Russell Kirk
Russell Kirk was an influential American writer and political theorist, born on October 19, 1918, in Plymouth, Michigan. He pursued higher education, earning a B.A. in 1940 and an M.A. in 1941, before serving in World War II. After the war, Kirk earned a D.Litt. from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he also began publishing literary works and his first book, "John Randolph of Roanoke." His most notable work, "The Conservative Mind," established him as a key figure in postwar conservative thought, articulating a framework for understanding conservatism in the context of the New Deal and rising liberalism.
Kirk's ideas emphasized that political issues were deeply intertwined with moral and religious questions, and he produced an array of writings that spanned both political theory and literary criticism. Throughout his life, he maintained a rejection of modern conveniences and a commitment to traditional values, which shaped his lifestyle at his home, Piety Hill, in Michigan. In addition to his books, Kirk contributed to various publications and founded the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, which continues to promote his ideas. He passed away on April 29, 1994, leaving behind a legacy that bridges literature and conservative philosophy.
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Russell Kirk
Writer
- Born: October 19, 1918
- Birthplace: Plymouth, Michigan
- Died: April 29, 1994
- Place of death: Mecosta, Michigan
Biography
Russell Kirk was born on October 19, 1918, in Plymouth, Michigan, into a family recently impoverished by the Depression. He obtained a B.A. from Michigan State College in 1940 and an M.A. from Duke University in 1941. The following year he was drafted, and he spent World War II in Utah. After the war he went to the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he obtained a D.Litt. in 1952 while writing a handful of ghost stories for the London Mystery Magazine. He also published his first book, John Randolph of Roanoke, based on his master’s thesis.
Kirk then set about turning his D.Litt. thesis into a second book, while teaching in various institutions, including Michigan State College; the result was the publication of The Conservative Mind from Burke to Santayana, a spectacularly successful book. He converted his academic analysis into a political manifesto that gave voice to a postwar movement concerned and distressed by the march of liberalism and the New Deal. The sales of his book allowed Kirk to resign his teaching post at Michigan State and establish a home in Mecosta, Michigan, in a house he called Piety Hill. He lived there for the rest of his life, eschewing automobiles, television, and, eventually, computers to follow his own calculated and old-fashioned lifestyle. He remained deeply suspicious of big business and unsympathetic to the neoconservatism that eventually usurped the movement he had spelled out in his six canons of conservative thought.
The first of these canons, the belief that political problems are fundamentally moral and religious problems because a divine intent rules society and conscience, provides a key to the second strand of his literary work. The afterword to his ghost story collection The Surly Sullen Bell argues that “the more orthodox is a writer’s theology, the more convincing, as symbols and allegories, his uncanny tales will be.” Kirk’s conservatism was always aesthetic as well as political, so writings on conservative politics, such as The Roots of American Order, were supplemented by educational tracts, such as Decadence and Renewal in the Higher Learning, and studies in literary ideology, like Eliot and His Age: T. S. Eliot’s Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century. He wrote an education column for the National Review for twenty-five years and a column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate for thirteen years. He also edited The University Bookman for thirty years and was the founder and first editor of The Modern Age.
Kirk described his first novel, Old House of Fear, as a “Gothick tale, in unblushing line of direct descent from The Castle of Otranto.” The book was followed by the political fantasy A Creature of the Twilight, and the horror novel Lord of the Hollow Dark. His later short fiction, which was reprinted in The Princess of All Lands, and Watchers at the Strait Gate, and definitively assembled in Ancestral Shadows, extended the reverent tradition of M. R. James to great effect.
Kirk died of congestive heart failure on April 29, 1994, at Piety Hill, survived by his wife, Annette Yvonne Cecile Courtemanche, whom he had married in 1964, and four daughters. The house became the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.