ABSTRACT
Solzhenitsyn’s future actions depended to a large extent on what sense he could make of the disaster that had befallen him, and in his search for answers he turned to Vladimir Dahl’s collection of Russian proverbs, which he took to reading daily, “like a prayer-book.” Solzhenitsyn said that that would be fine, but Tvardovsky still demurred—in the last analysis the decision would not be his, and he was sure the censorship would reject the play. Before leaving, Solzhenitsyn handed Tvardovsky his short story “The Right Hand,” about the old man in Tashkent who had once wielded a sabre in a punitive detachment. Solzhenitsyn then analyzes each of these three last-named categories. As a description of Solzhenitsyn’s own views and procedures, the article is very revealing, and he concludes by once more invoking the shade of the great lexicographer Vladimir Dahl and stating a sort of credo.
