Tablet Celebrating Solzhenitsyn’s 99th Birthday Unveiled at Author’s Former Residence in Moscow
The last before the round date, the 100th anniversary, the anniversary of the birth of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He died a long time ago but the mindset of a man who proved that a lone warrior can make changes in the world is still hard-hitting.
Alyona Rogozina will tell you about the latest developments.
A unique video. Solzhenitsyn’s interview with the CBS American TV company. For the first time in the domestic broadcast. 1983. A smiling bearded man in a summer shirt as opposed to a Nobel laureate, writer, historian, philosopher.
In the house on Tverskaya, where Solzhenitsyn had lived before his expulsion, a commemorative tablet was opened on the day of his 99th birthday. There’s a portrait in the hole on the dark stone. Many people came here.
Natalia Solzhenitsyna, Solzhenitsyn Aid Fund President: "He was never registered here. In fact, he was never registered in Moscow. He was refused it because he was already persona non grata. Nevertheless, he would come here and stay as long as the police rules allowed. And the police allowed him to stay here for 72 hours".
Natalia Solzhenitsyna lives with the idea of creating a museum in the apartment for the writer’s 100th anniversary. A shoe box with a double bottom for manuscripts, the writer's table, his glasses. Life under the supervision and in constant fear not for herself and her husband, but for children, is difficult to imagine.
Natalia Solzhenitsyna helped her husband hide the manuscripts every evening. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Matryona's Place were already published. But they had to finish the main work, The Gulag Archipelago, secretly. When the KGB learned about the manuscript’s content, Solzhenitsyn was arrested.
Natalia Solzhenitsyna: "Here, he stopped at the door, told me to take care of the children. Then, he was taken away. That's how it was. I waited for the search, of course, that day. All night we were burning things that could be restored in the basin in the kitchen".
They sent him out of the country in a state coat. There were accusations of betrayal of the Motherland and insults labeling him as a literature Vlasovite.
And the same phrase is now in the proclamations of the Revolutionary Communist Youth League, the RKSM, in Moscow on the day of the commemorative tablet opening. Alexander Solzhenitsyn responds through time: "I can’t say that I wrote all this in order to open the eyes of the West to the East. First of all, I wrote all this for my people. In Russian. I was restoring the truth about my country, all kinds of truth, for my own people. For me, this is the key. The system would change so much that it would be possible to publish The Gulag Archipelago freely, widely, in Russia".
Natalia Solzhenitsyna's reaction to that trick was no less severe. In response, the RKSM sent the quotes of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.
Solzhenitsyn expounded as clear as possible his views on the communist system, on the confrontation between Stalin and Hitler, on the Great Patriotic War, and the revolution: "We must first see the horror created not by someone from outside, not by class or national enemies, but inside each of us and each society".
In the language of Internet bloggers, there are many of them in the RKSM, this is called "to hype", that is, to gain popularity on someone else's name. The name of the man who proved that a lone warrior can also make a change. It’s unnecessary to talk about respect. There would exist neither discussion about the topic of Vlasovism in his books nor the youth itself, which can openly argue, if it weren’t for Solzhenitsyn's road to Calvary.
The attitude to Alexander Isaevich personally, as well as to his literary texts, can be different. Only his place in history remains unchanged.
Alyona Rogozina, Anton Kasimovich, Vladimir Yegorov, for Vesti — News on Saturday