“God will punish all atheists. They will burn in everlasting fire.” [A hermit] Obviously upset, the Staretz said: “Tell me, supposing you went to paradise and looked down and saw somebody burning in hell-fire—would you…
So let us ask: who behaved better under pressure, imprisoned Bolsheviks or religious believers? Materialists or those who acknowledged absolute standards of good and evil? Who acted nobly and who behaved like a scoundrel? To…
Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems…
My name is Andrew Ivers. I’m a freelance editor and have been friends with Mark since he was my teacher at SLU. For the last fifteen years I’ve been reading my way through great works…
for Natalie Long Faith comes not from theory but from experience, from the bottom up, by living the right sort of life from moment to moment. For Zossima, that means attending to the prosaic. One…
In this book I portray the Russian tradition as a dialogue of the dead (and a few still living) extending over centuries. Novelists and their characters, critics and ideologists, argue about ultimate questions that obsessed…
Meetings with famous people can—as we have seen—be disappointing. Someone very gifted, even a true genius, can turn out to be a very ordinary person indeed. His talent is separate from his soul. And you…
[Russian] writers have decried Russia’s slavery and violent past.—Alexandra Popoff, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century Reading [Leo] Tolstoy strengthened [Vasily] Grossman’s ambition to become a writer. Tolstoy’s interest in the human soul, his quest…
And therefore I think the solution I have found for myself will be valid for all sincere men who set themselves the same question. First of all, to the question: What must we do? I…
There was one other constant in Viktor’s life, a quiet light that illuminated his whole inner world. It was his mother who had given him this light, but he did not realize this. She felt…