Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was a Russian Nobel Prize winning author and historian. From 1945 to 1953 he was imprisoned for writing a letter in which he criticized Joseph Stalin. Solzhenitsyn's work continued the realistic tradition of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and provided sharp but popular commentaries on the flaws of both Eastern and Western cultures. The following is a paper prepared by Solzhenitsyn and read by his son Ignat on the occasion of Solzhenitsyn being awarding the medal of honor for literature by the National Arts Club in New York City in 1987:
The Relentless Cult of Novelty
By Alexander Solzhenitsyn
There is a long-accepted truth about art that “style is the man” (“le style est l'homme”). This means that every work of a skilled musician, artist or writer is shaped by an absolutely unique combination of personality traits, creative abilities and individual, as well as national, experience. And since such a combination can never be repeated, art (but I shall speak primarily of literature) possesses infinite variety across the ages and among different peoples. The divine plan is such that there is no limit to the appearance of ever new and dazzling creative talent, none of whom, however, negate in any way the works of their outstanding predecessors, even though they may be 500 or 2,000 years removed. The unending quest for what is new and fresh is never closed to us, but this does not deprive our grateful memory of all that came before.
No new work of art comes into existence (whether consciously or unconsciously) without an organic link to what was created earlier. But it is equally true that a healthy conservatism must be flexible both in terms of creation and perception, remaining equally sensitive to the old and to the new, to venerable and worthy traditions, and to the freedom to explore, without which no future can ever be born. At the same time the artist must not forget that creative freedom can be dangerous, for the fewer artistic limitations he imposes on his own work, the less chance he has for artistic success. The loss of a responsible organizing force weakens or even ruins the structure, the meaning and the ultimate value of a work of art.
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Aleksander Solzhenitsyn argues that for several decades now world literature, music, painting and sculpture have exhibited a stubborn tendency to grow not higher but to the side, not toward the highest achievements of craftsmanship and of the human spirit but toward their disintegration into a frantic and insidious "novelty."
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