Do we really need to read his books to understand the evil that occurred? Not really. And I say this as history is full of events and experiences like this. Remembering them or not has no lasting impact.
Morals, ethics, and all are more important, which is why we don't have things like this in the US. Lose these, then yes, we too may experience this.
Beyond excerpts, I have never read his books, have zero interest in reading them, and would never put them on a reading list for anyone else. Just the facts.
You’re being rather dismissive. Solzhenitsyn wrote about the Gulag Archipelago from experience of ten years in it. Not just being there but recalling the millions of lives wrecked or snuffed out by the evil system that they were caught in.
His books were memorials to all those lives. After Stalin croaked and people were liberated from the labor camps, survivors started a ritual where photos of victims were laid out on a table in someone’s flat; survivors filed in and gazed at them and spoke in low tones like a memorial service. Then they left silently.
If Solzhenitsyn is forgotten both in Russia and here, it’s poverty for both peoples. Yes, I read his works back in the seventies and it was heavy going to be sure. The Russians, Germans, and Japanese all seek to forget their own history and for selfish reasons.
Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 Harvard speech was panned all around because he was warning America, don’t let this happen to you and it will happen if you don’t wake up. Liberty is temporary, not to be taken for granted, and never to be given up without a fight. We should at least heed those who have already been there.