How Solzhenitsyn Found Faith

Dostoyevsky chose John 12:24 as the epigraph to The Brothers Karamazov: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Suffering enables one to reach the deepest truths. An episode from Dostoyevsky’s own life, familiar to his contemporary readers, illustrates this point: As punishment for illegal political activities, he was condemned to be shot – but then was pardoned at the last possible moment and imprisoned for four years in a czarist prison camp. In those extreme conditions Dostoyevsky found faith, and his story became exemplary for other Russian sufferers.