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 ...
Spare me. That is a world of difference from having a Chaika show up in the middle of the night, put you on a train and take you to a camp in the middle of nowhere, with little food, daily beatings, and a high probability of death.
Actually, I believe that was Gerald Ford.
I disagree. While his works may have been powerful, he had virtually no role in the demise of the USSR.
You spare me, Captain Obvious, missing the point entirely.
Which was how advanced, humane and civilized we have become in controlling behaviour to toe the politically correct line. Imagine yourself losing a job at 50, for being politically incorrect in some way. But then, you’d never understand.
You never know who you are speaking to here, but those who have been there and experienced it, can see the similarities and are able to make comparisons.
Neither do you know who you are speaking to.
I have relatives who lived in the USSR. I have relatives who were sent to the gulag, the youngest, at age 12, where he was beaten with a club when he didn’t cut his alloted timber for the day. My 18 year old cousin entered the gulag a virgin, and was raped daily for 2 years.
One of their neighbors was denounced to the NKVD for naming his son “Paul” because it was a Biblical name. He was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to 25 years in the gulag for this crime. He didn’t make it there, though. He was shot before arriving.
So yeah, I guess that really compares, on any level, to political correctness or losing your job in a country full of opportunity.
And I am Anastasia. I win!
A history buff you are not. The bodies of Alexey and Anastasia were found.
I find it very chilling that someone could even begin to compare the United States with the evils of the USSR. It is disgusting and ignores the tragedy of tens of millions of souls who perished at the hands of brutal killers.
But then again, PETA compared chicken farms with Holocaust victims, so why should I be surprised at the ignorance, nihilism, and idiocy that should be taken for granted today?
Yeah, but I’m pretty sure you don’t.
I got your so called “point”. I just objected to its stupidity and moral repugnance.
But go ahead, keep posting. Dance on the souls of the 25 million plus dead, sacrificed on the alter of communism.
Maybe "we" are not...but others haven't been recently, and aren't now.
At least this last idiotic exchange with the melodramatic and clueless Captain Obvious pushed this thread to the top and to over 50 replies. Compare it with threads about Bubba Klintoon catching cold or a Hollywood actor having an automobile accident. To quote Bob Dole, where is the outrage of the Drama Queens?
HAHAHA.
What is wrong with this picture?
Equating losing a job/political correctness to death in a labor camp = “no drama, just the facts ma’am” in RC’s world.
Pointing out RC’s loathsome and repulsive immoral compass in equating the US with the USSR = “drama queen”.
Uh, right . . .
Corrected........
Sorry
That's all right. A well known writer of Solzhenitsyn's generation, who experienced both systems, said at about the age of 90 that nothing in history ever changes, which is how we can make historical comparisons, that so offend clueless drama queens. The dead are dead, and I'm not going to cite my own family's history to prove any points or to attack anyone, no thanks, but as we in the United States move toward a more invasive state, we too employ methods of coercion, that as I said, are quite civilized and humane, but methods of coercion and intimidation they are. Case in point: articles in the press advise males not to get involved helping children who appear lost. Case in point: ask Gerald Amirault how he feels about the Soviet Gulags, which closed, when, 50 years ago?
Again your ignorance is just absolutely astonishing. The gulags were in operation until the mid 1980’s. In fact, several dissidents died in the zones in the mid 1980’s. The accounts I revealed were from the 1960’s.
You cannot make a valid historical comparison between a totalitarian state in which 1 in 5 people were informers and a democratic nation.
If “coercion” and “intimidation” were as profound as you proclaim, you would not be posting here.
Flaws in the judicial system are not equivalent to a country with a legal system totally subservient to the state.
The fact that you just don’t get it is, though, perhaps, as big an indictment of
We should also remember in all of this that Solzhenitsyn was an informant for 20 years. In this sense, he was not a moral giant, but we don’t know what he endured to break him.
You win, you’re superior, your goal accomplished, now go away!
. . . post dropped
is a big indictment of the US educational system.
Why should I go away? Because you don’t want to acknowledge the truth?
It is because of people like you, moral relativists, that these evils can continue to be perpetrated.
Yes, the US is not perfect. But unlike say, tens of millions of dead peasants, or almost the entire Bashkir nation (about 95% died when transported to the gulags), you have a choice. You can get off your ass, give up your anonymity here, form a group, and lobby for changes to “the system”. No, it won’t happen overnight, but with enough momentum, it will.
That is the beauty of America. You should recognize, cherish, and preserve it through action.
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