- 8/4/2008 10:08:06 PMAlexander Solzhenitsyn"I never doubted that communism was doomed to collapse, but I was always afraid of how Russia would emerge from that communism and at what price. I know I am coming back to a worn-out, discouraged, shell-shocked, Russia which has changed beyond recognition and is wandering about in search of itself."
- ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN (1918-2008)
After what I have seen while traveling to Russia to adopt Michael, I could not agree more.
More from AP:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn shook the foundations of Soviet power with his haunting accounts of the forced labour camps. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 and was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974.
He returned to Russia in 1994 in a train journey to Moscow that started in the city of Magadan, where countless thousands perished in the camps. At every stop along the way, he was greeted by large crowds of fans.
But his gloomy harangues on Russian television about the perils of imitating the West and the need to revive Orthodox values were then widely unpopular, although his views have a bigger following in the Russia of today.
Most recently, he campaigned for greater local self-government in Russia, criticising former president Putin for rolling back democratic freedoms. He also praised Putin, however, for reviving Russia's greatness.
Live Not By Lies - An Essay by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
