Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Stephen Kotkin, the author of two biographical books on Stalin, wrote in this week’s issue of the Times Literary Supplement: Solzhenitsyn wrote it [The Gulag Archpelago] conspiratorially, in fragments, hiding his completed sections in the homes of trusted allies… In…
Enough to scare the bejeezus out of anyone in Russia: A mother of seven has been accused of treason for calling the Ukrainian embassy about Russian troop movements… The woman — who faces between 12 and 20 years in prison…
Miriam Elder and Robert Coalson argue that Putin has been influenced by Solzhenitsyn’s view of Russia’s proper borders. That’s plausible, but Solzhenitsyn was a proponent of grassroots democracy of the sort he witnessed in Vermont. He probably had in mind an honest…
Solzhenitsyn is a nationalist in that he centers his analysis of Eurasian politics around what he sees as the interests of the Russian people — or, if we translate Rus’ as Ruthenia, of the Ruthenians. In Rebuilding Russia (Kak nam…
… on Dec. 11. There wasn’t much response in the Russian press, even less in the Western media. Putin, of course, sent Solzh a congratulatory letter (so tragicomical, so Russian). My feeling is that most Russian public intellectuals don’t want…
They are reviewing book reviews, among them Stefan Wagstyl’s of Anne Applebaum’s Gulag. Just read this: Many well-known gulag writers survived by working as “prison trusties”; others as informants. Solzhenitsyn did both. The last gulag closed in February 1992. “Solzhenitsyn…