Academic Periodical

This article is dedicated to the centenary of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s birth. The writer’s archive contains several letters written by Archbishop of San Francisco John (Shakhovskoy), an outstanding figure of the Russian Diaspora who highly esteemed Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn even before his expulsion from the USSR in 1974. Archbishop John was familiar with his publications in the “Novy Mir” magazine. After 1974 he started correspondence with the writer, met him in person and donated some sacred objects for his family chapel in Vermont. The article reconstructs the chronology of the relationship between Archbishop John and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn according to Shakhovskoy’s reactions in the emigre press to the writer’s work. An excerpt of their correspondence from the Solzhenitsyn’s archive in Troitse-Lykovo is published for the first time.