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Journalism of Courage
A new edition of the award-winning book The Gulag Archipelago, with interesting revelations that were missing from the earlier version, will be released by author Alexander Solzhenitsyn on his 89th birthday on Tuesday.
Commenting on the new edition of the book to be released after 16 years, Solzhenitsyn said the book was supplemented with new archival data about the lives of its characters as in the Soviet era. He said, earlier he had access only to the official publications about the concentration camps and not the classified archives.
“The official publications were filled with lies and distortions, and I used them in The Gulag Archipelago merely to ridicule and deny them. Now, to avoid confusion, I have provided archival data about each character of my work,” he said.
Solzhenitsyn on Sunday expressed his happiness over Russian regaining its role in the world affairs, but lamented the spiritual and moral plight of the country.
“Russia has re-asserted its influence in international relations and regained its role in the world. But inside, morally, we are far from what we wish and what we need to be,” Solzhenitsyn said in an interview to the Russian state television channel Rossiya.
“Deep and difficult development is still needed, which no government or parliamentary practices can ensure. It is a very complex spiritual process,” he said. Asked whether this process will be a success, Solzhenitsyn said, “it depends on how it works out”.
Solzhenitsyn said the Russian society was not mature enough to accept a long-term national idea. “It was sickening to watch all this fuss about the national idea when it started. Come on, what’s the fuss! You are not mature enough for it,” he said. He said a “national idea” cannot boil down solely to “the saving of the nation”.
“Besides saving, a great deal more is needed —spiritual development in the first place. But saving might be the first step,” he noted.
Solzhenitsyn, whose work exposed the horrors of Stalinist labour camps, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, but was imprisoned and expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974 following the publication of his seminal work The Gulag Archipelago. He returned to Russia in 1994 after 20 years in exile in Europe and the United States.
