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 ...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-496003,00.html
Interesting to see how Solzhenitsyn views the 1990s and US policies during those years.
He is an idiot Russophile and is a disgrace to his fellow victims in the gulag.
bump
for your list
What a face he has!
“He is an idiot Russophile”
From the article... “Nevertheless, I dare hope that this unhealthy phase will soon be over, that all the peoples who have lived through communism will understand that communism is to blame for the bitter pages of their history.”
“Although many fortunes were amassed in Yeltsin’s times by ransacking, the only reasonable way to correct the situation today is not to go after big businesses — the present owners are trying to run them as effectively as they can — but to give breathing room to medium and small businesses. That means protecting citizens and small entrepreneurs from arbitrary rule and from corruption.”
Sounds like a fairy clear-headed gentleman to me.
excellent!
gracias.
>>>>But allow me to correct you: the “October Revolution” is a myth generated by the winners, the Bolsheviks, and swallowed whole by progressive circles in the West. On Oct. 25, 1917, a violent 24-hour coup d’etat took place in Petrograd. It was brilliantly and thoroughly planned by Leon Trotsky — Lenin was still in hiding then to avoid being brought to justice for treason. What we call “the Russian Revolution of 1917” was actually the February Revolution.
The reasons driving this revolution do indeed have their source in Russia’s pre-revolutionary condition, and I have never stated otherwise. The February Revolution had deep roots — I have shown that in “The Red Wheel.” First among these was the long-term mutual distrust between those in power and the educated society, a bitter distrust that rendered impossible any compromise, any constructive solutions for the state. And the greatest responsibility, then, of course falls on the authorities: Who if not the captain is to blame for a shipwreck? So you may indeed say that the February Revolution in its causes was “the results of the previous Russian political regime.”
But this does not mean that Lenin was “an accidental person” by any means; or that the financial participation of Emperor Wilhelm was inconsequential. There was nothing natural for Russia in the October Revolution. Rather, the revolution broke Russia’s back. The Red Terror unleashed by its leaders, their willingness to drown Russia in blood, is the first and foremost proof of it.
SPIEGEL: All your life you have called on the authorities to repent for the millions of victims of the gulag and communist terror. Was this call really heard?
Solzhenitsyn: I have grown used to the fact that, throughout the world, public repentance is the most unacceptable option for the modern politician.”
I daresay the old Russophile is dead on.
The events in October were originally called by the Bolsheviks the “Oktyabrskiy Perevorot”, and “perevorot” translates better as “coup d’etat” or “putsch”. So originally even the Bolsheviks did not see their takeover of power in the same light as the February Revolution. It was only years later that they attempted to make it co-equal by changing the name to “Oktyabrskiy Revolyutsiya”. So Solzhenitsyn is making a distinction that even the Bolsheviks made before they started rewriting history.
Er, he’s a Russian. Its perfectly all right for him to be a Russophile. He has his nationalist point of view. He may be wrong (on Putin, say) but this is an honest error.
I would think most of the victims of the Gulag would have been Russophiles as well.
not to mention the american bolsheviks today.
there’s an academic art history journal called “october”.
A truly great man and writer and someone who has had a huge influence on my life. It’s good to see he’s still active and productive.
He is Russian. You are idiot.
Yes, but why stoop to flattery?
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