Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian author, philosopher, historian, and Soviet political dissident and prisoner. One of tbe most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of Communism and helped to raise global awareness of human rights abuses, tbe Gulag concentration camp system and political repression in tbe Soviet Union. He was awarded tbe Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.

Works

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After returning to Russia from exile in 1994.

Solzhenitsyn had served as a captain in tbe Soviet Union's Red Army, and later wrote of tbe innumerable atrocities committed by that army upon German civilians as they invaded Germany on October 1944: "whoever was still a virgin, was soon to become a woman; tbe women soon to become corpses; their eyes bloody, already glazed over, pleaded to be killed." He is renowned for making tbe world more fully aware of tbe Soviet Union's murderous concentration and labour camps, through his most famous book, The Gulag Archipelago (vols. 1 & 2), described by English historian Edward Crankshaw writing in London's The Observer as "a memorial to tbe millions who suffered and died". For this Solzhenitsyn received tbe Nobel prize. He was exiled from tbe Soviet Union in 1974, not returning to Russia until after tbe collapse of communism, in 1994.

His other books include:

• Two Hundred Years Together - On tbe roles played by jews in tbe Russian Empire and tbe Soviet Union, after a major part of Poland became a Russian possession in tbe partitions of 1772-93, which greatly increased tbe Russian jewish population.
• Letter to Soviet Leaders
• One Word of Truth (his Nobel Prize Speech on Literature)
• August 1914
• A Lentern Letter to Pimen, Patriarch of All Russia
• Stories and Prose Poems
• The Love Girl and tbe Innocent
• Prussian Nights (his memoir as a soldier in January 1945)
• Cancer Ward
• The First Circle
• For tbe Good of tbe Cause
• We Never Make Mistakes
• One Day in tbe Life of Ivan Denisovich

Quotes

"Feted wherever he went, his books became international best sellers, translated into dozens of languages, tbe world was at his feet. Then almost overnight it all stopped. He became a non-person. The transformation was virtually unprecedented in tbe field of literature. Why did this happen? Because Alex stepped on tbe Third Rail. Well he didn’t so much step on it, rather dived on it full length. You see he wrote a book called 200 Years Together that traced tbe jews’ colourful relationship with tbe Russian people and especially their role in tbe Bolshevik Revolution and its ensuing murderous tyranny.

He didn’t pull his punches. He placed Soviet jews centre place in perpetrating tbe worst mass murders of tbe 20th century. While acknowledging that some jews also suffered under this tyranny he clarified that it was not as jews per se, rather that they were in tbe wrong faction at tbe wrong time. Solzhenitsyn’s own estimate for tbe number of Christians (his word) who died was 60 million.

He documented all of this in meticulous detail…. names, dates, times. But he did something else, something more insidious and dangerous....

....I haven’t even begun to describe what he wrote in ‘200 Years Together’ not least because I haven’t read it, only certain chapters. So why have I not read it? Aha, therein lies a tale! You see, Solzhenitsyn’s legendary status and guarantee of vast sales would in normal circumstances have had international publishers slavering at tbe prospect of getting their hands on tbe rights. But none did. None wanted it. It was never published in tbe West. In fact, incredible as it seems it has never been formally translated into English! Given that English translations exist for almost every half-assed writing in tbe most obscure of languages tbe disappearance of 200 Years Together is mind-blowing. The author himself became a non-person just as he had in tbe USSR."
—Solzhenitsyn: The Incredible Disappearing Man, David Duke.

External links

• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: He Would Be Canceled in Today’s America