SOLZHENITSYN: A SOUL IN EXILE- Book Review by Freeper Rebuildus!

New Oxford Review ^ | April 2002 | Patrick Rooney

[abigail2]

All I can say is that you MUST READ THIS BOOK if your love liberty, truth and justice. If you want to be inspired, if you want to know what one human being is capable of READ THIS BOOK. THE ONLY AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF SOLZHENITSYN IN EXISTENCE!! Thank you rebuildus for this great review, although I know you were constricted by space from going into more detail...I will here! I love Alexander Solzhenitsyn and so will you I gaurantee!! (Quotes from this book to follow).

[Luis Gonzalez]

Thanks for posting this.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

non breaking news....non interesting on top of that

[abigail2]

"The Soviet persecution of the Orthodox Church had now begun in earnest. Over the the following weeks and months there were a further twenty-two church trial in the provinces"..."The grim irony of the situation was that religious faith, technically speaking, was still not a crime. The crime was in mentioning it. In the twenties, for instance, the religious education of children was classified as a political offence under Article 58-10 of the Code-in other words, counter-revolutionary propaganda."

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[ppaul]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

[RBroadfoot]

Thanks much for posting this.

I can very much appreciate the comparison with comic book heroes: as a profound intellectual, the man's life has truly been THAT great.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is indeed more than a hero: he is a great novelist in the Russian tradition. I heartily recommend "August 1914" to anyone who wishes to truly understand the genesis of the Russian revolution and "Gulag Archipegalo" and "Day in the Life of Ivan Desonovich" to understand its consequences.

[Raymond Hendrix]

I agree. He is a man among men. I will never forget him.

[LarryLied]

our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine, they are departing from humanity.

The sentiment of a person of deep Christian faith. As is this from Solzhenitsyn:

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passed not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”
The Gulag Archipelago

[abigail2]

"but I could not make the connection between the lack of bread and the ruin of the countryside, or understand why it had happened. We were provided with another formula: 'temporary difficulties'. Every nite in the large town where we lived, hour after hour after hour people were being hauled off to jail-but I did not walk the streets at nite. And in the daytime the families of those arrested hung out no black flags, nor did my classmates say a word about their fathers being taken away.

According to the newspapers there wasn't a cloud in the sky. And young men are so eager to believe that all is well."

The fact that they used to say everything at home and never shielded me from anything decided my destiny. Generally speaking...if you want to know the pivotal point of my life, you have to understand that I received such a charge of social tension in childhood that it pushed everything else to one side and diminished it...inside me I bore this social tension-on the one hand they used to tell me everything at home, and on the other they used to work on our minds at school. Those were militant times, not like today...And so this collison between two worlds..somehow defined the path I was to follow for the rest of my life."

[abigail2]

Thank you. I really feel that Solzhenitsyn is one of the most remarkable men of this century. I surely feel ashamed when I read him.

[ppaul]

I remember watching a documentary on PBS "FRONTLINE" called The Homecoming.
Here's a little blurb about it I found on the net:

In February 1974, Nobel prize-winning author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was arrested, stripped of his Soviet citizenship, and expelled from his country. Nearly twenty years after exiling himself in Vermont, FRONTLINE accompanies Solzhenitsyn on his emotional return to his homeland, journeying by train across Russia into his past even as his thoughts turn toward the current troubles plaguing Russia. Followed--and often frustrated by--leagues of journalists, photographers, and camera crews, Solzhenitsyn urges the factory workers, businessmen, and ordinary villagers he meets along the way to have courage.

It's an awesome documentary that will bring tears to your eyes and make your heart ache.
But I'll be darned if I can find out how to purchase a copy of it anywhere.

[abigail2]

I put this in 'breaking news' because it is SO relevant to what our young people are going through today. Solzhenitsyn was a Bolshevik until his imprisonment and 'awakening', he was a war hero and a great admirer of Lenin. His schooling made him cast aside his religion, even though he came from a good, religious family. He tells exactly how that happened. We need to hear this if we are to save our young people from the brainwashing they are receiving.

If you are 'uninterested', well, I feel sorry for you. You are in for some big surprises in life.

[abigail2]

My favorites are "One Day...", "The First Circle", and especially "Cancer Ward". Thank you!

[abigail2]

Thanks for the picture ppaul...

[abigail2]

He has been one of my favorite authors for many years. I sort of forgot him til this review by rebuildus. It just struck such a cord in me of what we are in for if we don't wake up...

"Solzhenitsyn bowed under the combined force of peer pressure, and Soviet propaganda, turning his back on the 'reactionary' teachings of his family and embracing Marxist dogma...Soviet education ...as part of its indoctrination strrategy, had virtually abolished the teaching of history except in a highly selective and slanted way, and replaced it with propaganda and ideological training. Faced with such unscrupulous ingenuity the youth of Russia quickly succumbed to the mythology surrounding the Revolution...so it was that Solzhenitsyn, and his schoolfriends learned to 'wave flags, beat drrums, blow trumpet's, taking their place in the ranks of those destined to 'complete the Revolution'.

[LarryLied]

This was not well received:

Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Address

[abigail2]

"And on the whole, do you now, I have become convinced that there is no punishment that comes to us in this live on earth which is undeserved. Superficially it can have nothing to do with what we are guilty of of in actual fact, but if you go over your life with a fine-tooth comb and ponder it deeply, you will always be able to hunt down that transgression of your for which you have now received this blow."

When did I so utterly, totally,
Strew the good grain like chaff to the winds
And shun those same temples where all through my youth
I was lulled by Your radiant hymns?

My dazzling book-garnered wisdom proved more than
This arrogant brain could withstand
The world with its secrets spread open before me
And Fate was but wax in my hands.

Each new surge of blood as it pounded within me
Lured me on with its shimmering hues.
While the faith in my heart, like a building deserted,
Crumbled, soundless and slipped into rruin.

But picking my way between life and extinction,
Now falling, now scrambling back,
I gaze through new eyes at the life I once followed
And gazing, I shudder with thanks.

It was not my own intellect, not my desiring
That illumedeach twist in my path
But the still, even light of a Higher design,
That only with time I could grasp.

And now, as I sip with new-found moderation
From the life-giving waters-I see
Taht my faith is restored, O Lord of Creation!
I renounced You, but You stood by me."

[abigail2]

I'd love to see it. In "Soul in Exile" his son talks about taking that trip with him. (On top of everything else-he raised three remarkable boys).

[abigail2]

Thanks for the link LL...I read about it in Pearce's book and remember hearing about it.

[Samwise]

Thanks for the post. Ignore stuck_in_new_orleans; some people can't follow articles that don't have balloons and cartoon figures.