Unlike the not-so-independent-minded writers attacking PEN America today, Russian writers have had to face real censorship and the possibility of serious punishment for their work—whether they labored under tsarist, Soviet, or Putinist rule. They also did something that I doubt many of today’s writers do: treat religion with deadly seriousness. Gary Saul Morson delves into the subject.

Ultimate questions were asked in ultimate conditions. The poet Osip Mandelstam died on the way to the Gulag. Isaac Babel was shot. Many writers disappeared. The lucky ones found themselves in exile. Witnessing murder and cruelty on a hitherto unimaginable scale, they naturally thought: so this is where atheism and materialism lead! And isn’t that a good reason to embrace faith? One still astonishing fact about militantly atheist Soviet culture is that three of its greatest literary masterpieces—by Pasternak, Bulgakov, and Solzhenitsyn—were avowedly Christian, and a fourth, Life and Fate, by the Jewish writer Vasily Grossman, was equally spiritual.

It’s worth mentioning that Babel, Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak were also Jews. Like their Christian counterparts, their religious preoccupations were shaped by those who came before them:

From the start, the key question was where morality came from, if there was nothing but natural laws. “If there is no God, all is permitted.” . . . Is it any wonder, then, that once the implications of materialism and atheism became clear, some writers came to profess absolute morality, the soul, individual responsibility, Christian virtues, and even belief in God? Even those who remained atheists . . . could not help noticing that Communists who found themselves in prison were the first to betray others.

“The fact is that I am a Christian,” the late Alexei Navalny explained. “I was once quite a militant atheist myself . . . But now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities.” . . . Navalny learned, as Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, and many others did, that it is the God of the Universe who gives us the living water to nourish our souls. And it is our soul, not our life, that matters most.

While the current Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has never been friendly to Hamas, his government has objected strenuously to the Israeli campaign in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip. Haisam Hassanein explains why:

Cairo has long been playing a double game, holding Hamas terrorists near while simultaneously trying to appear helpful to the United States and Israel. Israel taking control of Rafah threatens Egypt’s ability to exploit the chaos in Gaza, both to generate profits for regime insiders and so Cairo can pose as an indispensable mediator and preserve access to U.S. money and arms.

Egyptian security officials have looked the other way while Hamas and other Palestinian militants dug tunnels on the Egyptian-Gaza border. That gave Cairo the ability to use the situation in Gaza as a tool for regional influence and to ensure Egypt’s role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would not be eclipsed by regional competitors such as Qatar and Turkey.

Some elements close to the Sisi regime have benefited from Hamas control over Gaza and the Rafah crossing. Media reports indicate an Egyptian company run by one of Sisi’s close allies is making hundreds of millions of dollars by taxing Gazans fleeing the current conflict.

Moreover, writes Judith Miller, the Gaza war has been a godsend to the entire Egyptian economy, which was in dire straits last fall. Since October 7, the International Monetary Fund has given the country a much-needed injection of cash, since the U.S. and other Western countries believe it is a necessary intermediary and stabilizing force. Cairo therefore sees the continuation of the war, rather than an Israeli victory, as most desirable. Hassanein concludes:

Adding to its financial incentive, the Sisi regime views the Rafah crossing as a crucial card in preserving Cairo’s regional standing. Holding it increases Egypt’s relevance to countries that want to send aid to the Palestinians and ensures Washington stays quiet about Egypt’s gross human-rights violations so it can maintain a stable flow of U.S. assistance and weaponry. . . . No serious effort to turn the page on Hamas will yield the desired results without cutting this umbilical cord between the Sisi regime and Hamas.