Journey to Freedom

by Sergei Ovsiannikov, Richard Pevear (Translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)

Whilst serving in the Soviet army in 1973, Sergei Ovsiannikov was arrested and imprisoned for acts of disobedience under military command. It was while in prison, like Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky, that he began to ponder deeper issues and on release trained to be a Russian orthodox priest.

This extraordinary but short book is about his search for true freedom. The issues he wrestles with are profound and, like any confrontation with truth, it caused him great anguish and pain. As Ovsiannikov

'It was in my prison cell that I lost fear. I realised that if they sent me to a labour camp with a long sentence, it did not matter because I was free. Of course subsequently I came to realise that freedom is not given, you have to take responsibility for it.'

It was during this time that he discovered Christianity and decided that this was the real meaning of his life.

Later, after a period spent with the Russian Orthodox community in London, Ovsiannikov lived for the last twenty years of his life in Amsterdam in charge of the Russian Orthodox community.

Drawing heavily on Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Pushkin and translated from the original Russian by celebrated translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky with an introduction by Rowan Williams, this brief spiritual book is a small masterpiece of its kind.

Genres: Memoir

288 pages, Hardcover

Published April 20, 2021

Reviews

[Max Berendsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to follow

[John Stults · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding worth rereading

He mentions some of his life in a Soviet prison (gulag) and some of how he was persecuted by the Soviets but mostly he talks about the Christian journey to freedom. This is not really freedom in the political sense, but the journey to freedom or liberty as the apostle Paul discusses. This becomes a longish ( but very good) sermon or homily. His ideas are outstanding and since the author passed away about the time this was published one can only say that our loss was heaven’s gain. I highly recommend this work and it is worth rereading and thinking about.

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would call this book somewhat 'stream of consciousness' - Fr Ovsiannikov starts talking about his life which really begins with his imprisonment in the Soviet Union and wrestling with God and freedom. He becomes a priest and eventually is assigned to a Dutch parish. Much of what he writes is anecdotal and based in his own experiences. As an immigrant from Russia to Europe, he has the advantage of being 'cross cultural' which enables him to be insightful at times both about life in Russia and in Holland as he keenly observes differences in thought and practice and what they mean to people growing up with different experiences. For example, he says the Dutch are very centered in their homes - a home is a person's castle and each Dutch person loves their home and in some ways it is the home experience which ties them together. But he says in Russia, people are not so attached to their homes which often aren't as nice, but they are very loyal to their homeland (motherland, fatherland). Russians will sacrifice anything for their homeland, while the Dutch will sacrifice anything to protect their homes. Different ways of approaching the world. There were moments in the which I found spellbinding and which spoke to me, but there were other longer sections which I could not relate to (even sometimes when he would say that all people think... or all men think... and I would think to myself I never thought that people or men think that way). But we learn how he sees the world and what assumptions he makes about everyone else.