Full Version: Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008
R.I.P.
One of the great men of the 20th century, and one I expect to see on the other side. Sleep well, brother.
QUOTE (Alan Thomas @ Aug 4 2008, 07:27 AM) 
One of the great men of the 20th century, and one I expect to see on the other side. Sleep well, brother.
Amen.
What a life! Cancer Ward is one of the most powerful and affecting novels of hope and despair I've read.
Very sad news, indeed. A true giant of a man, and one I would have truly loved to meet. All admirers of his should watch Aleksandr Sokurov's, The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn. God rest his soul.
Sad news.
Solzhenitsyn's double-edged legacy
The mythology that Mr. Solzhenitsyn "revealed" the existence of Gulag to the West best serves those it exonerates -- those who chose to ignore the truth of the Soviet Union's contempt for human rights. In providing wider publicity for what was a well-documented but not yet universally reviled system, he unwittingly provided an easy out for those who had turned a blind eye to the victims of the Soviet Union for decades and now needed cover for their political conversions.
Ned Richardson-Little, Globe and Mail, August 6
The mythology that Mr. Solzhenitsyn "revealed" the existence of Gulag to the West best serves those it exonerates -- those who chose to ignore the truth of the Soviet Union's contempt for human rights. In providing wider publicity for what was a well-documented but not yet universally reviled system, he unwittingly provided an easy out for those who had turned a blind eye to the victims of the Soviet Union for decades and now needed cover for their political conversions.
Ned Richardson-Little, Globe and Mail, August 6
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