Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

jimmymccready said:
The Putin of post 2010, you bet, Havana Moon.
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wrong. ( as usual)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/04/solzhenitsyn.russia
His historical writing is imbued with a hankering after an idealized Tsarist era when, seemingly, everything was rosy. He sought refuge in a dreamy past, where, he believed, a united Slavic state (the Russian empire) built on Orthodox foundations had provided an ideological alternative to western individualistic liberalism.

The break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Solzhenitsyn hoped, as he wrote in a Russian newspaper at the time, would lead to the creation of a united Slavic state encompassing Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in which this alternative culture would flourish.

On returning to Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn opposed the excesses that went with the introduction of capitalism in Russia during the 1990s. In addition, he vociferously opposed Ukrainian independence. But the rise of Putin and the resurgence of nationalism, and the notion of Russia as "unique" and "different" from western liberal culture, gave new currency to his views.
 
anatta said:
sound it out. not particularly difficult
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Certainly not for a Ruskie and Putin boot-lick like you anyway, Ivan.

I find it hilarious that a guy who can't even get through his thick skull, the difference between "then" and "than" is taking a superior attitude over the subject of spelling.

:laugh: :palm:
 
Capitalists, conservatives, and Republicans have attempted to claim Solzhenitsyn as their poster boy of the superiority of western capitalism

The fact is Solzhenitsyn was nobody's pawn.

While he is a towering figure of 20th century literature, and wrote eloquently about justice and the human spirit, here are the facts about him:

Solzhenitsyn was always a Russian nationalist, he always rejected the West and capitalism, and he was a religious reactionary who undoubtedly viewed Orthodox Christian Russia to be spiritually superior and fated for destiny
 
anatta said:
wrong. ( as usual)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/04/solzhenitsyn.russia
His historical writing is imbued with a hankering after an idealized Tsarist era when, seemingly, everything was rosy. He sought refuge in a dreamy past, where, he believed, a united Slavic state (the Russian empire) built on Orthodox foundations had provided an ideological alternative to western individualistic liberalism.

The break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Solzhenitsyn hoped, as he wrote in a Russian newspaper at the time, would lead to the creation of a united Slavic state encompassing Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in which this alternative culture would flourish.

On returning to Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn opposed the excesses that went with the introduction of capitalism in Russia during the 1990s. In addition, he vociferously opposed Ukrainian independence. But the rise of Putin and the resurgence of nationalism, and the notion of Russia as "unique" and "different" from western liberal culture, gave new currency to his views.
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Did you know that he thought the USA was wrong to pull out of Vietnam when it did? He also had a soft spot for Franco. U

Mark Steel: A reactionary called Solzhenitsyn

I had no idea Solzhenitsyn was still alive, so I couldn't work out how to feel at the news he'd died. It was as if someone said "Have you heard the sad news – Joan of Arc's dead." It must have been difficult for him returning to Russia as an old man, as presumably he saw the shopping malls and McDonald's and thought "Dear oh dear, nothing's the same. When I was a boy it was all gulags round here."

Also, while his courage and impact was clearly immense, hardly anyone appears to have read any of his books. Maybe this is because every Russian novel seems to involve prison and frostbite and cannon-fire and families slaughtered by Cossacks.

If the Russians tried to do the Mr Men series it would go, "Mr Smiley was smiling away on the bus to Noverchekask to buy a packet of balloons for his birthday. 'Oh what a shame', he smiled at the man in the shop. 'You haven't any purple ones and purples are my favourite'. Then Mr Smiley felt a hand on his shoulder. 'So you are critical of the policies of the balloon-colouring commissariat of the regional Politburo are you Smiley?' said a man with a bristly moustache, and so Mr Smiley spent his next nine birthdays smiling in solitary confinement in a four foot square bare earth cell hacking at a frozen solid raw potato for his dinner with a fork that had two prongs missing."


There's an added confusion in the response to his death, which is that the most militaristic Bush-supporting faction of Western society leap on him as their hero. At one level, this is easy to understand. They probably read his stuff and think, "These prisons he's describing are abominable. Add in orange hoods and waterboarding and they'll be perfect." And the person who had to write the eulogy for some papers will have been especially perplexed, as their first draft must have been, "Once again us mugs in the West had to bail out a so-called refugee who'd suffered 'torture' in his own country, but came here to exploit our superior health system to tend to his frostbite." Until the editor explained, "No – we wanted this one here."

But there's something else that makes him more complex than just a victim of tyranny and a crusader against it. Once in America and feted by Western leaders, he urged the US to continue bombing Vietnam. He condemned Amnesty International as too liberal, opposed democracy in Russia, and supported General Franco.

Solzhenitsyn himself can be excused, because who knows what it does to the mind to spend eight years in a barbaric Russian jail. But the reason he appeared so contradictory is the question at the centre of the 20th century. The obvious route for anyone appalled by one side in the Cold War was to embrace the other. But both sides were driven by a rationale that owed nothing to morals and humanity and everything to profit and power. So anyone attempting to defend one side against the other gets in a tangle, condemning the gulags but justifying napalm on Vietnam, or condemning the US-backed coup in Chile but supporting the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

Or maybe it's a Russian thing, in which they were isolated from world opinion for so long they go wonky when they talk about anything outside Russia. So all Russian writers seem to compose epic novels detailing a history of plague and war and terror across four centuries. Then they follow it up with a pamphlet about how the world economy should be governed by Robert Kilroy-Silk and we should all live under the sea. When the only sane perspective is to comprehend that it's not odd bits of the world that are mad, but all of it.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...a-reactionary-called-solzhenitsyn-886115.html
 
anatta said:
wrong. ( as usual)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/04/solzhenitsyn.russia
His historical writing is imbued with a hankering after an idealized Tsarist era when, seemingly, everything was rosy. He sought refuge in a dreamy past, where, he believed, a united Slavic state (the Russian empire) built on Orthodox foundations had provided an ideological alternative to western individualistic liberalism.

The break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Solzhenitsyn hoped, as he wrote in a Russian newspaper at the time, would lead to the creation of a united Slavic state encompassing Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in which this alternative culture would flourish.

On returning to Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn opposed the excesses that went with the introduction of capitalism in Russia during the 1990s. In addition, he vociferously opposed Ukrainian independence. But the rise of Putin and the resurgence of nationalism, and the notion of Russia as "unique" and "different" from western liberal culture, gave new currency to his views.
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The article is written by someone named "William Harrison"; obviously he is not Russian or East Slavic.

Solzhenitsyn was a complex man who cannot be distilled down to sound-bites: anti-communist, Pro-Putin, anti-western, et al.

His legacy and moral stature have led many British and American pundits to attempt to peg Solzhenitsyn for their own purposes.

Solzhenitsyn defies even scholars and actual Russians who can intimately relate to his writings, his experiences, his philisophy, his religion.

In my opinion, there really is no hope for obscure British journalists and bloggers to take full measure of the man.

I maintain it is best to leave Solzhenitsyn's legacy in its proper place: a man of moral courage, who spoke the truth in the face of mortal danger, an artist who was able to articulate something about the human condition few before him or since have had the integrity and talent to achieve
 
Nomad said:
Had one bitch of a tough name to spell.
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He could be a real abrasive prick too...but what a writer. I read The Gulag Archipelago when I was 12 and after that I dismissed the John Bircher crowd as morons. Americans weren’t ever that stupid for communism to be an existential threat internally. History proved me right. I never feared communism after reading Gulag. Not even Southerners are that stupid.
 
jimmymccready said:
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn would oppose Putin and Trump.
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Well...Duh! He opposed Stalin and Kruschev and Brezhnev and Truman, Ike, and Johnson and Nixon in his own time. And let me tell you Putin is a down right pussy compared to any of those men and Trump a non entity to be dismissed out of hand.
 
Havana Moon said:
Did you know that he thought the USA was wrong to pull out of Vietnam when it did? He also had a soft spot for Franco. U



https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...a-reactionary-called-solzhenitsyn-886115.html
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I knew he was an abrasive prick who held America in low regards and considered American popular culture a cancer from some videos of some of his lecture. He about had a stroke when he was asked about American Rock n Roll. Let’s just say he made it clear he wasn’t a fan.

What a writer though.
 
Cypress said:
The article is written by someone named "William Harrison"; obviously he is not Russian or East Slavic.

Solzhenitsyn was a complex man who cannot be distilled down to sound-bites: anti-communist, Pro-Putin, anti-western, et al.

His legacy and moral stature have led many British and American pundits to attempt to peg Solzhenitsyn for their own purposes.

Solzhenitsyn defies even scholars and actual Russians who can intimately relate to his writings, his experiences, his philisophy, his religion.

In my opinion, there really is no hope for obscure British journalists and bloggers to take full measure of the man.

I maintain it is best to leave Solzhenitsyn's legacy in its proper place: a man of moral courage, who spoke the truth in the face of mortal danger, an artist who was able to articulate something about the human condition few before him or since have had the integrity and talent to achieve
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Agreed. I’ve watched some of his lectures and thought he was a completely unlikeable asshole. There is no arguing though the serious risks he took, his courage or his talent as a writer. The man had seriously big balls. It’s almost miraculous he wasn’t shot.

I will say this in my youth Solzhenitsyn, Twain and Heller were the most influential writers in my youth but I can say this without qualification.

As great an artist as Solzhenitsyn was...he wasn’t in the same league as Mark Twain. Then again I can’t think of anyone in modern Literature who is. Dickens is a remote second. Can’t think of anyone else who comes close, at least in the English language.
 
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Mott the Hoople said:
Agreed. I’ve watched some of his lectures and thought he was a completely unlikeable asshole. There is no arguing though the serious risks he took, his courage or his talent as a writer. The man had seriously big balls. It’s almost miraculous he wasn’t shot.

I will say this in my youth Solzhenitsyn, Twain and Heller were the most influential writers in my youth but I can say this without qualification.

As great an artist as Solzhenitsyn was...he wasn’t in the same league as Mark Twain. Then again I can’t think of anyone in modern Literature who is. Dickens is a remote second. Can’t think of anyone else who comes close, at least in the English language.
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^^ A fine trio of writers.

My pick for the greatest writer of English prose in the modern era is Joseph Conrad. Which is pretty weird since he was Polish and didn't learn English until well into his 20s.

In some respects, English translations of Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky do not do full justice to the prose in the original Russian, nonetheless even in translation one can really sense the talent and vision these writers had.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I knew he was an abrasive prick who held America in low regards and considered American popular culture a cancer from some videos of some of his lecture. He about had a stroke when he was asked about American Rock n Roll. Let’s just say he made it clear he wasn’t a fan.

What a writer though.
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Someone mentioned Joseph Conrad. Did you know he lived in Stanford-le-Hope, Essex for several years, very close to where I was brought up? He wrote the Nigger of the Narcissus and started writing Heart of Darkness there. He probably chose the location as it is very close to the River Thames. It's strange to think that he spoke without a trace of accent when speaking French but had a heavily Polish accent when speaking English yet he chose English for all his great writings, true genius.
 
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Havana Moon said:
Someone mentioned Joseph Conrad. Did you know he lived in Stanford-le-Hope, Essex for several years, very close to where I was brought up? He wrote the Nigger of the Narcissus and started writing Heart of Darkness there. He probably chose the location as it is very close to the River Thames. It's strange to think that he spoke without a trace of accent when speaking French but had a heavily Polish accent when speaking English yet he chose English for all his great writings, true genius.
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Unfortunately not close enough for any of his smarts to have rubbed off on you, though.
 
Havana Moon said:
Someone mentioned Joseph Conrad. Did you know he lived in Stanford-le-Hope, Essex for several years, very close to where I was brought up? He wrote the Nigger of the Narcissus and started writing Heart of Darkness there. He probably chose the location as it is very close to the River Thames. It's strange to think that he spoke without a trace of accent when speaking French but had a heavily Polish accent when speaking English yet he chose English for all his great writings, true genius.
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Heart of Darkness is a masterpiece.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Heart of Darkness is a masterpiece.
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It is indeed, he loved the Thames and London. By contrast Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski aka Joseph Conrad travelled to the Congo, made one return trip on the river, from Kinshasa to Kisangani, and decided that was enough for him. He was signed up for three years but he had seen enough and quit, never to return.
 
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