Posted on 08/05/2008 5:25:39 PM PDT by xp38
In 1949 a publication of the Soviet Academy of Sciences carried an item about a bizarre incident that occurred during excavations near the Kolyma River in the gold-mining region of northeastern Siberia. A subterranean stream was discovered, frozen long ago, containing fish and salamanders tens of thousands of years old. They were so well preserved that the men who discovered the stream broke open the ice and ate them. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who died on Sunday at the age of 89, managed somehow to read that piece.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
In 1949 some friends and I came upon a noteworthy news item in Nature, a magazine of the Academy of Sciences. It reported in tiny type that in the course of excavations on the Kolyma River a subterranean ice lens had been discovered which was actually a frozen stream—and in it were found frozen specimens of prehistoric fauna some tens of thousands of years old. Whether fish or salamander, these were preserved in so fresh a state, the scientific correspondent reported, that those present immediately broke open the ice encasing the specimens and devoured them with relish on the spot.The magazine no doubt astonished its small audience with the news of how successfully the flesh of fish could be kept fresh in a frozen state. But few, indeed, among its readers were able to decipher the genuine and heroic meaning of this incautious report.
As for us, however—we understood instantly. We could picture the entire scene right down to the smallest details: how those present broke up the ice in frenzied haste; how, flouting the higher claims of ichthyology and elbowing each other to be first, they tore chunks of the prehistoric flesh and hauled them over to the bonfire to thaw them out and bolt them down.
We understood because we ourselves were the same kind of people as those present at that event. We, too, were from that powerful tribe of zeks, unique on the face of the earth, the only people who could devour prehistoric salamander with relish.
— The Gulag Archipelago, Part I, Preface.
“An enemy of communism, he was never the friend of capitalism, or of the West in general. Freedom in the West, he said, was corrupted by greed, pornography and the denial of spiritual values. Western commentators accused him of being nostalgic for czarism and suggested that his works contained elements of anti-Semitism. He denied both.
In recent years he has been only occasionally discussed, but no one will ever be able to write a history of the 20th century without dealing with him. He did more than any other Russian to discredit his government. And for at least a dozen years, beginning in 1962, he seemed nothing less than the bravest man in the world.”
His speech to Harvard is worth reading as well, if you can find a copy. Funny to realize how many people today don’t have any idea of who Solzhenitsyn is.
I have not read Gulag, except in short excepts. Maybe its time.
"We, too, were from that powerful tribe of zeks, unique on the face of the earth, the only people who could devour prehistoric salamander with relish."With one word, "zeks," so much comes flashing back of what I read 30+ years ago.
Whatever your beliefs, Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (12/11/1918-8/03/2008), Requiescat in Pace. You have done the world a huge favor.
It’s long past time. If it gets hard going, read his fiction. The First Circle, Cancer Ward, other stuff.
And he was (and is) right on all counts!
I ended up liking the book and began exploring books by authors who also had names that were hard to pronounce.
But seriously, I think a big part of Russia's problem is that they have too many words that are hard to spell so people just throw up their hands and drink vodka instead, while allowing the government to run things for them (and run them badly).
Thank goodness for the English language and words that are mostly easy to pronounce and spell. That is why we are the superior culture, though admittedly we do have to work on that greed, pornography and the denial of spiritual values thing.
Sometimes I think things are starting to get double-plus-ungood around here.
Well maybe we can elect McCain and things will only be half-as-bad as they could have been.
He was an enemy of communism, that ensured his being mostly ignored in the press and academia.
I had to read Ivan Desinovich in college. My history teacher was more conservative than I knew at the time.
The real worth of The Gulag Archipelago is that at no point does it allow the reader to be desensitized to the appalling and endless brutality. Man without God is an animal; a Godless man with ideology is a monster. Solzhenitsyn showed us that, and the monsters cursed him for it.
Well he was famous enough during the Reagan years, certainly on par with Lech Walensa. More than that really, since he combined a courageous moral authority with worldwide reknown as an author.
I think some on the American Right lost interest in him when he criticized the materialism of the West in his Harvard speech. And of course once Communism collapsed the immediate target of his work ceased to exist.
Then you really would have enjoyed Bill Buckley’s old pal Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.
Solzhenitsyn’s books were one of several things in the 1970’s that started me on my path from left wing radical to conservative Christian. He will be missed. To paraphase a line from Kipling’s Gunda Din “Aleksandr you were a better man than I”
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