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

[VOTER]

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence."

"The next war...may well bury Western civilization forever."

"We have arrived at an intellectual chaos."

ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYM (REST IN PEACE)

[JiminNC]

Хороший человек ушёл из жизни. Светлая ему память и земля пухом.

Rest in Peace sir.

[kvass]

But looking out the window of the aircraft we could see him on the tarmac of London airport being greeted and bundled into a Bentley by a very glamourous lady. Later that evening he appeared on BBC Television. On that occasion he spoke english very clearly. I decided I would call this minor episode in my life as "life after the Gulag". I think at the age of 89 he has done very well considering his earlier life during that dreadful time. His contribution to writing I am sure will stand the test of time.

[KOisGod]

Thank you for sharing your brief encounter with Solzhenitsyn. He seemed odd by your account, God knows he earned the right. The survivors of Stalin's Russia survived one of the most failed and brutal experiments in human governance. Under the Communist's rule, there was the dictators paranoia, and the suffering it brought - stains the memory of Man.

[kvass]

Some twenty odd years ago or was it thirty? I boarded a very early morning flight from Copenhagen to London and found myself in the second to last available seat which was on the aisle. They announced there would be a slight delay for a late boarding passenger. To every one's surprise Mr. Solzhenitsyn entered the cabin. Of course he proceeded to my row. I rose to let him into the window seat and he handed me his very heavy winter coat. After finding a baggage compartment to stow it I returned to my seat. Never a word was said even though I had greeted him initially with a good morning. He smelled terribly of an old tobacco pipe gone sour. Breakfast was served -- the usual Scandinavian bits of slightly stale bread and hard cheese and some other things not interesting to any one slightly hung over and at six in the morning. He ate his off his tray with gusto, paused to see I had not approached mine and then without a word moved it over to his side and quickly made short work of it. Still nothing said. After landing the cabin attendant came down the aisle to fetch him as they had asked us all to stay in our seats while he left the aircraft. Then came the problem of the heavy overcoat. Where had I stowed it? I recovered it for him and returned to my seat. Still not a word said. (to be continued)

[geneven]

This reminds me of a question I have had about the Gulag Archipelago for years. (I listened to the unabridged Audible version -- all three volumes -- while living in Moscow, often passing Lubyanka while on one of my long listening walks).

I would particularly be interested in the response of a conservative reader to this question:

Now that the Bush Administration has said that many practices previously defined as torture are not torture, would someone go thru the Gulag Archipelago and explain which, though condemned by Solzhenitsyn, are not really torture?

It seems to me that there were quite a few.

[AmandaBC]

"Now that the Bush Administration has said that many practices previously defined as torture are not torture, would someone go thru the Gulag Archipelago and explain which, though condemned by Solzhenitsyn, are not really torture?"

Good point. This quote was originally coined for the USSR, but it beautifully applies to today's US equally well:

"In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State."
-- Aleksander Solzhenitsyn

[andvoodoo2]

I will always remember the impact "One Day In The Life..." had on me.
He was a gift.

[yorkie]

I GAVE A RE-READING OF HIS FAMOUS SOME SAY CONTROVERSIAL SPEECH TO HARVARD GRADUATES IN 1977 BACK IN MY SPEECH CLUB IN HS. HE WAS RIGHT ON A NUMBER OF FRONTS. A GREAT WRITER EMBITTERED BY THE WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT, MAY HE BE READ OVER AND OVER. HE HAS LESSONS OF WAR AND HUMANITY TO BE UNDERSTOOD. HE AND ANDERI SAKUROV ARE TWO GREAT RUSSIANS THAT NEED TO BE REVERED MORE ESP IN RUSSIA. MAY FREEDOM AND PEACE WITH FAIRNESS FOR ALL REIGN IN MOTHER RUSSIA SOON!

[MarciL]

RIP, Aleksander, you will be missed.

[emerywood]

A truly remarkable man who documented in great detail the degradation and tragic suffering of the Soviet citizens under Lenin and Stalin. He was a great writer !

[HansMoleman]

Not under Lenin. Solzhenitsyn wasn't born until 1918, so he would have been 8 or 9 years old when Lenin died. Solzhenitsyn himself attributed the crimes of Stalinism to the tendencies of Marxist and Leninist thought, but he was motivated in large part by a rather reactionary Russian nationalism and religious conservatism (which all led him to sentimentalise the tsarist era and to persistently deny the crimes of Russian autocracy).

He may have been a great novelist and essayist, but his political and historical views were increasingly far removed from reality.

[arvay]

The reactionary Russian nationalism and religious conservatism you mention should remind us Americans that we can't expect the world to fall on its knees before our concepts of freedom and progress.

People have their own cultures, and they will evolve along their own lines. I believe they will mostly opt for a representative government and some degree of personal freedom, but these processes will take many decades and will be helped a lot when we stop creating fiascos such as the Iraq war, that undermine the values we're supposedly trying to impose.

Imposing freedom at gunpoint is an irretrievably stupid idea, it fosters nationalism and reactionary ideas, as we can see from the mess we've made in the Mideast.

[peacekitten]

we may wish you to rest in a peace you have certainly earned, but somehow i doubt your spirit will allow it.

“Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right”

---- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

your truths are universal.

[darthdarcy]

I was a great fan of Solzhenitsyn and admirer of him as a political analyst and critic and historian and also a great humanist philosopher, the article mentions Tolstoy he was actually more akin to and protege' of Dostoyevsky...

I saw him one day when living in Vermont it was a very rare occurrence, I called out his first name we waved and he waved back to us I was thrilled couldn't believe we had seen this great man...

[VOTER]

Nice.

[MagisterLudi]

Calling a stranger by a first name considered to be a bit rude in Russian. He probably didn't hear what you said. Still a good anecdote.

[AlexChaihorsky]

Oh, come on! Solzhenitsyn was an educated, well-bred and well-read man. He would never judge the manners of one society by the standards of another! One has to be a complete idiot to live in a country and not recognize what is polite here and what is not!
Why you try to make him look like an irrelevant half-whit in your numerous posts?

[dgr]

A brilliant mind. His observations about contemporary life in Russia displayed the same brilliance as those he penned about Stalinist Russia.
He will truly be missed. He remained a guiding force for his country right up to his untimely demise.
Go in peace!

[MagisterLudi]

"His observations about contemporary life in Russia displayed the same brilliance as those he penned about Stalinist Russia. "
Russians tend to disagree with this notion.
and S. in his later years only cared about the opinions of his compatriots. Ironically, he despised Western weak-kneed hypocritical liberalism as much as the us the socialists and his nemesis the communists. For those centrists, by the way, S. absolutely hated the fact that ethnic Russian areas in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia etc were taken from Russia.
His death is largely ignored in Russians press. He got a second billing headline in Izvestia and a minor notice in Pravda.

[holyhandgrenaid]

One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich was one of relatively few enjoyable, well-written books I was required to read in High School. Solzhenitsyn was a great author, and a tribute to Russian Literary Tradition.... far better than many of our so-called 'great American novelists" I'll take Solzhenitsyn over Fitzgerald or Faulkner any day

[BabsfromKansas]

"Through art we are sometimes visited - dimly, briefly - by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking."

Thank you - you will be remembered.

[EarthToZoey]

"Words strung together like pearls."

How nice it would be to write like he did. :)

[milo9]

I read all but his latest books. His frame of reference was communism especially under Stalin, but the larger truth was the horrors of Totalitarianism. Ever since the Right declared a desire for a "Permanent Republican Majority" and the Dems acquiesced to torture and warrantless surveillance, his insights formed my opinions.