Posted on 07/25/2007 1:38:48 PM PDT by Feldkurat_Katz
'I Am Not Afraid of Death'
In an interview with SPIEGEL, prominent Russian writer and Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn discusses Russia's turbulent history, Putin's version of democracy and his attitude to life and death.
SPIEGEL: Alexander Isayevich, when we came in we found you at work. It seems that even at the age of 88 you still feel this need to work, even though your health doesn't allow you to walk around your home. What do you derive your strength from?
Solzhenitsyn: I have always had that inner drive, since my birth. And I have always devoted myself gladly to work -- to work and to the struggle.
SPIEGEL: There are four tables in this space alone. In your new book "My American Years," which will be published in Germany this fall, you recollect that you used to write even while walking in the forest.
Solzhenitsyn: When I was in the gulag I would sometimes even write on stone walls. I used to write on scraps of paper, then I memorized the contents and destroyed the scraps.
SPIEGEL: And your strength did not leave you even in moments of enormous desperation?
Solzhenitsyn: Yes. I would often think: Whatever the outcome is going to be, let it be. And then things would turn out all right. It looks like some good came out of it.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Well said, GeorgefromGeorgia. :-)
Here is a recent Solzhenitsyn gem.
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.
This is not your father’s SOLZHENITSYN.
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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.”
“I would think most of the victims of the Gulag would have been Russophiles as well.”
No - they were Ukrainian, Asian, and even German.
I agree as well
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.
“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.
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!
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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.
“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.
“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.
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.
“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.
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.
Read 33 - he is no friend of my country and he supports the murdering thug Putin under the pretense of making “Mother Russia” stronger.
“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.
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.
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.
Thank you for the post.
Solzhenitsyn is a treasure of wisdom, and not just for Russians.
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