ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN || Nerzhin: A Sartrean Existential Man

Canadian Slavonic Papers

Nerzhin: A Sartrean Existential ManAuthor(s): NATALIE REASource: Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, Vol. 13, No. 2/3,ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN (Summer - Fall, 1971), pp. 209-217Published by: Canadian Association of SlavistsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40866347 .

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Nerzhin: A Sartrean Existential Man

NATALIE REA

It can be said of Solzhenitsyn's major work, as it is of Sartre's, that it is "literature of great circumstance." l Both authors present their heroes in extreme situations of danger, cruelty, or oppression. It is at such times, and not in average, routine circumstances that the heroes are confronted with a knowledge of themselves through their actions. In Solzhenitsyn's work, this is true for Kostoglotov in Cancer Ward, Nemov in The Love-Girl and the Innocent, Zotov in Incident at Krechetovka Station and, most notably, Nerzhin in The First Circle.

Both Sartre and Solzhenitsyn ask basic questions about the human condition and both are interested in the possibility of finding new answers. For this reason, they deny the claim of any kind of determinism in shaping the individual, whether it be of heredity, environmental forces, or psychology. In The First Circle, for example, the reader learns very little about Nerzhin's personal background; there is almost no information about such traditional determinants as childhood and family; and no attempt is made to explain him in psychological terms. Instead, what Nerzhin recalls when he thinks about the past are situations- and, particularly, his experiences in war and prison.

It is not just any situation, but the immediate, concrete twentieth-century situation that is of concern to both authors. When Sartre uses the form of classical drama or myth to explore contemporary events, it is to emphasize that the possibilities for action for modern, technological man are not the same as they were for the ancients. If man in the twentieth century feels that he is more tightly enveloped in a net of circumstances than was ever true before, then the answers he finds to his dilemma must be relevant to the particulars of his situation. In The First Circle Volodin, who suddenly finds himself in prison, revises those parts

1 The translation of this term, used by Sartre himself, is by H. Barnes, Humanistic Existentialism: The Literature of Possibility (Lincoln, 1959), p. 11.



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of Epicurus' philosophy that are no longer applicable to his situation. He is beginning to recognize, as Nerzhin already has, that when an idea precedes the real circumstance on which it is superimposed, it may be entirely without relevance as a guide for appropriate action. If man is to have any control over his circumstances, he must first see the circumstances as they are.

Like other French existentialist writers, Sartre has been concerned with oppressive political situations in this century; the same is true of Solzhenitsyn. In The First Circle the zeks of the Mavrino sharashka in which Nerzhin is also a prisoner would have regarded Sartre's essay on the effects of the German Occupation on the French people as an accurate description of their own situation: "We had lost all our rights ... we were insulted . . . and had to take it in silence ... we were deported en masse" Many of the zeks would also have agreed with the essay's main observation that, in the midst of this oppression, each man discovered that he was more free than at any other time. Faced with the constant possibility of death, every action of the French Résistant was a conscious choice made in full cognizance of its potential consequences. In making such choices, no man could evade himself: his actions defined him, and he understood that he was completely free in this choice of actions:

The circumstances, atrocious as they often were, finally made it possible for us to live, without pretense of false shame, the hectic and impossible existence that is known as the lot of man. 3

In the existential view, then, the extreme situation is the opportunity for man to make of himself what he will. In the Mavrino sharashka not every prisoner uses the opportunity in this way, but the movement to self-knowledge and the sense of freedom defined by the boundaries of objective resistance are felt by many. Sologdin is one prisoner who sees in difficult external circumstances a condition that leads to a person's growth; therefore, as he tells Nerzhin, prison can be regarded as a blessing as well as a curse. For such growth to take place, however, it is necessary that consciousness not resist the objective reality outside itself.

2 J-P Sartre, "The Republic of Silence," in The Republic of Silence, ed. A. Liebling, trans, by R. Guthrie (New York, 1947), p. 498.

3 Ibid., p. 498.



NERZHIN : A SARTRE AN EXISTENTIAL MAN 2 1 1

Although Nerzhin eventually rejects Sologdin's position, he does retain this aspect of the older prisoner's views. In his own development, Nerzhin, more than any other zek at Mavrino, shows the existential tendency. He begins to see his imprisonment as an opportunity to strip away illusions, and so learn the truth:

Where could one learn about people better than here? And what better place to reflect about oneself? How many youthful hesitations, how many wrong starts had he been saved from by the iron path of prison?

Nerzhin's awareness of the void between the real, existent world and the many ideals he has heard professed has led him to a skepticism in which he denies the validity of traditional norms, absolute values, and rational systems of thought. In prison, he has learned that good and bad are not fixed concepts. Philosophers over the centuries have expounded countless Ideas, and scientists who believe in an orderly universe weigh stars that they have never seen; yet none of this accumulation of knowledge can begin to explain the absurdity of the sharashka situation. Nerzhin repudiates his earlier dedication to mathematics, that "dry science" 5 which deals with quantities; it is irrelevant to his circumstance. Rather, it is the lines from Faust which his friend Rubin quotes to him that best express his changing attitude : given the torments of man, there is nothing to be said about the sun and moon.6

For Nerzhin, consciousness of objective reality must always be the basis on which decisions are made if one is to avoid leading a life of self-deception. To Rubin, the idealist, he says:

". . . the meaning of life? We live - that's the meaning ... I draw my conclusions not from the philosophy I've read but from stories about real people that I've heard in prison ... I have to formulate my own conclusions ..." 7

When "all we know is that we don't know anything," 8 refusal to face the human situation honestly becomes an act of "bad

4 A. Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle, trans, by T. Whitney (Toronto, 1968), p. 292. 5 Ibid.,pAl. 6 Ibid.,pAl. 7 Ibid., pp. 38-39. 8 Ibid., p. 157.



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faith,' 9 an escape into the Serious World 10 of absolutes. There is probably no better expression of Nerzhin's awareness

of the self-deceptions by which most people live than in the story, Buddha's Smile, which he has composed with another prisoner. The recounting of the story follows his reaction to the artist Kondrashev-Ivanov's statement that "we perceive a sort of twilight truth before any investigation has begun."11 To Nerzhin, such an approach obscures the objects of investigation. In Buddha's Smile, the distance between the human condition and the Serious World is emphasized not only by how easily Mrs. R., The UNRRA visitor to the prison, is deceived by what she sees, but by the tragic irrelevance of the values man has devised for his comfort - the Madonnas, Buddhas, sainted miracle workers, and various interpretations of the Word - all thrust into the corner where the prisoners' latrine bucket had stood. If there is any Truth concealed in the enigmatic-looking Buddha, it is without reference to the men who file back to the cell and their bedbug-ridden planks.

For the existentialist, the awakening to conscious activity, which leads to the decision to live without the deceptions of the Serious World, is the result of an original choice. 12 It is such a choice that Nerzhin remembers making while he was still a student. Disturbed by the discrepancy between newspaper reports and what he saw around him, " an inviolable decision took root in him: to learn and to understand! "13 Walking past a prison, he had reflected that perhaps the truth could be found inside its walls. Now, many years later, he knows that his determination to understand has brought him to the right place. He has lost everything else but has found the freedom in which he can know himself and the society in which he lives.

In this freedom, however, without any absolute values to guide his actions, the existential man is faced with the fact that he is entirely alone; and the greater the conflict in which he is engaged, the greater is his isolation. 14 When Nerzhin's wife visits him in

9 "Bad faith" is Sartre's term. See J-P Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans, by H. Barnes (London, 1957), pp. 47-70.

io Sartre's term is "spirit of seriousness." The more useful translation used here is by H. Barnes, Humanistic Existentialism, p. 48.

u Solzhenitsyn, First Circle, p. 376. 12 P. Foulquié, Existentialism, trans, by K. Raine (New York, 1950), pp. 69-70. 13 Solzhenitsyn, First Circle, p. 236. 14 Sartre, 'The Republic of Silence," p. 499.



NERZHIN: A SARTREAN EXISTENTIAL MAN 213

prison, she has a strong sense that this has happened to him. She notices that, after several years of imprisonment, there is a "new aspect"15to Nerzhin,but that it has not brought him closer to her. In fact, what surprises her most is the observation that he seems to have accepted this "conflict" situation and that he is complete and self-sufficient in his aloneness.

The consciousness of isolation is a source of anguish but, paradoxically, it is also a source of optimism, for the existential man recognizes that in his isolation he is completely free to create his own values. He cannot choose the circumstances into which he was born, but he can choose what his attitude to them shall be. In choosing his values, he chooses, or creates, himself.

The self that existentialism seeks is each person's individual self, which he must forge for himself out of such senseless circumstances, such meaningless limitations, as are given him.16

Nerzhin's self-sufficiency comes from the knowledge that, in the freedom of isolation, he alone will decide what significance will be given to the objects of his consciousness. To Rubin, he says, "It depends only on our attitude toward them."17 The gruel that one is given to eat may be thin and with little nourishment, but this fact means nothing in itself, for it is not what, or how much you eat, but how. You eat it slowly; you eat it from the tip of the wooden spoon; you eat it absorbed entirely in the process of eating, in thinking about eating - and it spreads through your body like nectar. 1 8

Later, when he learns that he will be transported to a labour camp in the north, he thinks that now that the worst has happened, any improvements in the situation depend on him.

It is not enough merely to hold an attitude, however, for existence can be defined only by action. To cease to make new choices based on a continuously changing situation is to become fixed with one set of values and so cease to have true existence. To deny oneself the freedom to choose constantly is to deny the creation of self. It is in such terms that Nerzhin's prison life is a becoming, a continuous forward motion toward possibility. His

15 Solzhenitsyn, First Circle, p. 257, 16 M. Grene, Introduction to Existentialism (Chicago, 1948), p. 41. 17 Solzhenitsyn, First Circle, p. 39. 18 Ibid., p. 38.



214 CANADIAN SLAVONIC PAPERS

negation of established norms is always accompanied by a search for his own values. One "forges [ one's] inner soul year after year. One must try to temper, to cut, to polish one's soul so as to become a human being."

l Nerzhin does not regard the "abyss" of camp to which he is being sent as wholly unwelcome, for in such an extreme circumstance, the opportunity to define his freedom, that is, himself, will be in proportion to the objective resistance he encounters. Like the French Résistant described by Sartre, Nerzhin will find the boundaries which measure his own humanity: "The secret of man ... is the limit of his own liberty, his capacity for resisting torture and death." 20

Because there is no external justification for the choices the existential man makes, he alone is responsible for them. It is not possible, however, to make choices which do not affect other people, and so each individual is responsible not only for the self that he creates, but for the impact of his actions on the environment around him. There is no reason why existential man should be concerned about others; nevertheless, a sense of community with others arises out of the recognition that the lot of each individual is the same.21 It is this awareness that Nerzhin has when he sees in others the same grief that he feels in himself, an awareness that has become more acute in the prison situation.

In community with others, however, there is an implicit conflict, since any action may encroach on the freedom of another. Though the existentialist does not interpret "sin" in the conventional sense, he does contend that some actions are morally preferable to others. Thus, to appropriate one's environment in such a way as to interfere with others' freedom is a "guilty" act. Nerzhin reflects that, in the situation which Stalin has created, others have been made the objects of his will; if Stalin has made himself Everything, then he has reduced others to nothing. In the oppression of such a circumstance, it becomes imperative not only for each individual to resist such appropriation, but for all those who have been made objects to identify themselves with each other in solidarity against the oppressor.

Nerzhin is one of the zeks in the sharashka who is acutely conscious of that "tenacious inner self 22 which must be

19 ibid., p. 452. 20 Sartre, "The Republic of Silence, p. 499. 21 Barnes, Humanistic Existentialism, p. 220. 22 Solzhenitsyn, First Circle, p. 76.



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protected at all costs - that "personal point of view which. . . [ is ] more precious than life itself."23 If this is a value for him, then it is a value for others, and so his actions take into account the welfare of the group. The zeks recall how often Nerzhin has defended their rights and interests. More important, of course, is his refusal to work on a cryptography project, the purpose of which would be to help imprison others like himself. Nerzhin's consciousness of the value of his own freedom, then, is inseparable from the sense of responsibility that accompanies it; he knows that every choice he makes must of necessity affect others. His refusal to relinquish his own freedom paradoxically defends the freedom of others, and so strengthens their collective ability to withstand the oppressive circumstances. "They must not beat us down," 24 Nerzhin says to Spiridon just before he is transported to camp.

Furthermore, in such solidarity against an oppressive force, inequalities are erased and true democracy achieved. It is in prison that Nerzhin becomes "[ one of his] own people." 25 He may differ from the peasant janitor Spiridon in many of the superficial aspects which the Serious World regards as important, but Nerzhin understands these differences for the deceptions they are. With Spiridon, he feels "as one";26 there is no essential difference between the latter's existence and his own. Nor is it irrelevant to note that Nerzhin's understanding of equality makes no distinction between men and women. It is a point made also by French existentialist writers.

Nerzhin's attitude is existential in another important respect. In a universe devoid of Meaning, there is no reason even to exist, for whatever personal essence is created by the choices made by the self, it is negated by death. This is the interpretation that can be read into Nerzhin's statement: "We come from an abyss. We go back to where we came from - camp." 27 The fact that, inbetween, man chooses to commit himself to a meaningless existence is a sign of his nobility. It is a revolt against, rather than a submission to, absurdity. The conscious choice of revolt, then, becomes an assertion of the freedom which defines existence.

23 Ibid., p. 451. 2 4 Ibid., p. 661. 25 Ibid., p. 452. 26 Ibid., p. 464. 27 Ibid., p. 61.



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Nerzhin thinks to himself that a prison with horrors is preferable to one in which you could merely live out the "gray methodology of years" 28 and so be lulled into forgetting to fight for your freedom.

While Nerzhin may be considered the central hero of The First Circle, it is characteristic of Solzhenitsyn's work that many points of view are presented to the reader. There is no one over-riding subjectivity, whether it be that of a literary character or of the author himself. Solzhenitsyn would undoubtedly agree with Sartre as to the reason for this literary technique. To view the present is not to have a posteriori knowledge of it but to be able only to conjecture about it, and since the writer is as much in situation as the reader, his transcendent choice must be avoided. 29 In the sharashka situation, the collectivist Rubin is as much a part of the event as the individualist Sologdin; the janitor Spiridon as much as the Supreme Authority Stalin; and Nerzhin's refusal to use his talents to help entrap people is as significant in making the history of his time as is his friend Potapov's willingness to be used in this way. Because there is no single, fixed reality, there are as many legitimate perceptions of the world as there are individuals. It is, therefore, from the total situation that we must learn.

Finally, there is one more major similarity between Sartre and Solzhenitsyn. Both are concerned with the social mission of literature. On the basis of Solzhenitsyn's writing - the particular events he chooses for his subject matter, for example - there could be little argument about his conscious intent to expose the injustices of the Soviet situation. Sartre has said:

... all literary work is an appeal to the reader that he lead into objective existence the revelation which I have undertaken by means of language . . . the end to which a book offers itself is the reader's freedom.3 °

There is no doubt that Solzhenitsyn would agree completely, and that in Nerzhin's determination not to hide himself from the truth, he has presented to the reader an approach to the situation.

28 Ibid., p. 232. 29 J-P Sartre, What is Literature? trans, by B. Frechtman (London, 1950), pp. 169,

229. 30 ¡bid., pp. 32-33.



NERZHIN: A SARTREAN EXISTENTIAL MAN

217

RÉSUMÉ / ABSTRACT

NERZHIN: A SARTREAN EXISTENTIAL MAN

Les mesures répressives de la Russie staliniste poussent Nerzhin, le personnage principal du Premier Cercle û± Solzhenitsyne, à douter du système politique qui les a produites. Sa recherche de la vérité en ce qui concerne cette société l'amène à changer d'attitude quant à sa propre situation. L'attitude qu'il finit par adopter est remarquablement similaire à celle de l'homme existentiel de Sartre. Nerzhin rejette, non seulement les fondements de la société staliniste, mais aussi toutes les valeurs traditionnelles et les principes absolus. Par contre, il arrive à comprendre que c'est la réalité immédiate, concrète, existante qui doit être à l'origine de tout acte si on veut que cet acte ait rapport à la situation. La décision de Nerzhin de vivre honnêtement l'isole donc du groupe mais ne le dispense pas pour autant d'un sens de solidarité avec les autres ou de responsabilité pour autrui. Il se rend compte que ses propres actes libres doivent avoir pour conséquence de libérer les autres; placés dans cette situation oppressive que Staline a créée, ils doivent tous résister ensemble. Nerzhin découvre que dans une telle lutte, tous deviennent égaux: il ne voit aucune différence entre lui-même et le concierge paysan Spiridon.

La prison a rendu Nerzhin conscient d'un autre aspect de l'existence: que les circonstances difficiles doivent être acceptées avec reconnaissance, puisqu'elles aident l'homme à se rendre compte que la lutte pour la liberté doit être un combat incessant. C'est ce combat qui, pour Nerzhin, définit l'être humain.

N.R.



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ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN || Nerzhin: A Sartrean Existential Man