Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous
Soviet dissident
Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term ''dissident'' was used in the Soviet Union in the period from the mid-1960s until ...
s, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...
and helped to raise global awareness of
political repression in the Soviet Union
Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, tens of millions of people suffered political repression, which was an instrument of the state since the October Revolution. It culminated during the Stalin era, then declined, but it continued to exist ...
, in particular the
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
system.
Solzhenitsyn was born into a family that defied the
Soviet anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and remained devout members of the
Russian Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
. While still young, Solzhenitsyn lost his faith in Christianity, became an atheist, and embraced
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various c ...
. While serving as a captain in the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by the
SMERSH
SMERSH (russian: СМЕРШ) was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Josep ...
and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag and then
internal exile for criticizing Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
in a private letter. As a result of his experience in prison and the camps, he gradually became a philosophically-minded Eastern Orthodox Christian.
As a result of the
Khrushchev Thaw, Solzhenitsyn was released and exonerated. He pursued writing novels about repressions in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and his experiences. He published his first novel, ''
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' (russian: links=no, italics=yes, Один день Ивана Денисовича, Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha, ) is a short novel by the Russian writer and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first p ...
'' in 1962, with approval from Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
, which was an account of Stalinist repressions. Solzhenitsyn's last work to be published in the Soviet Union was ''
Matryona's Place
''Matryona's Place'' (russian: link=no, Матрёнин двор), sometimes translated as ''Matryona's Home'' (or House), is a novella written in 1959 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. First published by Aleksandr Tvardovsky in the Russian literary jo ...
'' in 1963. Following the removal of Khrushchev from power, the Soviet authorities attempted to discourage Solzhenitsyn from continuing to write. He continued to work on further novels and their publication in other countries including ''
Cancer Ward
''Cancer Ward'' (russian: links=no, italics=yes, Раковый корпус, Rakovy korpus) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Completed in 1966, the novel was distributed in Russia t ...
'' in 1966, ''
In the First Circle
''In the First Circle'' (russian: link=no, italics=yes, В круге первом, V kruge pervom; also published as ''The First Circle'') is a novel by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, released in 1968. A more complete version of the boo ...
'' in 1968, ''
August 1914'' in 1971, and ''
The Gulag Archipelago
''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr So ...
'' in 1973, the publication of which outraged the Soviet authorities. In 1974 Solzhenitsyn lost his Soviet citizenship and was flown to
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
. In 1976, he moved with his family to the United States, where he continued to write. In 1990, shortly before the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, his citizenship was restored, and four years later he returned to Russia, where he remained until his death in 2008.
He was awarded the
1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature",
and ''The Gulag Archipelago'' was a highly influential work that "amounted to a head-on challenge to the Soviet state", and sold tens of millions of copies.
Biography
Early years
Solzhenitsyn was born in
Kislovodsk
Kislovodsk (russian: Кислово́дск, lit. ''sour waters''; ; krc, Ачысуу) is a spa city in Stavropol Krai, Russia, in the North Caucasus region of Russia which is located between the Black and Caspian Seas.
Population:
History ...
(now in
Stavropol Krai, Russia). His father, Isaakiy Semyonovich Solzhenitsyn, was of Russian descent and his mother, Taisiya Zakharovna (née Shcherbak), was of Ukrainian descent. Taisiya's father had risen from humble beginnings to become a wealthy landowner, acquiring a large estate in the
Kuban region in the northern foothills of the
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...
and during World War I, Taisiya had gone to Moscow to study. While there she met and married Isaakiy, a young officer in the
Imperial Russian Army of
Cossack origin and fellow native of the Caucasus region. The family background of his parents is vividly brought to life in the opening chapters of ''August 1914'', and in the later ''
Red Wheel'' novels.
In 1918, Taisiya became pregnant with Aleksandr. On 15 June, shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed, Isaakiy was killed in a hunting accident. Aleksandr was raised by his widowed mother and his aunt in lowly circumstances. His earliest years coincided with the
Russian Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Russian Civil War
, partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I
, image =
, caption = Clockwise from top left:
{{flatlist,
*Soldiers ...
. By 1930 the family property had been turned into a
collective farm. Later, Solzhenitsyn recalled that his mother had fought for survival and that they had to keep his father's background in the old Imperial Army a secret. His educated mother encouraged his literary and scientific learnings and raised him in the
Russian Orthodox
Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most ...
faith; she died in 1944 having never remarried.
As early as 1936, Solzhenitsyn began developing the characters and concepts for planned epic work on
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and the
Russian Revolution. This eventually led to the novel ''August 1914''; some of the chapters he wrote then still survive. Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics and physics at
Rostov State University
Southern Federal University (), abbreviated as SFedU () and formerly known as Rostov State University (1957–2006), is a public university in Rostov Oblast, Russia with campuses in Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog
Taganrog ( rus, Таганр ...
. At the same time, he took correspondence courses from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History, which by this time were heavily ideological in scope. As he himself makes clear, he did not question the state ideology or the superiority of the Soviet Union until he spent time in the camps.
World War II
During the war, Solzhenitsyn served as the commander of a
sound-ranging
In land warfare, artillery sound ranging is a method of determining the coordinates of a hostile battery using data derived from the sound of its guns (or mortar or rockets) firing. The same methods can also be used to direct artillery fire at ...
battery in the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
, was involved in major action at the front, and was twice decorated. He was awarded the
Order of the Red Star on 8 July 1944 for sound-ranging two German artillery batteries and adjusting counterbattery fire onto them, resulting in their destruction.
A series of writings published late in his life, including the early uncompleted novel ''Love the Revolution!'', chronicle his wartime experience and growing doubts about the moral foundations of the Soviet regime.
While serving as an artillery officer in
East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn witnessed
war crimes against local German civilians by Soviet military personnel. Of the atrocities, Solzhenitsyn wrote: "You know very well that we've come to Germany to take our revenge" for
Nazi atrocities committed in the Soviet Union. The noncombatants and the elderly were robbed of their meager possessions and
women and girls were gang-raped. A few years later, in the forced labor camp, he memorized a poem titled "
Prussian Nights
''Prussian Nights'' (russian: links=no, Прусские ночи) is a long poem by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who served as a captain in the Soviet Red Army during the Second World War. Prussian Nights describes the Red Army's march across East ...
" about a woman raped to death in East Prussia. In this poem, which describes the gang-rape of a Polish woman whom the Red Army soldiers mistakenly thought to be a German, the first-person narrator comments on the events with sarcasm and refers to the responsibility of official Soviet writers like
Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (russian: link=no, Илья́ Григо́рьевич Эренбу́рг, ; – August 31, 1967) was a Soviet writer, revolutionary, journalist and historian.
Ehrenburg was among the most prolific and notable autho ...
.
In ''
The Gulag Archipelago
''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr So ...
'', Solzhenitsyn wrote, "There is nothing that so assists the awakening of omniscience within us as insistent thoughts about one's own transgressions, errors, mistakes. After the difficult cycles of such ponderings over many years, whenever I mentioned the heartlessness of our highest-ranking bureaucrats, the cruelty of our executioners, I remember myself in my Captain's shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: 'So were ''we'' any better?'"
Imprisonment
In February 1945, while serving in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by
SMERSH
SMERSH (russian: СМЕРШ) was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Josep ...
for writing derogatory comments in private letters to a friend, Nikolai Vitkevich,
[ Ericson (2008) p. 10] about the conduct of the war by
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, whom he called "
Khozyain" ("the boss"), and "Balabos" (Yiddish rendering of Hebrew ''baal ha-bayit'' for "master of the house"). He also had talks with the same friend about the need for a new organization to replace the Soviet regime.
Solzhenitsyn was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda under
Article 58
Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times. In particular, its Article 58-1 was updated by the listed sub-articles and ...
, paragraph 10 of the Soviet criminal code, and of "founding a hostile organization" under paragraph 11. Solzhenitsyn was taken to the
Lubyanka prison in Moscow, where he was interrogated. On 9 May 1945, it was announced that Germany had surrendered and all of Moscow broke out in celebrations with fireworks and searchlights illuminating the sky to celebrate the victory in the Great Patriotic War. From his cell in the Lubyanka, Solzhenitsyn remembered: "Above the muzzle of our window, and from all the other cells of the Lubyanka, and from all the windows of the Moscow prisons, we too, former prisoners of war and former front-line soldiers, watched the Moscow heavens, patterned with fireworks and crisscrossed with beams of searchlights. There was no rejoicing in our cells and no hugs and no kisses for us. That victory was not ours." On 7 July 1945, he was sentenced in his absence by
Special Council of the NKVD
Special Council of the USSR NKVD (Особое совещание при НКВД СССР, ОСО) was created by the same decree of Sovnarkom of July 10, 1934 that introduced the NKVD itself. By the decree, the Special Council was endowed with t ...
to an eight-year term in a
labour camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
. This was the normal sentence for most crimes under Article 58 at the time.
The first part of Solzhenitsyn's sentence was served in several work camps; the "middle phase", as he later referred to it, was spent in a ''
sharashka
A Special Design Bureau (, ''osoboje konstruktorskoe bûro''; ОКБ), commonly informally known as a ''sharashka'' (russian: шара́шка, ; sometimes ''sharaga'', ''sharazhka'') was any of several secret research and development laboratories ...
'' (a special scientific research facility run by Ministry of State Security), where he met
Lev Kopelev
Lev Zalmanovich (Zinovyevich) Kopelev (russian: Лев Залма́нович (Зино́вьевич) Ко́пелев, German: Lew Sinowjewitsch Kopelew, 9 April 1912, Kyiv – 18 June 1997, Cologne) was a Soviet author and dissident.
Early ...
, upon whom he based the character of Lev Rubin in his book ''
The First Circle
''In the First Circle'' (russian: link=no, italics=yes, В круге первом, V kruge pervom; also published as ''The First Circle'') is a novel by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, released in 1968. A more complete version of the boo ...
'', published in a self-censored or "distorted" version in the West in 1968 (an English translation of the full version was eventually published by Harper Perennial in October 2009). In 1950, Solzhenitsyn was sent to a "Special Camp" for political prisoners. During his imprisonment at the camp in the town of
Ekibastuz
Ekibastuz ( kk, Екібастұз, translit=Ekıbastūz, , ەكئباستۇز; russian: Экибастуз) is a city in Pavlodar Region, northeastern Kazakhstan. The population was Ekibastuz is served by Ekibastuz Airport.
History
The history ...
in Kazakhstan, he worked as a miner, bricklayer, and foundry foreman. His experiences at Ekibastuz formed the basis for the book ''
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' (russian: links=no, italics=yes, Один день Ивана Денисовича, Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha, ) is a short novel by the Russian writer and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first p ...
''. One of his fellow political prisoners,
Ion Moraru, remembers that Solzhenitsyn spent some of his time at Ekibastuz writing. While there, Solzhenitsyn had a tumor removed. His cancer was not diagnosed at the time.
In March 1953, after his sentence ended, Solzhenitsyn was sent to internal exile for life at
Birlik, a village in
Baidibek District of
South Kazakhstan
Turkistan Region (), formerly South Kazakhstan Region ( kk, Оңтүстік Қазақстан облысы, translit= Oñtüstık Qazaqstan oblysy) (russian: Южно-Казахстанская область, ') from 1992–2018 and Chimkent ...
. His undiagnosed cancer spread until, by the end of the year, he was close to death. In 1954, Solzhenitsyn was permitted to be treated in a hospital in
Tashkent
Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 2 ...
, where his tumor went into remission. His experiences there became the basis of his novel ''
Cancer Ward
''Cancer Ward'' (russian: links=no, italics=yes, Раковый корпус, Rakovy korpus) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Completed in 1966, the novel was distributed in Russia t ...
'' and also found an echo in the short story "The Right Hand."
It was during this decade of imprisonment and exile that Solzhenitsyn developed the philosophical and religious positions of his later life, gradually becoming a philosophically minded Eastern Orthodox Christian as a result of his experience in prison and the camps. He repented for some of his actions as a Red Army captain, and in prison compared himself to the perpetrators of the Gulag. His transformation is described at some length in the fourth part of ''
The Gulag Archipelago
''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr So ...
'' ("The Soul and Barbed Wire"). The narrative poem ''The Trail'' (written without benefit of pen or paper in prison and camps between 1947 and 1952) and the 28 poems composed in prison, forced-labour camp, and exile also provide crucial material for understanding Solzhenitsyn's intellectual and spiritual odyssey during this period. These "early" works, largely unknown in the West, were published for the first time in Russian in 1999 and excerpted in English in 2006.
Marriages and children
On 7 April 1940, while at the university, Solzhenitsyn married Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaya. They had just over a year of married life before he went into the army, then to the Gulag. They divorced in 1952, a year before his release because the wives of Gulag prisoners faced loss of work or residence permits. After the end of his internal exile, they remarried in 1957, divorcing a second time in 1972. Reshetovskaya wrote negatively of Solzhenitsyn in her memoirs, accusing him of having affairs, and said of the relationship that "
olzhenitsyns despotism ... would crush my independence and would not permit my personality to develop." In her 1974 memoir, ''Sanya: My Life with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn'', she wrote that she was "perplexed" that the West had accepted ''The Gulag Archipelago'' as "the solemn, ultimate truth", saying its significance had been "overestimated and wrongly appraised". Pointing out that the book's subtitle is "An Experiment in Literary Investigation", she said that her husband did not regard the work as "historical research, or scientific research". She contended that it was, rather, a collection of "camp folklore", containing "raw material" which her husband was planning to use in his future productions.
In 1973, Solzhenitsyn married his second wife, Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova, a mathematician who had a son, Dmitri Turin, from a brief prior marriage. He and Svetlova (born 1939) had three sons: Yermolai (1970),
Ignat (1972), and Stepan (1973). Dmitri Turin died on 18 March 1994, aged 32, at his home in New York City.
After prison
After
Khrushchev's Secret Speech in 1956, Solzhenitsyn was freed from exile and
exonerated
Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially w ...
. Following his return from exile, Solzhenitsyn was, while teaching at a secondary school during the day, spending his nights secretly engaged in writing. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech he wrote that "during all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared this would become known."
In 1960, aged 42, Solzhenitsyn approached
Aleksandr Tvardovsky
Aleksandr Trifonovich Tvardovsky ( rus, links=no, Александр Трифонович Твардовский, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr ˈtrʲifənəvʲɪtɕ tvɐrˈdofskʲɪj; – 18 December 1971) was a Soviet poet and writer and chief editor of ' ...
, a poet and the chief editor of the ''Novy Mir'' magazine, with the manuscript of ''
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' (russian: links=no, italics=yes, Один день Ивана Денисовича, Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha, ) is a short novel by the Russian writer and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first p ...
''. It was published in edited form in 1962, with the explicit approval of
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
, who defended it at the presidium of the Politburo hearing on whether to allow its publication, and added: "There's a Stalinist in each of you; there's even a Stalinist in me. We must root out this evil." The book quickly sold out and became an instant hit.
In the 1960s, while Solzhenitsyn was publicly known to be writing ''Cancer Ward'', he was simultaneously writing ''The Gulag Archipelago''. During Khrushchev's tenure, ''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' was studied in schools in the Soviet Union, as were three more short works of Solzhenitsyn's, including his short story "
Matryona's Home", published in 1963. These would be the last of his works published in the Soviet Union until 1990.
''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' brought the Soviet system of prison labour to the attention of the West. It caused as much of a sensation in the Soviet Union as it did in the West—not only by its striking realism and candour, but also because it was the first major piece of Soviet literature since the 1920s on a politically charged theme, written by a non-party member, indeed a man who had been to Siberia for "libelous speech" about the leaders, and yet its publication had been officially permitted. In this sense, the publication of Solzhenitsyn's story was an almost unheard of instance of free, unrestrained discussion of politics through literature. However, after Khrushchev had been ousted from power in 1964, the time for such raw, exposing works came to an end.
Later years in the Soviet Union
Solzhenitsyn made an unsuccessful attempt, with the help of Tvardovsky, to have his novel ''Cancer Ward'' legally published in the Soviet Union. This required the approval of the
Union of Writers. Though some there appreciated it, the work was ultimately denied publication unless it was to be revised and cleaned of suspect statements and anti-Soviet insinuations.
After Khrushchev's removal in 1964, the cultural climate again became more repressive. Publishing of Solzhenitsyn's work quickly stopped; as a writer, he became a
non-person, and, by 1965, the
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
had seized some of his papers, including the manuscript of ''The First Circle''. Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn continued to secretly and feverishly work on the most well-known of his writings, ''The Gulag Archipelago''. The seizing of his novel manuscript first made him desperate and frightened, but gradually he realized that it had set him free from the pretenses and trappings of being an "officially acclaimed" writer, a status which had become familiar but which was becoming increasingly irrelevant.
After the KGB had confiscated Solzhenitsyn's materials in Moscow, during 1965–67, the preparatory drafts of ''
The Gulag Archipelago
''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr So ...
'' were turned into finished typescript in hiding at his friends' homes in
Soviet Estonia
The Estonian SSR,, russian: Эстонская ССР officially the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic,, russian: Эстонская Советская Социалистическая Республика was an ethnically based adminis ...
. Solzhenitsyn had befriended
Arnold Susi
Arnold Susi (; 4 January 1896 – 29 May 1968) was a lawyer and the Minister of Education in the Estonian government of Otto Tief established on 18 September 1944 during WWII.
In 1945, Susi befriended Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in a Soviet prison. ...
, a lawyer and former Minister of Education of Estonia in a
Lubyanka Building
The Lubyanka ( rus, Лубянка, p=lʊˈbʲankə) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB, and its affiliated prison, on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Ne ...
prison cell. After completion, Solzhenitsyn's original handwritten script was kept hidden from the KGB in Estonia by Arnold Susi's daughter
Heli Susi
Heli Susi (; 14 November 1929 – 8 June 2020) was an Estonian teacher and translator.
Early life
Heli Susi was born in Tallinn as the youngest child and only daughter of lawyer Arnold Susi, who was the Estonian Minister of Education during ...
until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1969, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Union of Writers. In 1970, he was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature. He could not receive the prize personally in
Stockholm at that time, since he was afraid he would not be let back into the Soviet Union. Instead, it was suggested he should receive the prize in a special ceremony at the Swedish embassy in Moscow. The Swedish government refused to accept this solution because such a ceremony and the ensuing media coverage might upset the Soviet Union and damage Swedish-Soviet relations. Instead, Solzhenitsyn received his prize at the 1974 ceremony after he had been expelled from the Soviet Union.
''The Gulag Archipelago'' was composed from 1958 to 1967, and has sold over thirty million copies in thirty-five languages. It was a three-volume, seven-part work on the Soviet prison camp system, which drew from Solzhenitsyn's experiences and the testimony of 256 former prisoners and Solzhenitsyn's own research into the history of the Russian penal system. It discusses the system's origins from the founding of the Communist regime, with
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
having responsibility, detailing interrogation procedures, prisoner transports, prison camp culture, prisoner uprisings and revolts such as the
Kengir uprising
The Kengir uprising was a prisoner rebellion that occurred in Kengir (Steplag), a Soviet labor camp for political prisoners, during May and June of 1954. Its duration and intensity distinguished it from other Gulag rebellions during the same peri ...
, and the practice of internal
exile.
Soviet and Communist studies historian and archival researcher
Stephen G. Wheatcroft wrote that the book was essentially a "literary and political work", and "never claimed to place the camps in a historical or social-scientific quantitative perspective" but that in the case of qualitative estimates, Solzhenitsyn gave his high estimate as he wanted to challenge the Soviet authorities to show that "the scale of the camps was less than this." Historian
J. Arch Getty
John Archibald Getty III (born November 30, 1950) is an American historian and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), who specializes in the history of Russia and the history of the Soviet Union.
Life and career
Getty was ...
wrote of Solzhenitsyn's methodology that "such documentation is methodically unacceptable in other fields of history", which gives priority to vague hearsay and leads towards selective bias. According to journalist
Anne Applebaum
Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian. She has written extensively about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe.
She has worked at ''The Econ ...
, who has made extensive research on the Gulag, ''The Gulag Archipelagos rich and varied authorial voice, its unique weaving together of personal testimony, philosophical analysis, and historical investigation, and its unrelenting indictment of Communist ideology made it one of the most influential books of the 20th century.
![RIAN archive 6624 Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Mstislav Rostropovich](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/RIAN_archive_6624_Alexander_Solzhenitsyn_and_Mstislav_Rostropovich.jpg)
On 8 August 1971, the KGB allegedly attempted to assassinate Solzhenitsyn using an unknown chemical agent (most likely
ricin) with an experimental gel-based delivery method. The attempt left him seriously ill but he survived.
Although ''The Gulag Archipelago'' was not published in the Soviet Union, it was extensively criticized by the Party-controlled Soviet press. An editorial in ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' on 14 January 1974 accused Solzhenitsyn of supporting "Hitlerites" and making "excuses for the crimes of the
Vlasovites and
Bandera gangs." According to the editorial, Solzhenitsyn was "choking with pathological hatred for the country where he was born and grew up, for the socialist system, and for Soviet people."
During this period, he was sheltered by the cellist
Mstislav Rostropovich, who suffered considerably for his support of Solzhenitsyn and was eventually forced into exile himself.
Expulsion from the Soviet Union
In a discussion of its options in dealing with Solzhenitsyn the members of the Politburo considered his arrest and imprisonment and his expulsion to a capitalist country willing to take him. Guided by KGB chief
Yury Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the po ...
, and following a statement from West German Chancellor
Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Ge ...
that Solzhenitsyn could live and work freely in
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
, it was decided to deport the writer directly to that country.
In the West
On 12 February 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and deported the next day from the Soviet Union to
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
, West Germany and stripped of his Soviet citizenship.
The KGB had found the manuscript for the first part of ''The Gulag Archipelago''. U.S. military attaché
William Odom
William Eldridge Odom (June 23, 1932 – May 30, 2008) was a United States Army lieutenant general who served as Director of the National Security Agency under President Ronald Reagan, which culminated a 31-year career in military intelligence, ma ...
managed to smuggle out a large portion of Solzhenitsyn's archive, including the author's membership card for the
Writers' Union
The Union of Soviet Writers, USSR Union of Writers, or Soviet Union of Writers (russian: Союз писателей СССР, translit=Soyuz Sovetstikh Pisatelei) was a creative union of professional writers in the Soviet Union. It was founded ...
and his Second World War military citations. Solzhenitsyn paid tribute to Odom's role in his memoir ''Invisible Allies'' (1995).
In West Germany, Solzhenitsyn lived in
Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Theodor Böll (; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll is a recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972). ...
's house in . He then moved to
Zürich
, neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon
, twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco
Zürich ...
, Switzerland before
Stanford University invited him to stay in the United States to "facilitate your work, and to accommodate you and your family". He stayed at the
Hoover Tower
Hoover Tower is a structure on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The tower houses the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, an archive collection founded by Herbert Hoover before he became President of the United Stat ...
, part of the
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, an ...
, before moving to
Cavendish
Cavendish may refer to:
People
* The House of Cavendish, a British aristocratic family
* Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), British poet, philosopher, and scientist
* Cavendish (author) (1831–1899), pen name of Henry Jones, English au ...
, Vermont, in 1976. He was given an honorary literary degree from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in 1978 and on 8 June 1978 he gave a commencement address, condemning, among other things, the press, the lack of spirituality and traditional values, and the
anthropocentrism of Western culture.
On 19 September 1974,
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the p ...
approved a large-scale operation to discredit Solzhenitsyn and his family and cut his communications with
Soviet dissidents. The plan was jointly approved by
Vladimir Kryuchkov
Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov (russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Крючко́в, link=no; 29 February 1924 – 23 November 2007) was a Soviet lawyer, diplomat, and head of the KGB, member of the Politburo of the ...
,
Philipp Bobkov, and Grigorenko (heads of First, Second and Fifth KGB Directorates).
The
residencies in Geneva, London, Paris, Rome and other European cities participated in the operation. Among other active measures, at least three
StB
State Security ( cs, Státní bezpečnost, sk, Štátna bezpečnosť) or StB / ŠtB, was the secret police force in communist Czechoslovakia from 1945 to its dissolution in 1990. Serving as an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, it d ...
agents became translators and secretaries of Solzhenitsyn (one of them translated the poem ''
Prussian Nights
''Prussian Nights'' (russian: links=no, Прусские ночи) is a long poem by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who served as a captain in the Soviet Red Army during the Second World War. Prussian Nights describes the Red Army's march across East ...
''), keeping the KGB informed regarding all contacts by Solzhenitsyn.
The KGB also sponsored a series of hostile books about Solzhenitsyn, most notably a "memoir published under the name of his first wife, Natalia Reshetovskaya, but probably mostly composed by Service", according to historian
Christopher Andrew.
Andropov also gave an order to create "an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between Pauk and the people around him" by feeding him rumors that the people around him were KGB agents, and deceiving him at every opportunity. Among other things, he continually received envelopes with photographs of car crashes, brain surgery and other disturbing imagery. After the KGB harassment in Zürich, Solzhenitsyn settled in
Cavendish
Cavendish may refer to:
People
* The House of Cavendish, a British aristocratic family
* Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), British poet, philosopher, and scientist
* Cavendish (author) (1831–1899), pen name of Henry Jones, English au ...
, Vermont, reduced communications with others. His influence and
moral authority Moral authority is authority premised on principles, or fundamental truths, which are independent of written, or positive, laws. As such, moral authority necessitates the existence of and adherence to truth. Because truth does not change, the princi ...
for the West diminished as he became increasingly isolated and critical of Western individualism. KGB and
CPSU
"Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
experts finally concluded that he alienated American listeners by his "reactionary views and intransigent criticism of the US way of life", so no further
active measures would be required.
Over the next 17 years, Solzhenitsyn worked on his dramatized history of the
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
, ''
The Red Wheel
''The Red Wheel'' (russian: link=no, Красное колесо, ''Krasnoye koleso'') is a cycle of novels by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, retelling and exploring the passing of Imperial Russia and the birth-pangs of the Soviet Union. Part 1, ''Augu ...
''. By 1992, four sections had been completed and he had also written several shorter works.
Solzhenitsyn's warnings about the dangers of Communist aggression and the weakening of the moral fiber of the West were generally well received in Western conservative circles (e.g. Ford administration staffers
Dick Cheney and
Donald Rumsfeld advocated on Solzhenitsyn's behalf for him to speak directly to President
Gerald Ford about the Soviet threat), prior to and alongside the tougher foreign policy pursued by US President
Ronald Reagan. At the same time, liberals and
secularists
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations.
Secularism is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state, and may be broadened to a sim ...
became increasingly critical of what they perceived as his reactionary preference for Russian nationalism and the Russian Orthodox religion.
Solzhenitsyn also harshly criticised what he saw as the ugliness and spiritual vapidity of the dominant
pop culture of the modern West, including television and much of popular music: "...the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits... by TV stupor and by intolerable music." Despite his criticism of the "weakness" of the West, Solzhenitsyn always made clear that he admired the political liberty which was one of the enduring strengths of Western democratic societies. In a major speech delivered to the
International Academy of Philosophy in
Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein (), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (german: link=no, Fürstentum Liechtenstein), is a German-speaking microstate located in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is a semi-constitutional monarch ...
on 14 September 1993, Solzhenitsyn implored the West not to "lose sight of its own values, its historically unique stability of civic life under the rule of law—a hard-won stability which grants independence and space to every private citizen."
In a series of writings, speeches, and interviews after his return to his native Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn spoke about his admiration for the local self-government he had witnessed first hand in Switzerland and New England. He "praised 'the sensible and sure process of
grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes that shift as much decision-making authority as practical to the organization's lowest geographic or social level of organization.
Grassroots organizations can have a va ...
, in which the local population solves most of its problems on its own, not waiting for the decisions of higher authorities.'" Solzhenitsyn's patriotism was inward-looking. He called for Russia to "renounce all mad fantasies of foreign conquest and begin the peaceful long, long long period of recuperation," as he put it in a 1979 BBC interview with Latvian-born BBC journalist Janis Sapiets.
Return to Russia
![A solzhenitsin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/A_solzhenitsin.JPG)
In 1990, his Soviet citizenship was restored, and, in 1994, he returned to Russia with his wife, Natalia, who had become a United States citizen. Their sons stayed behind in the United States (later, his eldest son Yermolai returned to Russia). From then until his death, he lived with his wife in a
dacha
A dacha ( rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ') or shack serving as a family's main or only home, or an outbu ...
in
Troitse-Lykovo in west Moscow between the dachas once occupied by Soviet leaders
Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (russian: Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов; 25 January 1982) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as uno ...
and
Konstantin Chernenko
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko uk, Костянтин Устинович Черненко, translit=Kostiantyn Ustynovych Chernenko (24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985) was a Soviet politician and the seventh General Secretary of the Commu ...
. A staunch believer in traditional Russian culture, Solzhenitsyn expressed his disillusionment with post-Soviet Russia in works such as ''Rebuilding Russia'', and called for the establishment of a strong presidential republic balanced by vigorous institutions of local self-government. The latter would remain his major political theme. Solzhenitsyn also published eight two-part short stories, a series of contemplative "miniatures" or prose poems, and a literary memoir on his years in the West ''The Grain Between the Millstones'', translated and released as two works by the
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...
as part of the
Kennan Institute
The Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars was founded in 1974 to carry out studies of the Soviet Union ( Sovietology), and subsequently of post-Soviet Russia and other post-Soviet states. The institute is widel ...
's Solzhenitsyn Initiative. The first, ''Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches of Exile (1974–1978)'', was translated by Peter Constantine and published in October 2018, the second, ''Book 2: Exile in America (1978–1994)'' translated by Clare Kitson and Melanie Moore and published in October 2020.
Once back in Russia Solzhenitsyn hosted a television talk show program. Its eventual format was Solzhenitsyn delivering a 15-minute monologue twice a month; it was discontinued in 1995. Solzhenitsyn became a supporter of
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
, who said he shared Solzhenitsyn's critical view towards the Russian Revolution.
All of Solzhenitsyn's sons became U.S. citizens. One,
Ignat, is a pianist and conductor. Another Solzhenitsyn son, Yermolai, works for the Moscow office of
McKinsey & Company, a management consultancy firm, where he is a senior partner.
Death
![Funeral of Alexander Solzhenitsyn-3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Funeral_of_Alexander_Solzhenitsyn-3.jpg)
Solzhenitsyn died of heart failure near Moscow on 3 August 2008, at the age of 89.
A burial service was held at
Donskoy Monastery
Donskoy Monastery (russian: Донско́й монасты́рь) is a major monastery in Moscow, founded in 1591 in commemoration of Moscow's deliverance from the threat of an invasion by the Crimean Khan Kazy-Girey. Commanding a highway to ...
, Moscow, on 6 August 2008. He was buried the same day in the monastery, in a spot he had chosen. Russian and world leaders paid tribute to Solzhenitsyn following his death.
Views on history and politics
On Christianity, Tsarism, and Russian nationalism
According to William Harrison, Solzhenitsyn was an "arch-reactionary", who argued that the Soviet State "suppressed" traditional Russian and Ukrainian culture, called for the creation of a united Slavic state encompassing Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and who was a fierce opponent of
Ukrainian independence
Ukraine emerged as the concept of a nation, and the Ukrainians as a nationality, with the Ukrainian National Revival which began in the late 18th and early 19th century. The first wave of national revival is traditionally connected with the publ ...
. It is well documented that his negative views on Ukrainian independence became more radical over the years. Harrison also alleged that Solzhenitsyn held
Pan-Slavist
Pan-Slavism, a movement which crystallized in the mid-19th century, is the political ideology concerned with the advancement of integrity and unity for the Slavic people. Its main impact occurred in the Balkans, where non-Slavic empires had rule ...
and
monarchist
Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. ...
views. According to Harrison, "His historical writing is imbued with a hankering after an idealized
Tsarist
Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states ...
era when, seemingly, everything was rosy. He sought refuge in a dreamy past, where, he believed, a united Slavic state (the Russian empire) built on Orthodox foundations had provided an ideological alternative to western individualistic liberalism."
In his writings and speeches, Solzhenitsyn, however, sharply criticized the policies of every
Tsar
Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...
from the
House of Romanov
The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastacia of Russia, Anastasi ...
. A persistent theme in his criticism is that the Romanovs preferred, like
Nicholas I during the
Hungarian Revolution of 1848
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 or fully Hungarian Civic Revolution and War of Independence of 1848–1849 () was one of many European Revolutions of 1848 and was closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas. Although t ...
, to intervene in the internal affairs of foreign countries while governing badly at home.
Solzhenitsyn also repeatedly denounced Tsar
Alexis of Russia
Aleksey Mikhaylovich ( rus, Алексе́й Миха́йлович, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ; – ) was the Tsar of Russia from 1645 until his death in 1676. While finding success in foreign affairs, his reign saw several wars ...
and
Patriarch Nikon of Moscow
Nikon ( ru , Ни́кон, Old Russian: ''Нїконъ''), born Nikita Minin (''Никита Минин''; 7 May 1605 – 17 August 1681) was the seventh Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' of the Russian Orthodox Church, serving officially from ...
for causing the
Great Schism of 1666, which Solzhenitsyn said both divided and weakened the Russian Orthodox Church at a time when unity was desperately needed. Solzhenitsyn also attacked both the Tsar and the Patriarch for using excommunication, Siberian exile, imprisonment, torture, and even
burning at the stake
Death by burning (also known as immolation) is an execution and murder method involving combustion or exposure to extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment, and many societies have employed it as a punishment f ...
against the
Old Believers, who rejected the liturgical changes which caused the Schism.
Solzhenitsyn also argued that the Dechristianization of Russian culture, which he considered most responsible for the
Bolshevik Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
, began in 1666, became much worse during the Reign of Tsar
Peter the Great, and accelerated into an epidemic during
The Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, the
Romantic era
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
, and the
Silver Age.
Expanding upon this theme, Solzhenitsyn once declared, "Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'"
In an interview with
Joseph Pearce
Joseph Pearce (born February 12, 1961), is an English-born American writer, and Director of the Center for Faith and Culture at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee, before which he held positions at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in ...
, however, Solzhenitsyn commented, "
he Old Believers were
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
treated amazingly unjustly, because some very insignificant, trifling differences in ritual which were promoted with poor judgment and without much sound basis. Because of these small differences, they were persecuted in very many cruel ways, they were suppressed, they were exiled. From the perspective of historical justice, I sympathise with them and I am on their side, but this in no way ties in with what I have just said about the fact that religion in order to keep up with mankind must adapt its forms toward modern culture. In other words, do I agree with the Old Believers that religion should freeze and not move at all? Not at all!"
When asked by Pearce for his opinions about the division within the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
over the
Second Vatican Council
The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions), each lasting between 8 and ...
and the
Mass of Paul VI
The Mass of Paul VI, also known as the Ordinary Form or Novus Ordo, is the most commonly used liturgy in the Catholic Church. It is a form of the Latin Church's Roman Rite and was promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969, published by him in the 19 ...
, Solzhenitsyn replied, "A question peculiar to the Russian Orthodox Church is, should we continue to use
Old Church Slavonic, or should we start to introduce more of the contemporary Russian language into the service? I understand the fears of both those in the Orthodox and in the Catholic Church, the wariness, the hesitation, and the fear that this is lowering the Church to the modern condition, the modern surroundings. I understand this, but alas, I fear that if religion does not allow itself to change, it will be impossible to return the world to religion because the world is incapable on its own of rising as high as the old demands of religion. Religion needs to come and meet it somewhat."
Surprised to hear Solzhenitsyn, "so often perceived as an arch-traditionalist, apparently coming down on the side of the reformers", Pearce then asked Solzhenitsyn what he thought of the division caused within the
Anglican Communion
The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...
by the
decision to ordain female priests.
Solzhenitsyn replied, "Certainly there are many firm boundaries that should not be changed. When I speak of some sort of correlation between the cultural norms of the present, it is really only a small part of the whole thing." Solzhenitsyn then added, "Certainly, I do not believe that women priests is the way to go!"
[Joseph Pearce (2011), ''Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile'', ]Ignatius Press
Ignatius Press is a Catholic publishing house based in San Francisco, California, US. It was founded in 1978 by Father Joseph Fessio, a Jesuit priest and former pupil of Pope Benedict XVI. Ignatius Press also produces '' Catholic World Report'' ...
. Page 331.
On Russia and the Jews
OGPU officer
Naftaly Frenkel
Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel (russian: Нафталий Аронович Френкель; 1883 in Haifa – 1960 in Moscow) was a Soviet security officer and member of the Soviet secret police. Frenkel is best known for his role in the organisatio ...
, whom Solzhenitsyn identified as "a Turkish Jew born in Constantinople", is represented as having played a major role in the organisation of work in the Gulag. Solzhenitsyn claimed that Frenkel was the "nerve of the Archipelago". This claim is discredited.
In his 1974 essay "Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations", Solzhenitsyn urged "Russian Gentiles" and Jews alike to take moral responsibility for the "renegades" from both communities who enthusiastically embraced
atheism and
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various c ...
and participated in the
Red Terror and many other acts of torture and mass murder following the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
. Solzhenitsyn argued that both Russian Gentiles and Jews should be prepared to treat the atrocities committed by Jewish and Gentile
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
as though they were the acts of their own family members, before their consciences and before God. Solzhenitsyn said that if we deny all responsibility for the crimes of our national kin, "the very concept of a people loses all meaning."
In a review of Solzhenitsyn's novel ''August 1914'' in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' on 13 November 1985,
Jewish American historian
Richard Pipes wrote: "Every culture has its own brand of anti-Semitism. In Solzhenitsyn's case, it's not racial. It has nothing to do with blood. He's certainly not a racist; the question is fundamentally religious and cultural. He bears some resemblance to
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
, who was a fervent Christian and patriot and a rabid anti-Semite. Solzhenitsyn is unquestionably in the grip of the Russian extreme right's view of the Revolution, which is that it was
the doing of the Jews". Award-winning Jewish novelist and
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
survivor
Elie Wiesel disagreed and wrote that Solzhenitsyn was "too intelligent, too honest, too courageous, too great a writer" to be an anti-Semite. In his 1998 book ''Russia in Collapse'', Solzhenitsyn criticized the Russian far-right's obsession with anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
.
In 2001, Solzhenitsyn published a two-volume work on the history of Russian-Jewish relations (''
Two Hundred Years Together
''Two Hundred Years Together'' (russian: links=no, Двести лет вместе, ) is a two-volume historical essay by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It was written as a comprehensive history of Jews in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and moder ...
'' 2001, 2002). The book triggered renewed accusations of
anti-Semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
.
In the book, he repeated his call for Russian Gentiles and Jews to share responsibility for everything that happened in the Soviet Union. He also downplayed the number of victims of an 1882 pogrom despite current evidence, and failed to mention the infamous
Beilis affair
Menahem Mendel Beilis (sometimes spelled Beiliss; yi, מנחם מענדל בייליס, russian: Менахем Мендель Бейлис; 1874 – 7 July 1934) was a Russian Jews, Russian Jew accused of Blood libel, ritual murder in Kiev in ...
, a 1911 trial in Kiev where a Jew was accused of ritually murdering Christian children.
He was also criticized for relying on outdated scholarship, ignoring current western scholarship, and for selectively quoting to strengthen his preconceptions, such as that the Jews were often treated better than non-Jewish Russians during the Soviet Union.
Similarities between ''Two Hundred Years Together'' and an anti-Semitic essay titled "Jews in the USSR and in the Future Russia", attributed to Solzhenitsyn, have led to the inference that he stands behind the anti-Semitic passages. Solzhenitsyn himself explained that the essay consists of manuscripts stolen from him by the KGB, and then carefully edited to appear anti-Semitic, before being published, forty years before, without his consent.
[ Traditional Prejudices. The anti-Semitism of Alexander Solzhenitsyn '']Reason Magazine
''Reason'' is an American libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 50,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the ''Chicago Tribune''.
History
''Reaso ...
'' May 2004. According to the historian
Semyon Reznik Semyon Efimovich Reznik (Russian: Семён Ефимович Резник) (born 13 June 1938, in Moscow) is a Russian writer, journalist, man of letters and historian, noted in particular for his study of the blood libel and the resurgence of Neo ...
, textological analyses have proven Solzhenitsyn's authorship.
Criticism of communism
![Brodnica sołżenicyn](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Brodnica_so%C5%82%C5%BCenicyn.jpg)
Solzhenitsyn emphasized the significantly more oppressive character of the Soviet
police state
A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the ...
, in comparison to the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
of the
House of Romanov
The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastacia of Russia, Anastasi ...
. He asserted that Imperial Russia did not censor literature or the media to the extreme style of the Soviet
Glavlit
Main Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press under the Council of Ministers of the USSR (russian: Главное управление по охране государственных тайн в печати при СМ С ...
, that political prisoners typically were not forced into
labor camps
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (espec ...
, and that the number of political prisoners and exiles was only one ten-thousandth of the numbers of prisoners and Exiles following the
Bolshevik Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
. He noted that the Tsar's
secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of ...
, the
Okhrana, was only present in the three largest cities, and not at all in the
Imperial Russian Army.
![RR5110-0156R 2 рубля 2018 100 лет Солженицыну](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/RR5110-0156R_2_%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%BB%D1%8F_2018_100_%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%82_%D0%A1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D1%8B%D0%BD%D1%83.png)
Shortly before his return to Russia, Solzhenitsyn delivered a speech in
Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the
Vendée Uprising. During his speech, Solzhenitsyn compared Lenin's
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
s with the
Jacobin Club during the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
. He also compared the Vendean rebels with the Russian, Ukrainian, and Cossack peasants who rebelled against the Bolsheviks, saying that both were destroyed mercilessly by revolutionary despotism. He commented that, while the French
Reign of Terror ended with the
Thermidorian reaction
The Thermidorian Reaction (french: Réaction thermidorienne or ''Convention thermidorienne'', "Thermidorian Convention") is the common term, in the historiography of the French Revolution, for the period between the ousting of Maximilien Robespie ...
and the toppling of the Jacobins and the execution of
Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known, influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Esta ...
, its Soviet equivalent continued to accelerate until the
Khrushchev thaw of the 1950s.
According to Solzhenitsyn, Russians were not the ruling nation in the Soviet Union. He believed that all the traditional culture of all ethnic groups were equally oppressed in favor of atheism and Marxist–Leninism. Russian culture was even more repressed than any other culture in the Soviet Union, since the regime was more afraid of ethnic uprisings among Russian Christians than among any other ethnicity. Therefore, Solzhenitsyn argued,
Russian nationalism
Russian nationalism is a form of nationalism that promotes Russian cultural identity and unity. Russian nationalism first rose to prominence in the early 19th century, and from its origin in the Russian Empire, to its repression during early B ...
and the
Russian Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
should not be regarded as a threat by the West but rather as allies.
Solzhenitsyn made a speaking tour after
Francisco Franco's death, and "told liberals not to push too hard for changes because Spain had more freedoms now than the Soviet Union had ever known." As reported by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', he "blamed Communism for the death of 110 million Russians and derided those in Spain who complained of dictatorship." Solzhenitsyn recalled: "I had to explain to the people of Spain in the most concise possible terms what it meant to have been subjugated by an ideology as we in the Soviet Union had been, and give the Spanish to understand what a terrible fate they escaped in 1939", a reference to the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
between the
Nationalists
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
and the
Republicans, which was not a common view at that time among American diplomats. For
Winston Lord
Winston Lord (born August 14, 1937) is an American diplomat and leader of non-governmental foreign policy organizations. He has served as Special Assistant to the National Security Advisor (1970–1973), Director of the State Department Policy P ...
, a protégé of the then United States Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
, Solzhenitsyn was "just about a fascist." According to Elisa Kriza, Solzhenitsyn held "benevolent views" on Franco's dictatorship and
Francoist Spain
Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spai ...
because it was a Christian one, and his Christian worldview operated ideologically. In ''The Little Grain Managed to Land Between Two Millstones'', Franco's Spain is "held up as a model of a proper Christian response to the evil of Bolshevism." According to Peter Brooke, Solzhenitsyn approached the position argued by Christian Dmitri Panin, with whom he had a fall out in exile, namely that evil "must be confronted by force, and the centralised, spiritually independent Roman Catholic Church is better placed to do it than Orthodoxy with its otherworldliness and tradition of subservience to the state."
In "Rebuilding Russia", an essay first published in 1990 in ''
Komsomolskaya Pravda'', Solzhenitsyn urged the Soviet Union to grant independence to all the non-Slav
republics
A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th ...
, which he claimed were sapping the Russian nation and he called for the creation of a new Slavic state bringing together Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Kazakhstan that he considered to be
Russified
Russification (russian: русификация, rusifikatsiya), or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian cultur ...
.
On post-Soviet Russia
![Vladimir Putin with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Vladimir_Putin_with_Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn-1.jpg)
In some of his later political writings, such as ''Rebuilding Russia'' (1990) and ''Russia in Collapse'' (1998), Solzhenitsyn criticized the
oligarchic excesses of the new Russian democracy, while opposing any nostalgia for Soviet Communism. He defended moderate and self-critical patriotism (as opposed to
extreme nationalism). He also urged for local self-government similar to what he had seen in
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
town meetings and in the cantons of Switzerland. He also expressed concern for the fate of the 25 million ethnic Russians in the "
near abroad
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
" of the former Soviet Union.
In an interview with
Joseph Pearce
Joseph Pearce (born February 12, 1961), is an English-born American writer, and Director of the Center for Faith and Culture at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee, before which he held positions at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in ...
, Solzhenitsyn was asked whether he felt that the
socioeconomic theories of
E.F. Schumacher
Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was a German-British statistician and economist who is best known for his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies.Biography on the inner dustjacket ...
were, "the key to society rediscovering its sanity". He replied, "I do believe that it would be the key, but I don't think this will happen, because people succumb to fashion, and they suffer from inertia and it is hard to them to come round to a different point of view."
Solzhenitsyn refused to accept Russia's highest honor, the
Order of St. Andrew
The Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called (russian: Орден Святого апостола Андрея Первозванного, translit=Orden Svyatogo apostola Andreya Pervozvannogo) is the highest order conferred by both the ...
, in 1998. Solzhenitsyn later said: "In 1998, it was the country's low point, with people in misery; ...
Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
decreed I be honored the highest state order. I replied that I was unable to receive an award from a government that had led Russia into such dire straits."
In a 2003 interview with Joseph Pearce, Solzhenitsyn said: "We are exiting from communism in a most unfortunate and awkward way. It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed."
In a 2007 interview with ''
Der Spiegel'', Solzhenitsyn expressed disappointment that the "conflation of 'Soviet' and 'Russian'", against which he spoke so often in the 1970s, had not passed away in the West, in the
ex-socialist countries, or in the
former Soviet republics
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
. He commented, "The elder political generation in communist countries is not ready for repentance, while the new generation is only too happy to voice grievances and level accusations, with present-day Moscow
sa convenient target. They behave as if they heroically liberated themselves and lead a new life now, while Moscow has remained communist. Nevertheless, I dare
ohope that this unhealthy phase will soon be over, that all the peoples who have lived through communism will understand that communism is to blame for the bitter pages of their history."
In 2008, Solzhenitsyn praised Putin, saying Russia was rediscovering what it meant to be Russian. Solzhenitsyn also praised the Russian president
Dmitry Medvedev as a "nice young man" who was capable of taking on the challenges Russia was facing.
Criticism of the West
Once in the United States, Solzhenitsyn sharply criticized the West.
Solzhenitsyn criticized the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
for not opening a new front against
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
in the west earlier in World War II. This resulted in Soviet domination and control of the nations of Eastern Europe. Solzhenitsyn claimed the Western democracies apparently cared little about how many died in the East, as long as they could end the war quickly and painlessly for themselves in the West.
Delivering the commencement address at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in 1978, he called the United States "Dechristianized" and mired in boorish
consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the su ...
. The
American people, he said, speaking in Russian through a translator, were also suffering from a "decline in courage" and a "lack of manliness." Few were willing to die for their ideals, he said. He also condemned the
1960s counterculture for forcing the
United States federal government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fe ...
to accept a "hasty" capitulation in the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
.
In a reference to the Communist governments in Southeast Asia's use of
re-education camps,
politicide
Political cleansing of population is eliminating categories of people in specific areas for political reasons. The means may vary from forced migration to genocide.
Politicide
Politicide is the deliberate physical destruction or elimination o ...
,
human rights abuses
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
, and
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
following the
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese or Liberation of the South by the Vietnamese government, and known as Black April by anti-communist overseas Vietnamese was the capture of Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, t ...
, Solzhenitsyn said: "But members of the
U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there?"
He also accused the Western news media of left-wing bias, of violating the privacy of celebrities, and of filling up the "immortal souls" of their readers with celebrity gossip and other "vain talk". He also said that the West erred in thinking that the whole world should embrace this as model. While faulting Soviet society for rejecting basic
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
and the
rule of law, he also critiqued the West for being too
legalistic: "A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities." Solzhenitsyn also argued that the West erred in "denying
ussian culture'sautonomous character and therefore never understood it".
Solzhenitsyn criticized the
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
and accused the United States of the "occupation" of
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
and
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
.
Solzhenitsyn was critical of
NATO's eastward expansion towards Russia's borders.
In 2006, Solzhenitsyn accused
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
of trying to bring Russia under its control; he claimed this was visible because of its "ideological support for the '
colour revolutions
Colour revolution (sometimes coloured revolution) is a term used since around 2004 by worldwide media to describe various anti-regime protest movements and accompanying (attempted or successful) changes of government that took place in post ...
' and the paradoxical forcing of North Atlantic interests on Central Asia".
In a 2006 interview with ''
Der Spiegel'' he stated "This was especially painful in the case of Ukraine, a country whose closeness to Russia is defined by literally millions of family ties among our peoples, relatives living on different sides of the national border. At one fell stroke, these families could be torn apart by a new dividing line, the border of a military bloc."
On the Holodomor
Solzhenitsyn gave a speech to
AFL–CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million ac ...
in Washington, D.C., on 30 June 1975 in which he mentioned how the system created by the
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
in 1917 caused dozens of problems in the Soviet Union.
He described how this system was responsible for the
Holodomor: "It was a system which, in time of peace, artificially created a famine, causing 6 million people to die in the Ukraine in 1932 and 1933." Solzhenitsyn added, "they died on the very edge of Europe. And Europe didn't even notice it. The world didn't even notice it—6 million people!"
Shortly before his death, Solzhenitsyn opined in an interview published 2 April 2008 in ''
Izvestia
''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in 1917, it was a newspaper of record in the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, and describes i ...
'' that, while the famine in Ukraine was both artificial and caused by the state, it was no different than the
Russian famine of 1921
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
* Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and pe ...
. Solzhenitsyn expressed the belief that both famines were caused by systematic armed robbery of the harvests from both Russian and Ukrainian peasants by Bolshevik units, which were under orders from the
Politburo to bring back food for the starving urban population centers while refusing for ideological reasons to permit any private sale of food supplies in the cities or to give any payment to the peasants in return for the food that was seized.
Solzhenitsyn further alleged that the theory that the Holodomor was a genocide which only victimized the Ukrainian people was created decades later by believers in an
anti-Russian
Anti-Russian sentiment, commonly referred to as Russophobia, is dislike or fear of Russia, the Russians, Russian culture. or Russian policy. The Collins English Dictionary defines it as intense and often irrational hatred of Russia. It is the ...
form of
extreme Ukrainian nationalism. Solzhenitsyn also cautioned that the ultranationalists' claims risked being accepted without question in the West due to widespread ignorance and misunderstanding there of both Russian and Ukrainian history.
Legacy
The
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
in Worcester, Massachusetts promotes the author and hosts the official English-language website dedicated to him.
In popular media
Solzhenitsyn is the subject of the song "
Mother Russia
The personification of Russia is traditionally feminine and most commonly maternal since medieval times.
Most common terms for national personification of Russia are:
*Mother Russia (russian: Матушка Россия, tr. ''Matushka Rossiya'' ...
" by British progressive rock group
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
.
Solzhenitsyn's philosophy plays a key role in the 2012 film ''
Cloud Atlas
A cloud atlas is a pictorial key (or an atlas) to the nomenclature of clouds. Early cloud atlases were an important element in the training of meteorologists and in weather forecasting, and the author of a 1923 atlas stated that "increasing use ...
'', where a character previously kept ignorant and subservient is illegally educated, and is shown reading and quoting his works.
In a 2001 episode of the NBC drama
The West Wing
''The West Wing'' is an American serial political drama television series created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1999, to May 14, 2006. The series is set primarily in the West Wing of the White Hous ...
titled
"Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail",
Toby Ziegler
Tobias "Toby" Zachary Ziegler is a fictional character in the television serial drama ''The West Wing'', played by Richard Schiff. The role of Toby Ziegler earned actor Richard Schiff the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor i ...
sarcastically refers to the leader of a
WTO
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...
protest as Solzhenitsyn.
Television documentaries on Solzhenitsyn
In October 1983, French literary journalist
Bernard Pivot
Bernard Pivot (; born 5 May 1935) is a French journalist, interviewer and host of cultural television programmes. He was chairman of the Académie Goncourt from 2014 to 2020.
Biography
Pivot was born in Lyon, the son of two grocers. During Worl ...
made an hour-long television interview with Solzhenitsyn at his rural home in Vermont, US. Solzhenitsyn discussed his writing, the evolution of his language and style, his family and his outlook on the future—and stated his wish to return to Russia in his lifetime, not just to see his books eventually printed there.
Earlier the same year, Solzhenitsyn was interviewed on separate occasions by two British journalists,
Bernard Levin
Henry Bernard Levin (19 August 1928 – 7 August 2004) was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by ''The Times'' as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship t ...
and
Malcolm Muggeridge
Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (24 March 1903 – 14 November 1990) was an English journalist and satirist. His father, H. T. Muggeridge, was a socialist politician and one of the early Labour Party Members of Parliament (for Romford, in Essex). In ...
.
[
In 1998, Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov made a four-part television documentary, ''Besedy s Solzhenitsynym'' (''The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn''). The documentary was shot in Solzhenitsyn's home depicting his everyday life and his reflections on Russian history and literature.]
In December 2009, the Russian channel ''Rossiya K'' broadcast the French television documentary ''L'Histoire Secrète de l'Archipel du Goulag'' (''The Secret History of the Gulag Archipelago'') made by Jean Crépu and Nicolas Miletitch and translated into Russian under the title ''Taynaya Istoriya "Arkhipelaga Gulag"'' (Тайная история "Архипелага ГУЛАГ"). The documentary covers events related to creation and publication of ''The Gulag Archipelago
''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr So ...
''.
Published works and speeches
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Also known as ''The Prisoner and the Camp Hooker'' or ''The Tenderfoot and the Tart''.
*
* The beginning of a history of the birth of the USSR. Centers on the disastrous loss in the Battle of Tannenberg (1914), Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914, and the ineptitude of the military leadership. Other works, similarly titled, follow the story: see ''The Red Wheel
''The Red Wheel'' (russian: link=no, Красное колесо, ''Krasnoye koleso'') is a cycle of novels by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, retelling and exploring the passing of Imperial Russia and the birth-pangs of the Soviet Union. Part 1, ''Augu ...
'' (overall title).
* (3 vols.), not a memoir, but a history of the entire process of developing and administering a police state
A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the ...
in the Soviet Union.
* .
* .
*
*
*
* ; separate publication of chapters on Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
, none of them published before this point, from ''The Red Wheel
''The Red Wheel'' (russian: link=no, Красное колесо, ''Krasnoye koleso'') is a cycle of novels by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, retelling and exploring the passing of Imperial Russia and the birth-pangs of the Soviet Union. Part 1, ''Augu ...
''. The first of them was later incorporated into the 1984 edition of the expanded ''August 1914'' (though it had been written at the same time as the original version of the novel) and the rest in ''November 1916'' and ''March 1917''.
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* on Russian-Jewish relations since 1772, aroused ambiguous public response.
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See also
* Gulag#Literature, More literature covering the Gulag system
* List of refugees
* Ivan Bunin
* Czesław Miłosz
* Đoàn Văn Toại
* Wei Jingsheng
* Yevgeny Zamyatin
Notes
References
Sources
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* Kriza, Elisa (2014) ''Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Cold War Icon, Gulag Author, Russian Nationalist? A Study of the Western Reception of his Literary Writings, Historical Interpretations, and Political Ideas''. Stuttgart: Ibidem Press.
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Further reading
Biographies
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* Ostrovsky Alexander (2004)
Солженицын: прощание с мифом (Solzhenitsyn: Farewell to the myth)
– Moscow: «Yauza», Presscom.
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Reference works
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* ; Prof. Vittorio Strada, Dott. Julija Dobrovol'skaja.
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* Anatoly Livry, « Soljénitsyne et la République régicide », Les Lettres et Les Arts, Cahiers suisses de critique littéraire et artistiques, Association de la revue Les Lettres et les Arts, Suisse, Vicques, 2011, pp. 70–72. http://anatoly-livry.e-monsite.com/medias/files/soljenitsine-livry-1.pdf
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External links
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The Nobel Prize in Literature 1970
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by the ''Stalin Society''
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Vermont Recluse Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
23 July 2007
* [https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenitsynharvard.htm As delivered text and video of Harvard Commencement Address] at AmericanRhetoric.com
The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings, 1947–2005
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