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'I Am Not Afraid of Death' [SPIEGEL INTERVIEWS ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN]
Der Spiegel ^ | July 23, 2007 | Christian Neef and Matthias Schepp

Posted on 07/25/2007 1:38:48 PM PDT by Feldkurat_Katz

click here to read article


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To: GeorgefromGeorgia

Well said, GeorgefromGeorgia. :-)


21 posted on 07/25/2007 4:40:17 PM PDT by Pravious
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To: PetroniusMaximus

Here is a recent Solzhenitsyn gem.


“Last month, Putin honored Solzhenitsyn with a State Prize for “humanitarian activity.”

Solzhenitsyn scathingly criticized Putin’s predecessors, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russia’s first President Boris Yeltsin for conducting ill-planned reforms and kowtowing to the West.

..........

Like I said, Solzi is an idiot.


22 posted on 07/25/2007 4:42:17 PM PDT by spanalot
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To: sittnick

This is not your father’s SOLZHENITSYN.

................

as it turns out, Solzhenitsyn is worried about the survival of the Russian nation. Russia, he says, could face a Ukrainian-style uprising financed by foreign interests:

“An Orange Revolution may take place if tensions between the public and the authorities flare up and money begins flowing to the opposition.”


This fool is an enemy of Democracy and the USA. He is spouting the Kremlin party line that would disavow the escape of Poland and Ukraine from the Iron Curtain.


23 posted on 07/25/2007 4:45:50 PM PDT by spanalot
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To: buwaya

“I would think most of the victims of the Gulag would have been Russophiles as well.”

No - they were Ukrainian, Asian, and even German.


24 posted on 07/25/2007 4:47:27 PM PDT by spanalot
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To: GeorgefromGeorgia

I agree as well


25 posted on 07/25/2007 4:48:17 PM PDT by xp38
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To: Feldkurat_Katz

He’s a great man, a gift from God, for his part in the destruction of the Soviet Union. His survival was nothing less than miraculous (this was a man who discovered he had malignant cancerous tumors while in the Gulag in 1954—and yet somehow he is still alive today).

That’s worth any number of silly statements he may have made late in life.


26 posted on 07/25/2007 4:49:44 PM PDT by denydenydeny (Expel the priest and you don't inaugurate the age of reason, you get the witch doctor--Paul Johnson)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

“A truly great man and writer”

...that is promoting the return of the iron curtain.

“The U.S. has a strange idea of democracy,” continued Solzhenitsyn. “They first interfered with the Bosnian situation, bombed Yugoslavia, then Afghanistan, and then Iraq. Who is next? Perhaps Iran?”


He has a lot of nerve fighting our efforts to promote democracy after we sheltered his ass.


27 posted on 07/25/2007 4:50:56 PM PDT by spanalot
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To: Mr Ramsbotham

I dont understand your post. And Solzi is an idiot Russophile, Putin bootlicker who is a hypocrit who has sold out to the new Communism.

Shame!
....................
Nobel laureate and former Soviet dissident Aleksander Solzhenitsyn in a newspaper interview accused the United States and NATO of seeking to encircle Russia, and praised President Vladimir Putin for working to restore a strong state.


28 posted on 07/25/2007 4:55:58 PM PDT by spanalot
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To: spanalot
“An Orange Revolution may take place if tensions between the public and the authorities flare up and money begins flowing to the opposition.”

This fool is an enemy of Democracy and the USA. He is spouting the Kremlin party line that would disavow the escape of Poland and Ukraine from the Iron Curtain.


Okay, so he is against George Soros-type funding of unrest. That does not make him a Communist. The choice is NOT just between Leninism and Wilsonianism. Ukraine was outside of the reach of the iron Curtain long before the Orange Revolution.

Most of us here in FR were against Clinton's war in Kosovo. I hope that doesn't make us anti-American. It certainly doesn't make this brilliant mind who is the farthest thing from a Soviet into a fool or a Communist.

If he has monarchist or aristocratic leanings, that doesn't make him a Communist or an enemy of the U.S., either. I would rather have a civilized non-democratic country than a barbaric democratic one. The U.S., with its legalized abortion, the Netherlands with its euthanasia programs and Canada with its gag rule against offending homosexuals are examples where democratic countries have developed barbaric aspects.
29 posted on 07/25/2007 5:46:53 PM PDT by sittnick (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: spanalot

“Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russia’s first President Boris Yeltsin for conducting ill-planned reforms “

Many of their reforms were ill planned.

“Solzhenitsyn’s warnings about the dangers of Communist aggression and the weakening of the moral fiber of the West were generally well received in conservative circles in the West, and fit very well with the toughening-up of foreign policy under Reagan. But liberals and secularists were increasingly critical of what they perceived as his reactionary preference for Russian patriotism and the Russian Orthodox religion. He also harshly criticised what he saw as the ugliness and spiritual vapidity of the dominant pop culture of the modern West, including television and rock music: “...the human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits...by TV stupor and by intolerable music.””

Not the thoughts of an idiot.


30 posted on 07/25/2007 5:48:43 PM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: sittnick

“Okay, so he is against George Soros-type funding of unrest. “

George Soros? Youre spouting the Kremlin party line too and now we have your number.


31 posted on 07/25/2007 5:56:00 PM PDT by spanalot
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To: GeorgefromGeorgia
“Solzhenitsyn once said when he just had come to America that there were more Marxists in Western Universities than in the Soviet Union”

Wow.

I wish I knew exactly what he was referring to in the article when he said... “In my last Western interview before I returned to Russia (for Forbes magazine in April 1994) I said: “If we look far into the future, one can see a time in the 21st century when both Europe and the USA will be in dire need of Russia as an ally.”

He’s got to mean Islam... or China.

32 posted on 07/25/2007 5:56:08 PM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: PetroniusMaximus

“The U.S. has a strange idea of democracy,” continued Solzhenitsyn. “They first interfered with the Bosnian situation, bombed Yugoslavia, then Afghanistan, and then Iraq. Who is next? Perhaps Iran?”

Let’s hear you chirp now. Or do you too support the Muslims and their killing more on 9/11 than Pearl Harbor.


33 posted on 07/25/2007 5:59:50 PM PDT by spanalot
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To: spanalot

With all due respect: Solzhenitsyn is a patriot, a genius, and a hero. His writings alone have made more of an impact for good in this world than everything you have ever done combined.

Shame on you for disparaging the name of this great and good man.


34 posted on 07/25/2007 6:11:57 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: B-Chan

Read 33 - he is no friend of my country and he supports the murdering thug Putin under the pretense of making “Mother Russia” stronger.


35 posted on 07/25/2007 6:37:37 PM PDT by spanalot
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To: spanalot

“They first interfered with the Bosnian situation, bombed Yugoslavia,”

I agree with him that the USA had no business Yugoslavia. The Bosnian affair was a CYA event for Bill. On the other two I disagree. But that doesn’t make him an “idiot”. He is most assuredly not an idiot.

His criticisms of Western culture show that he’s no knee jerk pro-Western hack. The West deserves criticism. It would do well to listen to what Solzhenitsyn had to say. And YOU would do well to go back and look at what he had to say regarding the Veitnam war.

“Or do you too support the Muslims and their killing more on 9/11 than Pearl Harbor.”

With a silly comment like that, I conclude that out back-and-forth best come to and end.


36 posted on 07/25/2007 6:41:22 PM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: spanalot

Oh, so anyone who disagrees with the administration is “no friend of the country”? Well, better put me down on that list, too. Although I support the Iraq adventure, I disagree vehemently with the current administration on a wide variety of topics.

Solzhenitsyn is a patriot — a Russian patriot. Putin’s not my idea of a good guy, either, but the Russians like him, and as long as he’s not being overtly aggressive towards the U.S. or our allies, or committing crimes against humanity, how he runs Russia is the Russian people’s problem, not mine.


37 posted on 07/25/2007 7:05:54 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: spanalot

He is a Russian patriot, always has been. Do you think it is wrong to love your country?

Solzhenitsyn is probably the greatest living writer on earth.


38 posted on 07/25/2007 8:06:53 PM PDT by Vietnam Vet From New Mexico (Rock The Casbah (said the little AC130 gunship))
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To: Feldkurat_Katz
Wow. Great article!

Thank you for the post.

39 posted on 07/25/2007 8:43:15 PM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: spanalot
Either you didn't read the article... or you are....???????? I don't know what.

Solzhenitsyn is a treasure of wisdom, and not just for Russians.

40 posted on 07/25/2007 8:46:18 PM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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