A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s “Nobel lecture” as a cultural-philosophical manifesto

The article examines A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s ideas, expressed by him in the “Nobel Lecture” prepared in late 1971 – early 1972. The text of the speech concentrates on the writer’s system of philosophical views on culture, art, the role of the artist and the people in the historical process. A.I. Solzhenitsyn assigns a leading role to art in public life, since it is able to influence the political, scientific, socio-economic and other spheres of society. Literature and the national language, in his opinion, are the true keepers of the national memory and the soul of the people. The “condensation” (the term of A.I. Solzhenitsyn himself), the breadth and fundamental nature of the ideas expressed by him in the “Nobel” lecture, as wells as the thoroughness of preparation for it, give grounds to qualify the text of the speech as the writer’s cultural philosophical manifesto, addressed not only to contemporaries, but also to future generations