Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

One of my heroes goes to his reward:

MOSCOW (AFP) — Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who shone a light on the inhuman world of the Soviet gulags, died late Sunday, the Itar-Tass news agency said, citing his son Stepan. He was 89.

The Nobel laureate died of heart failure at his Moscow home at 11:45 pm (1945 GMT), the writer's son said.

Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 after writing harrowing works about the Soviet Union's system of labour camps, where he spent eight years from 1945.

Solzhenitsyn toiled obsessively to unearth the darkest secrets of Stalinist rule and ultimately dealt a crippling blow to the Soviet Union's authority.

The tough old buzzard survived Stalin's gulags, cancer and a ricin attack. Even though he had been in declining health, as is often the case for those of great age, I'm a little surprised to learn that he could die.

His most famous work:

and

Comments

[Mike O]

My doctor tells my 91-year-old chainsmoking mother that she's living proof only the good die young. Solzhenitsyn refutes that.

[phx]

He helped to clarify what was good and evil for me when I was young. His works were ineffably sad and yet inspired real courage. He was someone who did know about talking truth to power.

[AProudVeteran]

Juliette -- I see only blank space where you are identifying his greatest works (firefox 3.0).
-Mary

[baldilocks]

Mary,

You have to unblock the images. I think it's Tools, Options, Content, then Load Images Automatically.

[Maura]

Memory Eternal for this great man! May his soul rest in peace.

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I met college students recently who never heard of Solzhenitsyn.

While the Russian publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich marked the brief post-Stalin thaw, and brought the author to the world's attention, and while the Gulag Archipelago indicted the monstrous regime and contributed to a loss of moral support for the Soviet system in the West, I suspect that Solzhenitsyn would have named his historical cycle based on the Russian Revolution as his most important work. Solzhenitsyn intended a multi-volume examination of the path which brought his country to the predicament which he observed under Stalin.

If you have not read him, start with Matryona's Home, One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, or The Cancer Ward, not The Gulag Archipelago or The First Circle.

[AProudVeteran]

It was my ad-blocker.

I was wondering if younger folks knew who he was. I've read Ivan Denisovich, but never made it very far through the Gulag Archipelago. I've still got it, though. Maybe someday I'll finish it.

He was a brave man. As I said over at The Daily Brief, our world is a better place because he lived in it.

[Robert]

I've read the Gulag Archipelago 3 times (or is it 4?) Not because of the details about the Soviet labor camps, but because Solzhenitsyn is so clear about Good and Evil and how the human heart changes from one to the other.

I started reading his works after I came across "Ivan Denisovitch" in Jr. High. He is one of the authors that made me what I am, along with C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. Having his thoughts in my head prevented me from becoming a flaming liberal in college, and going down the "We are just as bad as them" route.

God grant him eternal reward, and the sight, someday, of a part of his vision for his beloved Russia come true.

[Dick Stanley]

Pity that such an otherwise helpful fellow had to be an anti-Semite:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/29113.html