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| -Obits- |
| Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89 |
| 2008-08-04 |
| MOSCOW - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning author whose books chronicled the horrors of the Soviet gulag system, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89. Stepan Solzhenitsyn told The Associated Press his father died late Sunday, but declined further comment. Solzhenitsyn's unflinching accounts of torment and survival in the Soviet Union's slave labor camps riveted his countrymen, whose secret history he exposed. They earned him 20 years of bitter exile, but international renown. And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person's courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire. |
| Posted by:Deacon Blues |
| #2 I read the Gulag Archipelago twice; the first time it scared the hell out of me. Solzhenitsyn undoubtedly outed the Soviet Union's warts and ugly secrets and he deserves credit for that. However, anyone who opens that book should remember the first few pages, the ones where he says "everybody knew what to do with German women; first you raped them, then you shot them." If raping and murdering noncombatants is something you can overlook in establishing someone in your pantheon of heroes, go for it. For me, that doesn't work. It's one of the reasons I despise Mo and his followers as well. |
| Posted by: Hupiling the Galactic Hero1106 2008-08-04 07:23 |
| #1 Спасибо большое, Александр. |
| Posted by: Spike Uniter 2008-08-04 02:46 |