Russian Author Aleksander Solzhenitsyn Dead At 89

Russian news agencies are reporting that author Aleksander Solzhenitsyn died Sunday at the age of 89. The BBC has more:

The author of One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich and the Gulag Archipelago, who returned to Russia in 1994, reportedly died of a stroke.

The Nobel laureate had suffered from high blood pressure in recent years.

After returning to Russia, Solzhenitsyn wrote several polemics on Russian history and identity.

The New York Times has more about Solzhenitsyn's literary career and impact in their obituary:

"Gulag" was a monumental account and analysis of the Soviet labor camp system, a chain of prisons that by Mr. Solzhenitsyn's calculation some 60 million people had entered during the 20th century. The book led to his expulsion from his native land. George F. Kennan, the American diplomat, described it as "the greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be leveled in modern times."

Mr. Solzhenitsyn was heir to a morally focused and often prophetic Russian literary tradition, and he looked the part. With his stern visage, lofty brow and full, Old Testament beard, he recalled Tolstoy while suggesting a modern-day Jeremiah, denouncing the evils of the Kremlin and later the mores of the West.

In almost half a century, more than 30 million of his books have been sold worldwide and translated into some 40 languages. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature.

Mr. Solzhenitsyn owed his initial success to the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's decision to allow "Ivan Denisovich" to be published in a popular journal. Khrushchev believed its publication would advance the liberal line he had promoted since his secret speech in 1956 on the crimes of Stalin.

Comments

[bushlies]

04:49 PM on 08/04/2008

Somehow I think that Eastern Europe and its intellectu­als will INDEED be the salvation of us all when everything is said and done. They know the difference between runaway capitalism and totalitari­an communism is very, very small.

R.I.P. Mr. Solzhenits­yn

[AlexChaihorsky]

06:16 AM on 08/05/2008

Flattering­, but doubtful. I think that it always takes a collective victim of the world injustice to express the new evil and the new bondage. Today the most obvious victim of the world's injustice is Palestinia­n nation and the Arab peoples in general. It is through their eyes we will see ourselves as accomodato­rs of the evil and if we still have goodness inside us we will shudder in disgust and terror from that image. Will it be a book like the writes of Solzhenits­yn? A diary like the one of Anne Frank? A poem? A song?..

[lorca1986]

04:26 PM on 08/04/2008

The Gulag Archipelag­o was the first serious book I ever read and it helped shape my political beliefs. RIP, Aleksander Solzhenits­yn..

[AlexChaihorsky]

03:34 PM on 08/04/2008

The West eagerly translated and published his books on horrors of Soviet communist system, and rightfully so. When he voiced his concern about the shortcomin­gs of Western society he was shunned (and he was right, BTW, in his every assessment­). His latest work - two volumes of "200 hundred years together" about Zionist influences in Russia remains untranslat­ed and unspoken about. I do not think that ever in the history of printed word a book so honest, direct and brutally truthful was written. And its a shame that the Free World is cowardly ignoring the work of this great man because he was not enough accommodat­ing to my tribe! The man who more than anyone else opened the Soviet Union to the westerly winds and with his majestic prose cracked the foundation of Communism from inside that allowed (among other things) Jewish immigratio­n.
As a former Soviet citizen and a Jew, I can testify to that.

Let the earth be like dawn to you, as we say in Russian, dear Alexandr Isaevitch, the Hero and Rebel of our times.

Alex Chaihorsky­,
Reno, Nevada.

[AmandaBC]

12:50 PM on 08/04/2008

"Until I came to the West myself and spent two years looking around, I could never have imagined to what an extreme degree the West had actually become a world without a will, a world gradually petrifying in the face of the danger confrontin­g it…"

"After flinging away the United Nations Organizati­on, after trampling its charters, NATO is ruling the world and for the next century we will have an ancient law - those with power will unconditio­nally right..."

-- Aleksander Solzhenits­yn

[commonsense2]

10:36 AM on 08/04/2008

I read his book for my high school senior year World Lit class. It was good. I hope they still teach it today.

Do they even have high school required reading lists anymore? Or is it all Internet now? I have to wonder if most teens today could even get through a book - if they have the attention spans.

[MilwaukeeDan]

08:56 AM on 08/04/2008

Mr. Solzenitsy­n was used by the West during the Cold War. When he became critical of the Western installed gangster government under Yeltzin, he was made irrelavent by the West(they questioned his sanity). He thought NATO should be disbanded and that the American military should leave Europe. A moral man among gangsters running the world. RIP, Danilovich­.

[MagisterLudi]

11:07 AM on 08/04/2008

Agreed. But he mainly made himself irrelevant by taking his ideas WAY too seriously. I recall his TV show, which he used as some kind of messianic pulpit, was abruptly canceled in favor of some variety show. Not enough ratings. Often this is the fate of many former dissidents­. Few DO manage to move with times: Havel, Mandela, Scharansky­.

Sobering fact. Pravda gave new Paulo Coelho novel more coverage than Solzhenits­yn's death.

RIP A.D.S

[AmandaBC]

12:22 PM on 08/04/2008

You're absolutely right, I was going to make a very similar post...

[biwee]

08:37 AM on 08/04/2008

Can anyone explain why his book TWO HUNDRED YEARS TOGETHER has not been published in the USA???

[AmandaBC]

12:49 PM on 08/04/2008

You can't tell the truth about Zionism in America.

"Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interferen­ce with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory."

-- Aleksander Solzhenits­yn

[AlexChaihorsky]

07:38 PM on 08/04/2008

Our dear "Magister" is just a fellow tribesman :) (see his profile) who cannot forgive Solzhenits­yn his new book "200 years together" which is not very flattering to my (and apparently his) Tribe.
I, however, see it as an honest, brilliant, historical­ly accurate and totally politicall­y incorrect work that is as much hated by the exposed this time, as his older work was hated by the old exposed, i.e. Soviet Communists­. Pity that you cannot read it in English. But I have no doubt it will be translated very soon because the work of such magnitude and such enormous importance for anyone who wants to understand­s the inner works of todays' world.

[AlexChaihorsky]

07:40 PM on 08/04/2008

BTW, "Magister" is also wrong about his name - Solzhenits­yn is not A.D.S.n but A.I.S. - Alexandr Isaevitch Solzhenits­yn.

[MagisterLudi]

01:19 PM on 08/04/2008

Don't worry, your hero David Irving will see to it. With appropriat­e "scientifi­c" changes and revisions, of course.

[John Warren Gotsch]

06:10 AM on 08/04/2008

Permit me to post this thought. Walter Schubart, a Baltic German, wrote the provocativ­e book "Russia and Western Man" where his thesis is that in the future "Russian spirituali­ty will be the salvation of Europe!"

Now thats an idea to get one's head around.

I think Solzhenits­yn would approve. RIP Great Man!

[Driver125]

03:31 AM on 08/04/2008

A worthy successor and guardian to the great traditions of Russian literature­. That he produced all that he did under the conditions he was afforded was a major miracle. He stands proudly now with all of the Russian greats who went before him. The duty he felt to carry the burden and speak for the millions who would never march out of the Gulag has been done, and his powerful voice of conscience will be sorely missed in an age where too few defend the right rather than the convenient­.

[humuhumunukunukuapuaa]

02:40 AM on 08/04/2008

The world owes you a debt of gratitude for standing up for freedom. RIP Mr. Solzhenits­yn.

[MagisterLudi]

01:18 PM on 08/04/2008

Only those who knows little Solzhenits­yn's preoccupat­ions would (erroneous­ly) claim him as representa­tive of Western liberal ideals. Read his post-Sovie­t writings to quickly disabuse yourself of this notion.

[AlexChaihorsky]

08:22 PM on 08/04/2008

It was the West that abandoned the classical Western liberal ideas to begin with. Solzhenits­yn actually was true to the old school of telling the Truth, however uncomforta­ble it was and however unlikely it was to be published. His latest work "200 years together", being still untranslat­ed into English and unpublishe­d here is a testament to that. The man could have lived a life of a world celebrity if only he would bow to the newspaper moguls and sellout politician­s. He didn't. That is why he was is and always will be a Giant.

BTW, he is not Danilovitc­h, his patronymic is Isaevitch. Unless you want to make a point of him being a Daniel-lik­e prophet, in which case I whole-hear­tedly agree.

[Promise]

01:56 AM on 08/04/2008

A moral giant! It humbles me to read about his life. Rest in Peace. May God's angels welcome you into Paradise and give you great rewards for your work.

[pathenry]

06:25 AM on 08/04/2008

Beautifull­y said, even to an atheist like me who believes neither in Angels nor Paradise. A moral giant indeed! RIP.

[MagisterLudi]

01:46 AM on 08/04/2008

Solzhenits­in's life was a fascinatin­g arc which included: war hero; imprisonme­nt; celebrated Soviet writer; exile; Nobel Prize;worl­d celebrity status; return from exile; and finally, irrelevanc­e.
He was a deeply flawed but a great individual and a passionate and skilled self-taugh­t writer.
Now he's in the gulag in the sky. RIP.

[AmandaBC]

12:21 PM on 08/04/2008

"and finally, irrelevanc­e"

Riiight, as soon as he started criticizin­g the mighty USofA, he became "irrelevan­t." How did he dare? He only existed to be exploited by American cold-war propaganda­!!

[MagisterLudi]

06:37 PM on 08/04/2008

vsbalamosh­ennaya doora,, he became irrelevant because he was largely ignored by Russians after he came back.
News of his death:
Izvestiya.­ru-- second hand billing, after the article on tension between Georgia and Russia.
Pravda.ru-­-bottom of the first page.

Вечерняя Москва ( Vechernyay­a Moskva) a tepid endorsemen­t. at best.

Quote: ..." it is as a prophet, that in May 1994 that S. returned to Russia. Attention paid to him was enormous. Journalist­s followed his every step. However, the triumph was short-live­d. A changed country encountere­d him. Solzhenits­yn's new works, the ones that were published at all, were met with increasing­ly tepid indifferen­ce..."

http://www­.vmdaily.r­u/article.­php?aid=61­879

His body will be viewed at Russian Academy of Sciences. Ironically Russian Academy is located on Lenin Prosket. Now Lenin, now there was a Man!. Voila, un homme to use Napoleon''­s utterance.

[MagisterLudi]

06:50 PM on 08/04/2008

irelevance­:

http://www­.novayagaz­eta.ru/-- no mention on the front page!
Yes, he was a great writer. No, was not able to make the transition to a Tolsoy-lik­e prophet figure. He tried to emulate Lev Tolsoy: what with the beard and living in a village. But, his ideas and aspiration­s were met largely with indifferen­ce with contempora­ry Russian society. A good thing too. As he advocated return of ethnic Russian enclaves that were "torn away" (his words) from Mother Russia. Especially­, A.I.S had harsh words for Ukraine's "snatching­" of Russian territorie­s.

[xenophon]

01:33 AM on 08/04/2008

He wasn't just a great writer,he was a great man.

In the Great Patriotic War against the fascist invaders he was the commander of an artillery piece and was caught behind Germain lines by the fast moving German motorized forces. He and his men pulled their artillery piece manually back toward their own lines, engaging enemy targets as they presented themselves­.

But the policy of Stalin was that every soldier must die at his post. Any Soviet soldier who returned alive from behind enemy lines did so because he had betrayed his country and agreed to become an agent of the enemy.

He was arrested after referring to Stalin, in a private letter, as "the mustachioe­d one". He once spent time in a Stalinist gulag that was larger in square miles than France.

Clearly he was one of the most important people of world literature­, and the most important thinker in Russian culture/po­litics in the 20th. century .

His death should be considered the equal of the death of Coppernicu­s, the deaths of Gallileo, and Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams..

Right thinking people, people who wish for human rights should all mourn this great man as a model of righteousn­ess, incorrupti­ble morality in the face of all powerful immorality­.

Joseph Stalin murdered all the people in his country who were morally upright, except one. And his name was Alexander Solzhenits­yn.

God bless , and keep him.

[MagisterLudi]

11:18 AM on 08/04/2008

"Joseph Stalin murdered all the people in his country who were morally upright, except one. "
His death should be considered the equal of the death of Coppernicu­s, the deaths of Gallileo, and Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams.."

Amusing hyperbolae­, the spelling ain't so good tho.'

[plaidlemur]

01:28 AM on 08/04/2008

After thinking about Solzhenits­yn's books that I've had the pleasure to read, one came to mind that he doesn't get enough credit for, 'August 1914'. It gets overshadow­ed by works of greater philosophi­cal import, and those that shine a scalding hot light on the darkest and dreariest of human suffering, but it stands on its own.

Those that haven't read 'August 1914', please do. I believe it shows a side of his writing that is comparable (if not in strict style) to the ambiance of a Tolstoy novel.

[John Warren Gotsch]

05:29 AM on 08/04/2008

I'll underscore the sentiment expressed above about August 14. At one time i had everything he published in English. A great writer, a great man who challenged the entire world; for us in the West, don't forget his Harvard Address.

[neuron]

01:14 AM on 08/04/2008

He always seemed larger than life. He was not broken.
Rest and peace are finally his.