Between the Icon and the Idol: The Human Person and the Modern State in Russian Literature and Thought-Chaadayev, Soloviev, Grossman

"The totalitarian state clearly intends to eliminate all those forms of organic community that rival the absolute loyalty of the individual to the state. This god is a jealous god. . . . Mrówczyński-Van Allen's diagnosis is therefore no less relevant after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And his proposed cure is no less salutary. He appeals to the work of Grossman and other voices from the East to oppose the idolatry of the deified self with the icon, which opens up a distance in which giving and f…