The St. Austin Review
The St. Austin Review (StAR) is an international journal of Catholic culture, literature, and ideas. In its pages, printed every two months, some of the brightest and most vigorous minds around meet to explore the people, ideas, movements, and events that shape and misshape our world.
The Witness and Wisdom of Aleksandr Solzehnitsyn
Sample Article: Solzhenitsyn’s History of Russia
In The Red Wheel, a novelistic history of the Russian Revolution, the fictional Colonel Georgi Vorotyntsev speaks for Solzhenitsyn or, better put, is Solzhenitsyn. We know this because “in childhood he had been obsessed with Russia’s history and felt a premonition that his own future life would be bound up with it”. From his youth on, he “had craved one thing above all else: to influence his country’s history for the good, to drag or hustle uncouth Russia along the road to better things”. That effort, he believed, could succeed only if his country repented of its sins.
There was a time, according to Solzhenitsyn, when Russia remained true to the Orthodox Faith that endowed her with the gift of repentance, “which more than anything else distinguishes man from the animal world”. Not for nothing is Forgiveness Sunday (the final Sunday before Great Lent when all ask forgiveness from all) a high point on the Orthodox calendar. Dostoevsky put it this way: “We are each responsible to all for all.”
The Ink Desk Blog
May-June issue: The Witness and Wisdom of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample [...]
March-April issue: Shakespeare and Cervantes
Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample [...]
January-February Issue: Education for Truth and Life
Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample [...]
November-December issue: Europe and the Culture of Christendom
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September-October Issue: Shamrock, Thistle, Daffodil and Rose: The Cultures of the British Isles
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Why Didn’t C. S. Lewis Become Catholic?
Why did a writer who defended so many deeply Catholic [...]
Feminine Faith and Fortitude
History and literature are full of femmes formidables who shine [...]
The Resurrection of Beauty
Beauty is alive. It is alive with the living presence [...]
St. Austin Review Issues
More From The Ink Desk Blog
Revolting England
Why are the English as "revolting" as the French and Germans? Revolting England - Joseph Pearce
Who or What Gives Birth to a Work of Art?
Is the artist the only parent of his artistic creation? Is a Work of Art a Child? - Joseph Pearce
Can a Work of Literature Be Wiser Than Its Author?
What's the relationship between an author and his Muse? Can a Great Work of Literature Be Wiser Than Its Author? - Joseph Pearce
Tolkien, Chesterton and the Sloth of England
Wast Tolkien influenced by Chesterton in his judgment of England's failings? Tolkien, Chesterton and the Sloth of England - Joseph Pearce
The Secret Life of Books
The Troubadours reveal the hidden secrets of the strangest books that they own…. Watch this month’s Troubadours and discover the secrets hidden on the shelves of the Troubadours’ personal libraries. There’s the guide to Rome [...]
Finding Truth in Fictional Saints
Famous fictional saints tell us truths we need to hear... Finding Truth in Fictional Saints - Joseph Pearce