Posted on 08/03/2008 7:20:26 PM PDT by Nextrush
Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who exposed Stalin's prison system in his novels and spent 20 years in exile, has died near Moscow at the age of 89.
The author of The Gulag Archipelago and One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, who returned to Russia in 1994, died of either a stroke or heart failure.....
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent his condolences to the writer's family, a Kremlin spokesperson said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy described as "one of the greatest consciences of 20th Century Russia."
"His intransigence, his ideals and his long, eventful life make of Solzhenitsyn a storybook figure, heir to Dostoyevsky," he said in a statement.
Solzhenitsyn served as a Soviet artillery officer in World War II and was decorated for his courage but in 1945 was denounced for criticising Stalin in a letter.
He spent the next eight years in the Soviet prison system, or Gulag, before being internally exiled to Kazakhstan, where was successfully treated for stomach cancer.
Publication in 1962 of the novella Denisovich, an account of a day in a Gulag prisoner's life, made him a celebrity during the post-Stalin political thaw.
However, within a decade, the writer awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature was out of favor again for his work....
In 1973, the first of the three volumes of Archipelago, a detailed account of the sytematic Soviet abuses from 1918 to 1956 in the vast network of its prison and labour camps, was published in the West...
Early in 1974, the Soviet authorities stripped him of his citizenship and expelled him from the country.
He settled in Vermont, in the USA, where he completed the other two volumes of Archipelago.
While living there as a recluse, he railed against what he saw as the moral corruption of the West.....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
His denunciation of the West was rooted in his knowledge that the liberals and progressives who populated it were just "Soviets" with different labels attached to them.
Yeah, I read a few weeks ago that he was sick with a cold.
A cold today, the Gulags re-open tomorrow.
I remember seeing this movie at one time. It was excellent. Wish I could get a copy of it.
We’re too advanced, too civilized for the Gulags of yesteryear, mk. Today’s Gulags are ostracism, loss of job, for politically incorrect views or behaviour. That’s quite enough, the commissars have discovered, to impose adherence to correct views.
I studied One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, for Russian Lit back in college...
Amazing story...
A true giant, who pointed out the dangers of both godless Soviet Communism and soulless Western materialism.
http://www.amazon.com/One-Day-Life-Ivan-Denisovich/dp/6301021029/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=video&qid=1217817664&sr=8-4
Hopefully, there will be a foundation or other organization to step up to the plate and ensure this great man is never forgotten much as Young American's Foundation has done for Ronald W. Reagan.
Bump to the top
Bummer. He was a visionary and above all an engaging novelist. The First Circle was a brilliant page-turner in addition to being the noble call of an oppressed soul.
Jimmah refused to honor him by inviting him to the White House.
Discomfort for some of today’s kids is having to use an older model computer, iPod, or cell phone...
Ooooooooooooooo
The shame...
the agony....
We have the longest life expectancy and the easiest existence of any humans throughout history. I am constantly amazed at the lengths people will go to feel miserable.
My computer in school was a slide rule. LOL
I read it and reported on it for my 10th Grade English class back in the 70’s.
Another giant is lost. RIP.
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