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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

the-tls.co.uk

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Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#11

Post by arethuza »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #6

Shame much of what he wrote down was a lie, or at the very least fiction. Which wasn't necessary, because the system was terrible enough. The Gulag Archipelago is useful as a source for life within the system, but cant be taken as truth. His wife is quoted as saying the book was meant as fiction, but the West took it as fact (i'm sure they had no good reason at all to promote the shit out of an anti-Soviet book). Sol…

I read The Gulag Archipelago then later I read Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum and while Solzhenitsyn's work shocked me the sheer scale of things described by Applebaum (and how utterly futile most of it was) really left a deep impression on me.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#12

Post by ericdykstra »

enriquto wrote: post #5
asianthrowaway wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I heard it's rather... controversial, to say the least.

He's a writer, not an historian. Thus his non-fiction works do not have to be read like history books, more like journalistic opinion pieces. In that sense, the factual errors on this book are mostly irrelevant, and the work is still very interesting and insightful.

Indeed. There's not a history book that is without some critique or alternative theories, anyway. Solzhenitsyn spent a long time compiling the information he presents in Two Hundred Years Together (1120 pages in the original Russian)[1], and I would like to read a professional translation of the entire work more than the small excerpt that's in The Solzhenitsyn Reader.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Together-Complete-Volumes-Dve...

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#13

Post by jacobush »

asianthrowaway wrote: post #8
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #6

Shame much of what he wrote down was a lie, or at the very least fiction. Which wasn't necessary, because the system was terrible enough. The Gulag Archipelago is useful as a source for life within the system, but cant be taken as truth. His wife is quoted as saying the book was meant as fiction, but the West took it as fact (i'm sure they had no good reason at all to promote the shit out of an anti-Soviet book). Sol…

I always wondered why Franco has such a bad rep. I'm not really knowledgeable about the Spanish civil war but it seems he prevented Spain from becoming a Stalinist totalitarian country, which is a good thing in my book. I mean no doubt he was a brutal dictator but in the grand scheme of things he was by far the lesser of two evils. Edit: also I think your comparison of the American prison system and the gulag to be r…

It was not all that clear at the time that communism would become as bad as it turned out almost everywhere it was tried.

Edit: downvoted, but I think this is objectively true. The worst atrocities hadn't happen yet in the 1930's. Hindsight is 20 20. A lot of people drew on older ideals from the French revolution which we still celebrate today, not the least in the US. (Do you really think the blood of tyrants can be spillt without collateral damage?)

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#14

Post by CapacitorSet »

nec4b wrote: post #9

The sad thing is that while the soviet union has lost the old war economically, it's ideas have been internalized by a great deal of western "intelligentsia" voluntary with open hearths, instead listening to people like Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn is an anti-semite, and blames atheism for the existence of the Soviet Union and the problems in the modern world in general.

It is a great thing that he isn't being listened to - and yet, he is receiving more attention than he's worth.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#15

Post by nec4b »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #6

Shame much of what he wrote down was a lie, or at the very least fiction. Which wasn't necessary, because the system was terrible enough. The Gulag Archipelago is useful as a source for life within the system, but cant be taken as truth. His wife is quoted as saying the book was meant as fiction, but the West took it as fact (i'm sure they had no good reason at all to promote the shit out of an anti-Soviet book). Sol…

Five years of freezing in siberian winter, starving and doing grueling manual labor makes the gulag experience not so terrible for you?

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#16

Post by nec4b »

CapacitorSet wrote: post #14
nec4b wrote: post #9

The sad thing is that while the soviet union has lost the old war economically, it's ideas have been internalized by a great deal of western "intelligentsia" voluntary with open hearths, instead listening to people like Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn is an anti-semite, and blames atheism for the existence of the Soviet Union and the problems in the modern world in general. It is a great thing that he isn't being listened to - and yet, he is receiving more attention than he's worth.

Yep, people surviving gulags (where btw. lot of jewish people died as well), need to be called names, because they them selves were not saints and said stupid things sometimes.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#17

Post by effry-much »

CapacitorSet wrote: post #14
nec4b wrote: post #9

The sad thing is that while the soviet union has lost the old war economically, it's ideas have been internalized by a great deal of western "intelligentsia" voluntary with open hearths, instead listening to people like Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn is an anti-semite, and blames atheism for the existence of the Soviet Union and the problems in the modern world in general. It is a great thing that he isn't being listened to - and yet, he is receiving more attention than he's worth.

[flagged]

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#18

Post by varjag »

CapacitorSet wrote: post #14
nec4b wrote: post #9

The sad thing is that while the soviet union has lost the old war economically, it's ideas have been internalized by a great deal of western "intelligentsia" voluntary with open hearths, instead listening to people like Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn is an anti-semite, and blames atheism for the existence of the Soviet Union and the problems in the modern world in general. It is a great thing that he isn't being listened to - and yet, he is receiving more attention than he's worth.

Yes. He was hardcore Russian/Orthodox exceptionalist. A staunch Putin's supporter in his later years. He despised the Western values and was anti-Soviet since it was contrary to his nationalist ideals.

One of the most well known Soviet dissident works, Moscow 2042 by Voinovich, has a key character who is a spot-on satirical depiction of Solzhenitsyn.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#19

Post by ethelward »

doombolt wrote: post #7
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #6

Shame much of what he wrote down was a lie, or at the very least fiction. Which wasn't necessary, because the system was terrible enough. The Gulag Archipelago is useful as a source for life within the system, but cant be taken as truth. His wife is quoted as saying the book was meant as fiction, but the West took it as fact (i'm sure they had no good reason at all to promote the shit out of an anti-Soviet book). Sol…

[flagged]

> genocide denial

Please don't use powerful words at the wrong place, you are depleting them of their meaning.

A genocide has an actual definition according to the international law, and the Gulag system does not tick any of the boxes.

The Gulag system was a very harsh penal colony system (although on a far larger scale that what was done before), in continuation of the ones already existing during the tsarist times – and with death rates comparable to what could be found i.e. in the Cayenne penal colony.

It was neither aimed at killing convicts (with mortality rates under 10%, it would have done an awful job at it), nor was it targeting a peculiar ethnic group.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#20

Post by kome »

nec4b wrote: post #16
CapacitorSet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solzhenitsyn is an anti-semite, and blames atheism for the existence of the Soviet Union and the problems in the modern world in general. It is a great thing that he isn't being listened to - and yet, he is receiving more attention than he's worth.

Yep, people surviving gulags (where btw. lot of jewish people died as well), need to be called names, because they them selves were not saints and said stupid things sometimes.

If he is an anti-Semite, it's not being called names, he is just an anti-Semite. And a Russian nationalist. A sad but prescient hint of what Russia would have become after the soviet era.
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