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| Things Worth Remembering: Solzhenitsyn on the West's ‘Decline in Courage' |
| 2024-08-05 |
| [Free Press] I have been thinking a great deal about Russia these past few days in light of Thursday’s dramatic prisoner swap, which culminated with Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich emerging from an airplane at Andrews Air Force Base, outside Washington, D.C. More to the point, I’ve been thinking about those courageous Russian souls who, like Gershkovich, escaped from the authoritarian darkness and found their way to America. At the top of that list is Alexander Solzhenitsyn—the author of one of the few books that actually changed the world. The Gulag Archipelago, a three-volume nonfiction account of life inside the notorious Stalinist penal system, first appeared in French in 1973, and the next year in English. It created an audible and devastating crack in the Iron Curtain. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #1 This is about a speech at Harvard: "How embarrassing to have been an American—a soon-to-be graduate of the nation’s most prestigious university, or, better yet, an esteemed professor or dean at that university—and to be forced to listen to a Soviet exile, a man who could not even speak to his audience in English, lecture them about their many shortcomings. " He thinks Harvard people, even back then, would have been embarrassed by the speech? This writer is clueless. |
| Posted by: penguin_of_the_best_desert 2024-08-05 11:52 |