The Eric Metaxas Show - Ignat Solzhenitsyn (Encore)

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

Famed international conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn discusses his father Aleksandr’s experiences and remarkable transformation in the Soviet Gulag. (Encore Presentation)

Hey, folks, this is a special encore presentation of the Eric Mattaxas show featuring my guest, Ignat Solzhen, the son of the great Alexander Solzhen, who's one of the men in my new book, Seven More Men. Stay tuned. Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. Have you ever gargled, Peter Butter? What's the capital of North Dakota? Do I spit what I talk? All this and more on the Eric Mattaxas show. Now your host, until further notice, Eric Mattaxas. Folks, we have a special guest today in the studio. This is a great thing about being in New York. You never know who can come to New York or who lives in New York. I'm sitting here in the studio with Ignaut Solzhenitsyn. He is the principal guest conductor of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra,

and he is the conductor laureate of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and he's with me today. Ignat Solzhenitsyn, welcome to the program. Great to be here. Now, I don't know how long I can kid my audience into thinking that, you know, you're just any old souls in Eatsen. There's got to be zillions of them in Russia. But the way that you come here today and the way that I've come to know you is as the son of one of the people in history that I revere more than almost anyone else, the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

So I have to ask you, we're living in a world today where so many people would not know because they're not as old as I am, let's say, or they don't happen to be the sons of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. They wouldn't automatically know who he is. Now, I want to interview you about you and your career as a musician. There's so much we can talk about, but I thought in the first show, for those listening,

either who love Alexander Solzhenitsyn as I do, or who are quite ignorant of who this great figure is, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Maybe, since you happen to be his son, we could talk a little bit about him. Is that all right? That sounds fine. You know, I get, it's always amused me to have a question,

the innocent question in this country from people. Oh, Solzhenitin, any relation? and it's a reasonable question, but it's amusing to a Russian because Sozhenitsyn is a very rare name. There are none unrelated, as you figured out. I was going to say that it's a funny thing. I get the same thing because my last name is Metaxus. People say, any relation to the Greek premier dictator Ionis metaxas, any relation? Metaxas is a rather common name in Greece.

The same thing with the brandy, the cognac metaxia. They say, any relation to the, and I say, yeah, we own, you know, four or five bottles. But it's kind of funny because you don't know unless you're from that country. So I really had no idea how rare Solzhenitsyn was. So the fact is that you're saying that when people see that name, they might well know that you're related. Yeah, and in Russia, there's no question. People, well, people know also that people know me and they know and they know. But if they don't, then they know there must be a relationship.

Yes, indeed there is. Well, as I say, when I found out through some mutual friend, I can't remember who it was, that you lived in New York City, that you're the son of Alexander Solzhen. I really almost didn't believe it. I thought, what? How is this possible? In New York?

What's he doing in New York? Who is this person? And it's taken us longer than it should to get together. But I'm really excited just to get to know you generally, but also to introduce my audience to your father and his work, because I know there are people who listen to this program I'm very young who they weren't around in the 70s as I was to remember who your father was in that moment, in that historical moment when he defected to the United States, when he gave this.

Exiled. What's that? Exiled. He was exiled. Exiled. That's better. That's even better to be exiled, isn't it? Well, I don't know.

Only were two people in the history of the USSR. I think your listeners know the USSR, right? The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, of course, the Soviet Union. Actually, I want to, how do you say that in Russian? S.S.S.S.R. No, how do you say? So if you say that, a, Sylviaski, Socialistic, Republic. Gizenheit.

Let's continue. Okay, so. So only two people were forcibly, truly just forcibly expelled by decree of the government, Sozhenitsen and before him, Trotsky. So it's really two diametrical figures. Wow, can we get the son of Trotsky in here, Albin. Get on that. That is just crazy.

I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I mean, it's pretty. Well, see, again, there are people at a disadvantage because they don't know this history. Let's go to the basics and just jump in, but the basics here. We know that in the world of communism,

because I was raised by parents who taught me about what is communism, it's an evil regime, especially in the Soviet Union, where any voices of dissent, any free voices are crushed. sent to the Soviet gulag. Many of us only know about this because of the writings of your father who wrote the Gulag Archipelago, one of the greatest books ever written, ever.

We know about this because of him, because of his willingness to write about something that he knew that he could go back to the gulag, that he could be punished and so on and so forth. He was a brave man, your father. And he wrote about this, and much of the West today knows about what happened because of the witness of your father. So he was exiled, as you said. Was it because of the publication of the Gulag Archipelago? It was. That was the final and incontrovertible straw that could not, they could not abide, of course.

And the publication wasn't intended to happen yet. It was kind of a delayed time bomb. supposed to, it was ready to be, because he knew that would be the crossing the Rubicon. And what happened was that the other copy of it, the only copy that was still in Russia, there were one copy in the West, one in Russia. The lady who was safekeeping it for him, they found her out, they meaning the KGB. They obtained this manuscript, which was really the death sentence of their own, regime and they probably knew that immediately. Okay, the manuscript, because it told the truth about

Soviet Russia or the Soviet regime, you're saying that they knew that when this got out, this was the death of this evil empire. That's right. What they didn't know was that another copy was already safely in the West. Whoops. And, yeah. And so as soon as, obviously there was nothing, no, reason to hide anymore the existence of this book once they had it. So as soon as he found out that they have it and they have her. And by the way, after a few days of intense questioning, she was found hanging in her apartment in Leningrad. Now this was someone to whom your father was very, very close. Not really. This was this was this extraordinary network of people that he called in a beautiful, memorable formulation, invisible allies. Invisible.

because they were invisible theoretically and in most cases to the regime, but in some cases invisible to himself. As any good, as we know from any good cop movie or spy novel, when people have contact in a network, they're not supposed to know each other. Or degrees of separation and for safety for everybody's. And so a lot of times he had no idea except that he entrusted his life and the life of his manuscripts into the hands of a very narrow circle who then were. entitled at their own risk and knowing what's at stake to spread it further as needed. So there were people who hid the manuscript, such as Varananska, this lady. There were people who typed them. There were people who transported them and so forth.

All the things that had to be done. And it was an extraordinary group of, in the end, about a couple hundred people, about whom he wrote a book to give credit to them when it became possible when he was in the West and when they were either dead. This was my next question, actually, has a book? been written about these people and about the process of how your father was able to do what is almost impossible is to write a novel of this wicked regime from the inside and then to somehow get it to the west. So your father did write about that. He had already published his

extraordinary memoirs of the years in the Soviet Union, the oak and the calf. Yeah. And, but the The Oak and the calf was missing its final and most important supplement, which was the invisible ally. So as soon as he found himself exiled and living in Zurich, literally in the first weeks of exile, he considered his first task to write down, to set the paper these names and to express the inexpressible gratitude. We're at a time in this segment.

Folks, we'll be right back. We're talking to Ignat Solzhenitsyn. Stick around. Hey there, folks. That's Elton John. He's not in the studio. But fortunately, we have Ignat Solzhenitsyn in the studio. Ignat, it's so wonderful to have you here. We're talking about the work and the life of your father, the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn. How many years ago did he pass away? Ten. It's already ten years. Hard to believe. It's hard to believe. And are you his youngest of the three boys? Middle of three. The middle of three. his life is just about impossible to sum up or to do justice, and so I find myself a little bit

unequal to the task. I want to talk to you about so many things, but I want my audience, first of all, to know in this hour about your father, in case they don't, especially in case they don't. You said that he was exiled from the Soviet Union, so was it 72 that he was exiled? 74. Oh, 74. Okay. And that's when the book exploded on the scene, the Gulag Archipelago. Correct.

It was such a bombshell in the West, in the world, because it revealed something that, you know, we still had, and today still have people in the West, like Lillian Hellman, like, I mean, a lot of literary figures, artistic figures, who were foolish enough to be pro-Soviet, to be pro-Soviet, to be pro-Stalin. Your father's book was, as you said earlier, it was the death sentence for seeing the Soviet Union that way for most people. Well, the great difference, I think after the publication of Gulliger Capellago was it became no longer tenable to avert one's eyes, as so many Western intellectuals did, as so many of what we used to call fellow travelers, did with pleasure. it's remarkable that that phenomenon hasn't been completely eradicated yet, as you point out. There are still some, and particularly with those communist regimes that continue to exist or even flourish today, and Fidel Castro, or Raul Castro now, but the song goes on.

And it seems that there's plenty of warmth and support for this barbarous regime from, from fellow travelers in the West. So the phenomenon continues. Well, as I said to you earlier, I'm sort of cheating because my mother grew up in what became East Germany, and she could tell me firsthand. My father, growing up in Greece with the Greek Civil War, could tell me firsthand. I mean, they raised me to understand that communism is the enemy of human freedom. I knew that.

But there's so many people today that they don't know that, maybe because they're young, they don't even remember the Soviet Union. and they think the worst Russia could produce would be some authoritarian like Putin or his puppet Medvedev or something. They have no idea what existed for decades and decades. So getting back to the story of your father, he was exiled then in 74. He was in the Gulag archipelago, as he called it, for many years. And I read a book by my friend Chuck Colson where he tells the story in the first chapter of his book, Loving God, of this man in a Soviet camp coming to faith.

And at the end of the chapter, it says, and this man was Alexander Solzhenitsyn. And I just about fell out of my chair when I learned that this great Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a Christian. I had no idea. What is that? Tell us a little bit about. how many years he was in the gulag and why he went there and about his coming to faith. He was raised by his mother. His father was dead in the church, in the Orthodox, Russian Orthodox. So born 1918.

Born in 1918, a child of the revolution or a sibling of the revolution, you know, the same within 12 months, of course, the Russian Revolution, 1917. and very quickly this faith of his father's faith of his mother literally was beaten out of him also quite literally by his teachers by his peers in school this was the time of the most militant atheism of course in the Soviet Union by the way communism's perhaps number one feature not a bug as they say the feature is a militant it's an atheism, is the crushing of the soul and not leaving people alone to believe what they wish as long as they don't know. It's not enough. They have to love Big Brother, as George Orbal told us.

And this is exactly what was the case with my father. His cross that he wore was torn off by his kids, by his fellow grade school kids with the approval of the director of the school and the teachers and so forth. And so. And they didn't have a piece. T.A. where you could complain. This was in a state telling children what they must believe. And if your parents don't agree, they can go to prison or be killed or be tortured.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And so very quickly he came to see the wisdom of this progressive worldview that was destined to take over history, Marxism, Leninism. And as a high schooler and then in university, he was a convinced Marxist. He was a convinced Leninist. but he did have grave doubts about Stalin and whether this man in charge of Soviet Russia wasn't somehow corrupting or polluting the pure Leninist ideals of the revolution

Let me ask a question of ignorance When did Lenin die and Stalin take over? What year was that? Well, Lenin already in 1922, I think had his incapacitating stroke and so basically was no longer in power, died I think in 24. there was a kind of interregnum in the mid-20s when Stalin and Trotsky and others were jockeying for position. And by the late 20s, of course, Stalin consolidated his power, absolutely. So for Solzhenitsyn then the war breaks out, he enlists, and then goes to artillery school and fights in the war and is decorated and almost gets to Berlin in the spring of 45 when he's arrested in East Prussia, just,

some kilometers from Berlin, arrested and taken back by prison train to the secret prison, Lubyanka, in Moscow, to be tried for counter-revolutionary activity, which was what, which was not without basis. In other words, some people were arrested literally for nothing. So Schnitzin was arrested actually for writing letters with a friend from university criticizing, not the regime, of course, but criticizing Stalin, saying that maybe this is not the best way to approach Lenin's legacy. So criticizing Stalin from a pure communist point of view, as he thought. Right. And this is what earned him, again, with some justification from that Soviet perspective,

eight years of hard labor and perpetual exile in Siberia. Perpetual exile. Perpetual exile was one of the kind of loving articles of the Soviet penal system. Perpetual exile, so until you die or the world ends, whichever comes first. But why only eight years of hard labor and then perpetual exile? In other words, the... Yeah, it could have been 10 years. It could have been 25.

It was really a question of fashion in the jurisprudence of the time. And so at that moment, for his particular crime, Article 5810 and Article 5811, they were giving 8 to 10 years. He could have had 10. He was fortunate to have 8. But so 8 to 10 years, hard labor. And did he ever leave that for the perpetual exile? or was he perpetually in hard labor? He served out the eight years in labor camps,

although with a kind of saving interlude in the midst, in the middle of the sentence when he went to a research institute prison called a Shara Shara, which was much more easier conditions and allowed him probably to survive, but it must be said that he voluntarily asked to be taken back to the depths from that first circle, and of course that's another great novel of social needs in the first circle, but from that first

circle of hell, the references, of course, is to Dante Illegeri's inferno and the first circle of hell and then descending lower and lower. He wanted to go to an experience properly the absolute depths of the labor camp system, and he did, and that's when he touched

bottom, when his feet touched bottom, is when his reconversion to God, or his return to God, His return to God was complete. There's a beautiful poem of that time, 1951, a Catholicist, which describes or encapsulates that return. That's his poem.

Yes. Well, let me ask you, I think it goes without saying that the greatest people in the history of the world are what the rest of us have to understand are crazy. In other words,

your father's bravery can never be properly understood. So when you say something like he volunteered to go back to the depths of the Soviet prison camp system, it's so impossible to understand how someone could do that. We don't have time in this segment.

When we come back, I want you to help us understand that because anybody who understands the horror of that wicked, genuinely hellish place will only the more appreciate your father and his bravery and what so many suffered. We're going to be right back, folks, talking to Ignaz Solzhen. It's the Eric Mattaxas show. Thanks for listening. Hey, folks, I challenge you to think of at least one thing you no longer do that you wish you could. Do you miss playing golf, maybe long walks with your spouse sleeping through the night?

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dive in today by picking up a copy of reflections on the existence of God right now. Go to Existenceofgodbook.com. That's existence of godbook.com. This is the Arkmataksa show. I'm sitting here with an extraordinary musician, Ignat Solzhenitsyn. He's the principal guest conductor of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and the conductor laureate of the chamber orchestra of Philadelphia. He also happens to be, by some coincidence, the middle son of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Ignat, again, welcome. It's funny to sit here talking to a real musician because you're saying you're not

familiar with some of my bumper music, the Eagles, Super Tramp, Elton John, or whatever. You, if you were anyone else, I'd say, you really need to know this music, but we won't talk about that. We're talking about your father, and I was saying that it is amazing to me to hear you, his son tell the story of how he chose. in the middle of having this horrible sentence of hard labor. People can hardly imagine the horrors of this unless they've read his books. To choose to go back, why did he do that?

Well, the proximate reason, the immediate reason was that he was being asked in this research laboratory to embark on a project that he objected to. It wasn't just general scientific research. It was developing technology. what do we call it today, voice recognition, to recognize voices, to why would the Soviet state need that technology? You're telling me in the late 40s,

they were working on voice recognition technology? Absolutely. That's a stunning thing. Absolutely, because before really video technology was far advanced, the audio bugs were everywhere, everywhere they wanted them to be in every apartment,

in every communal apartment, in every phone line, or certainly they needed it there. And so then to be able to track who was it on the phone who said that, even from a paper. I mean, this is a stunning thing. So you're telling me your father, because of his conscience, he says, no, I won't do this. But then you will be sent back to the camps. He says, go for it. And he already knew that he could survive, that it's physically possible. You know, we fear most what we don't know.

And so when he first went into those camps in 45, he almost did die. But this time, as a seasoned prisoner already, he knew, he felt he could survive. And he felt even if he didn't, so be it. It's the choice. The most important lesson that he learned in the camps was that even in the camps, human dignity matters, choices that we always have choices. Even in the camps, even when everything is decided for you,

what clothes you wear, what food you're given. And everything is regimented. There is always a choice to behave with freedom and a sense of dignity or not. Because this is a radio program, many people didn't see you do the air quotes when you said food. Let's get specific. Because, again, there are plenty of people, young people, they have no clue what we're talking about. When the communists send you to a prison camp to hard labor, it is effectively a death sentence because you're not going to be properly fed.

Anything can happen. You can be beaten to death, tortured. So what kind of food, quote unquote, did they have? I mean, you hear of people killing rats to survive, to eat the rats, to do these kinds of things. Your father's written about that. You know, the prologue to the Gulag Archipelago to the book opens with a description of a article, a brief note in the Soviet science journal, True story,

that mentions how fascinating that far, far away in the remote, far east, far north of, northeast of Russia of Siberia, what we think of as Siberia here in the States, some folks came across a prehistoric salamander sheathed in the ice from millions of years ago. And they were fascinated by this discovery. And when they broke open the ice,

they found out that the salamander actually was quite fresh. And they tasted it. And it was delicious. And end of story. Now that's a true story. That's a true story, except the article in the science or Soviet science, whatever that journal was,

didn't mention that these folks who discovered this prehistoric salamander were labor camp prisoners. And that the reason they found that this salamander so delicious was that that's the first meat of any kind that they would have seen in years. And so that's how the gulagos. I mean, they ate a million-year-old, millions-year-old salamander. I mean, again, I want my audience.

There's never enough time. And even just doing this one hour with you, we're just scratching the surface. There's so much to talk about on the subject of your father. And I know we'll have subsequent hours to do that. But I want my audience to know this is real stuff. This is not something that happened in the Middle Ages. This happened to your father and to members of my family. This is real.

And we're seeing a renaissance of some of this kind of thinking happening in our time. So it's vital that we know this history. Your father famously said a word, one word. word of truth outweighs the world, one of the greatest quotes I've ever heard in my life. So he dedicated himself to speaking the truth of this evil. And he changed the world, your father. You know that. We just have a few seconds left in this segment when we come back more with Ignaut Solzhenitsyn. We're talking about the life of his father, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Hey there, folks. This is Eric McTax the show talking to Ignat Solzhenitsyn about the life and work of

his father, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Matt, it's unbelievable, and I just find myself unequal to the conversation, because what your father suffered, it's so extraordinary. When he finally ended his sentence in, quote, unquote, hard labor, where did he go from there? It was also far from pleasant thing, a three or four week transport by numerous trains, zigzagging all across the great socialist paradise of the Soviet Union, until finally he reached his destination, which was. assigned at that moment just a week before maybe, randomly or as the case might have been. Koke Tirek, a god-forsaken, tiny speck on the edge of the desert in Kazakhstan. I mean, when they said perpetual exile in Siberia, did it include things like this? Yeah, this was actually quite fortunate because it was not as cold as any number of more northern...

And what was he supposed to do in that place? He was supposed to fend for himself. as he might live there live live there find a job check in twice a week with his essentially parole officer and yes and and live there forever okay as I say and he dies or or or what okay I want to go back you said that he became a Christian during his second stint in hard labor tell us about that yes he he returned to to to to to that faith that he had as a child that he had certainly that was given him and shared with him by his by his mother and his aunt orthodox Christianity but how can that happen in a place like well an atheist

hard labor prison camp the best education he received in his life was in his first prison cell in butirki another prison in moscow where crammed into a cell that was supposed to hold 20, there were about 80 or 90 prisoners in the summer of 45 when he should have been celebrating with his army mates the fall of Berlin. Instead, he was in the cell in hearing the victory salutes beyond the prison walls. Why was this such great education? Because the other people in his cell were doctors, scientists, philosophy, priests, engineers,

and all of them arrested for either for nothing or for, in that time, very common crime was having had contact with a Westerner, having had contact, having had a beer with an American soldier. Well, of course, that was exposing, exposure to a deadly,

infectious kind of a disease that had to be expurgated. And so in this prison, finally, he could speak freely and all these other people could speak freely. That's quite amazing, actually. Think about that. I mean, I've never thought about that. That because of that, he was able to speak freely because he's already in the worst place.

Already in the worst place. And these men that he's with, older than he, most cases, but in any case, far wiser than he was at 26 years old, were crushing any feeble arguments that he tried to put up in favor of, well, but our system is still wonderful, despite, yes, of course, you and I shouldn't be here, but, and, and they, they, they destroyed. He found himself unable to hold his ground whatsoever. Wow. Although he was a very learned and bright young man, as he might imagine. And so little by little, he, he, he, he was retreating, retreating, and of course, reevaluating as any proper thinking person ought to, reevaluating his beliefs. And why do I believe this?

or is this really true? And putting it together with, in retrospect, with his own experiences, and with the experiences far wider, far deeper, far harsher, in many cases of his prison mates. And so through this, through his experience of the war, and the insanity of what Stalin inflicted upon his own army in sending waves of cannon meat in a completely unnecessary attempts to take a certain city today, has to be today, can't be tomorrow, and so forth.

So through the war, through what he had seen of famine, what he had seen of these completely unjust sentences and innocent people being subjected to their lives upside down and torture and execution or at least years in the camps. Through all this, he and of thinking about why am I here and all those big questions, he came back. He came round. and as he says in Acathistus, that you have always been there.

You have always been there, but I've forgotten. And now I see. In what year did he realize that God has always been there? What year was that? Because he was put in the prison, obviously, at the end of the War 45. So roughly, when does he come around to see this? It's a process that takes about five or six years. So 51, he writes the poem.

Yes. Yes, and by then, by then he is secure in his faith, and he is secure in general in his worldview that he said 50 years later that his worldview really didn't change very much after that time. That's when it was finally said. And who was the doctor that was attending to him? Was it corn? I can't remember.

Yes, but he's cornfield. Cornfield. Cornfield, yes. And, yes, that story is also, of course, in there. Can you say a tiny bit about that? I mean, it's just that this doctor who was operating on his cancer, that's another thing. Your father's. My father had developed a cancer of the stomach in the camps.

And so there was some kind of a basic health care. And in other words, there were also prisoner, of course, doctors who were able to. And so this Dr. Cornfield operated on him. and the night, I think it was the night before the operation, he opened up, Corinfeld opened up to his patient, who was just a patient who wasn't yet, Solzhenitsyn who wasn't yet anybody, he was just a prisoner. He's just a kid with stomach cancer. Right.

But obviously they hit it off and Cornfield told him a kind of a kind of poured out his, the suma of his beliefs and of his kind of confluence. and of his kind of confession of life and of faith. And Cornfield felt that everything that happens to us in life, we deserve and is a retribution, if it's something bad, for something that we, even we may think, I'm guiltless, and if we think hard enough, this was his theory, we'll know why. Hang on, this is a heavy, heavy thought.

And we come back a few minutes more with Ignateless, Solzhenitsyn. It's the Erkman Taxis show. Thank you for listening. When I looked over Jordan and what did I see coming for? I'm Erick Cash. I'm Erickman Taxis. I'm sitting here with Ignaut Solzhenitsyn. Ignat, you were just sharing this extraordinary moment. We just have a few minutes left, but in your father's life and you said that this doctor, a prisoner operating on your father, who's also a prisoner, is sharing everything with him. And he says if you really think about it, whatever you suffer, somehow you are to blame. I'm not sure I get that.

Well, I don't know if my father did either. But then if memory serves, then I need to reread that passage. But he was days after he was murdered. The doctor was murdered. Was it because he had shared these things with your father? Somebody knew? No, very likely it was because he had been a stool. that he reported on his fellow prisoners in some capacity.

Yeah, and the rough justice of these prison camps. The rough justice that began, and incidentally, was brutal as it was, served really to bring a degree of sanity and of freedom to the camps because people could again speak freely there at the bottom of society without fear that it would be. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Punished even further. But this, of course, as would any person left a profound imprint on my father and made him think about many things.

So it wasn't that that Cornfield, the doctor, was talking about God, or was he? Well, I think he was. I think he was. I think he was talking about his path, his path to God and to a sense of right and wrong. and a sense, all those things that they had been taught not to, that didn't exist. Conscience, the existence of conscience. I said, no, there is no conscience. There was just the needs of a physical.

That's the thing, is that when you have a materialist worldview, an atheistic, materialist, scientific worldview that says there's nothing except what is, there's nothing beyond this world, you're saying your father, in the depths of this prison system and with this doctor who was subsequently murdered, somehow saw finally, that this is the biggest lie of all. To the great materialist slogan that is brought forth in the first circle in his novel, you're only given one life. He juxtaposes his character, a character in the Keynesi Volojin in the first circle,

but you're only given one conscience. Yes, only one life, but only one conscience. Only one conscience. Well, it's funny to sit here all these years later and think about that one night that this Dr. Cornfeld shares a few things. It changes your father's life, and your father really changes the world. We can never begin to count what his books and his life did.

We haven't even begun to talk about the 1978 Harvard commencement speech, which I'd love to talk to you about in a subsequent show, but we're out of time. Ignat Solzhenitsin, I can't tell you how happy I am that we finally got together and have begun this conversation. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Eric. Hey, folks, before we go, I want to remind you again, this is so important.

If you believe in free speech, if you believe in American values, unfortunately they're being under attack right now. And I got to tell you, no safe spaces is a film made by my friend Dennis Prager, specifically about free speech. And here is the irony. No safe spaces, which I have seen, is a spectacular movie in every way. I hope you'll watch it with the year. young people in your life. I hope everyone in America would watch it. But here's the irony.

The streaming services, Amazon Prime, and Netflix have banned no safe spaces. This seems unbelievable. It's Kafkaesque, but it is true. I want to tell you, folks, if you needed a reason to see no safe spaces, it's just because they have banned it. So go to no safespaces.com. Nosafeaspaces.com. you can use a code save 25 to get 25% off no safespaces.com save 25.