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RUSSIA-LITERATURE-HISTORY-SOLZHENITSYN
A decade after death, Solzhenitsyn draws a blank with young Russians
MOSCOW, Aug 2, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A decade after the hugely influential
author’s death, some young Russians admit to only a passing knowledge of
Russian dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who won a Nobel Prize for
chronicling the horrors of the Soviet Gulag.
“Solzhenitsyn was a dissident, someone who opposed the Soviet regime and
he was a great writer,” summed up Alexander Polyakovsky, 23, who is studying
international relations.
He admits he has not read any of the author’s books.
“They talked about him a bit when I was at high school, during the Russian
literature lessons, but I don’t remember too much,” he added.
Rather than hearing about Solzhenitsyn from teachers, “it was my mother who
explained to me that he was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century,”
Polyakovsky said.
By contrast, his mother Yelena emotionally described how she discovered one
of Solzhenitsyn’s works hidden among the family’s books during the Soviet
era.
“I was a teenager and my parents drilled it into me that I mustn’t tell
anyone we had the book at home. It was a forbidden fruit,” she said.
“It was such a different era that it’s hard for my son to imagine it,” she
added, explaining his lack of interest.
Solzhenitsyn, who died on August 3, 2008 at the age of 89, shot to fame in
the USSR with his 1962 novella that was the first in Soviet literature to
describe everyday life in a prison camp, “One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich.”
It was based on his own experiences of seven years of imprisonment for
criticising Stalin.
Solzhenitsyn’s most widely read book, “The Gulag Archipelago,” a lengthy
chronicle of the workings of Soviet terror, sold millions of copies after
being smuggled out and published in Paris in 1973.
Solzhenitsyn was expelled by the Soviet authorities soon after and spent 20
years in exile in the United States before returning in triumph to Russia in
1994.
Alexander Altunyan, who teaches journalism at Moscow’s International
University, also notes the younger generation has little interest in
Solzhenitsyn’s weighty historic tomes and grimly realist novels such as
“Cancer Ward.”
“Out a class of 30 students, no more than two or three will have read a
book by Solzhenitsyn. Most of them don’t know a thing about him.”
– ‘We need to read him’ –
School teachers say they have to choose which books on the curriculum to
focus on in literature lessons and some get the bare minimum of class time.
Yet some do focus on Solzhenitsyn, saying his moral and political views
are still relevant.
“We really do need to read Solzhenitsyn today as there are more and more
attempts to deny Stalin-era repressions, when some people say nothing
terrible happened in that era,” said Olga Mayevskaya, a teacher of Russian
language and literature.
She said she spends several lessons on books by Solzhenitsyn including “One
Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” and “Gulag Archipelago.”
“I quote the most powerful passages of Gulag Archipelago to my students,”
she said.
“What’s unbelievable is that they are not told about this in history
lessons. This is the history of our country. They have to know it so it does
not happen again.”
Russia in recent years has seen a strong tendency to present Stalin in a
positive light, while officials downplay the repressions and forced
collectivisation that killed millions.
Nevertheless, Solzhenitsyn remains a touchstone to many Russians.
A poll last year by state pollster VTsIOM on Russians’ “idols” from the
20th century put Solzhenitsyn fifth, behind such figures as cosmonaut Yuri
Gagarin and World War II commander Georgy Zhukov.
President Vladimir Putin, who has quoted Solzhenitsyn in speeches, has
ordered official celebrations for the centenary of the writer’s birth in
December.
A statue of Solzhenitsyn is due to be put up on a Moscow street that bears
his name.
Putin handed Solzhenitsyn a state prize a year before his death.
Increasingly nationalist and conservative in later years, Solzhenitsyn backed
Putin’s course.
BSS/AFP/RY/1442 hrs