This House: Prayer for Families and Children (Jossey-Bass, 2004). A collection of Wolfe's essays, tentatively titled Beauty Will Save the World, will be published by ISI Books in 2008. Wolfe is currently researching a book about the Renaissance Christian Humanists who gathered around the great scholar and writer, Desiderius Erasmus.

The working title of that book is The Company of Good Letters: How Erasmus and His Circle of Renaissance Christian Humanists Shaped the Modern World. Wolfe was born in 1959 and grew up in New York City, Long Island, and the south shore of Boston. He received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Hillsdale College in Michigan and his M.A. in English literature from Oxford University.

A convert to the Roman Catholic Church, Wolfe is a member of the international lay movement Communion and Liberation. He and his family attend St. James Cathedral in Seattle.

His wife, Suzanne, also teaches English literature at Seattle Pacific University. In 2004 her first novel, Unveiling was published to great acclaim by Paraclete Press. The Wolfes have four children--Magdalen, Helena, Charles, and Benedict--and live in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.

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