A Giant Has Fallen
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose short novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was instrumental in exposing the horrors of the GULAG under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, has died at the age of 89.
I first read a biography of him while a senior in high school, and while I was studying Russian as a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign I read all his novels of the camps. Of the three "prophet-novelists" of Russian literature, he was the one I found most accessible. Great as Leo Tolstoy and Fyodr Dostoyevsky may be, I always seemed to bounce off their works. Yet Solzhenitsyn's writing had a terrible, compelling power that grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go.
Yet another great Witness to the horrors of the 20th century has passed from our midst, and we can only hope that his books will continue to speak to future generations now that he is no longer here.
I first read a biography of him while a senior in high school, and while I was studying Russian as a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign I read all his novels of the camps. Of the three "prophet-novelists" of Russian literature, he was the one I found most accessible. Great as Leo Tolstoy and Fyodr Dostoyevsky may be, I always seemed to bounce off their works. Yet Solzhenitsyn's writing had a terrible, compelling power that grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go.
Yet another great Witness to the horrors of the 20th century has passed from our midst, and we can only hope that his books will continue to speak to future generations now that he is no longer here.