Talk:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn/Archive 1

Stuff
Tbc wrote:
 * fleshed out a little; I dare a Wikipedian to improve on the quality of articles already out there -- see the Google search

If we compare our articles to the best available, almost all of our articles are going to look extremely shoddy, at this stage. But why compare our articles to the best available? Unlike most of the best available, we have the enormous advantages of being (1) easily editable by anyone and (2) constantly improving. So if we begin a draft now, chances are that by 2011, the article will be among the best available. In fact, a case can be made that eventually Wikipedia will be the most definitive resource on practically everything. I'm not saying that's very likely, but it's entirely possible, given the fact that the project's only going to get more popular, only going to attract more experts, and that it's an institution that can, potentially, live on forever. So, you've got to take the long view. If you just turn people over to other web sources, you're not taking the long view. --LMS

1-I've tried to put some good hooks in here for the User:LMS approach. 2-Why I put "anti-communist" in quotes. I don't mean to be ironic about anti-communism, but until Solzhenitsyn set the table, there were few public anti-communists in the Soviet Union and many anti-communists in the West were simply promoters of the Cold War and not, in my opinion, genuinely anti-totalitarian. Ortolan88 June 02


 * Generally, we put scare quotes around a term if it is being used in a special ideosyncratic or ironic sense -- as if the term doesn't really apply. Please add to the article something about writers who consider the Cold War to be about something other than a fight between freedom and totalitarianism or between the prosperity of a free-market economy vs. the stagnation of plannd economies; otherwise I'm going to remove the scare quotes. Ed Poor, Wednesday, June 19, 2002

OK by me. I'll remove the "quotes". Obviously I had my doubts, which is why I brought it up. As for the true nature of the Cold War, I agree (to a degree), but that stuff probably belongs in the Cold War article, and may be there for all I know. Ortolan88

What are the sources on Solzhenitsyn's anti-semitism/racism? His conservatism and nationalism is well documented, but I find it hard to believe he was an anti-semite. LeoDV 17:12, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some Jewish groups took offense at his observation that Jews seemed to get better treatment than others in prison - gulag not German. I guess you are anti-Semitic to these folks if Jews aren't always the worst treated,etc. Solzhenitsyn's favor rose in the West when he talked about the millions - exaggerated - in the gulag ( he seemed to have the whole country locked up at times, Russia must have a few criminals, like the US,etc ). He fell in favor when he said the West sucks too. Mostly politics.

Here is a 2002 Solzhenitsyn Interview about his new book, 200 Years Together, about Russians & Jews living harmoniously. Solzhenitsyn is not known for giving many interviews over the years. nobs

Nobel Laureate
In awarding the Nobel prize, I beleive some mention should be made how illegal single typewritten copies in samizdat had been smuggled out of the Soviet Union at risk to any courier being charged with ASAand imprisonment. The Nobel Committee, in order to award the prize on the body of his work, seeing it never been mass published (other than Ivan Denosovitch) had used single typewritten copies to review. This was unprecedented. Nobs 01:53, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

ASA = Anti-Soviet Agitation (the disambiguation page is really long)Dietwald 23:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

What happened to this page?
Am I the only one that thinks that this page has seriously degraded over the last month? Look for instance at this August 16 version. What I see there is a well-written, fairly good article.

What we have now has an admittedly nice photo, but poorly written text throughout, and a stylistically terrible (although very extensive) bibliography section. Huge edits and removals by an anonymous editor about "potentially libellous" content really shouldn't be dominating this page. Since when did we remove sourced commentary? Including such remarks is less POV than excluding them to protect the subject of the article. Do I have some support for a few big reverts? --Staecker 12:29, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Definitely. This page really went down the crapper.--Kross 07:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree. I just came across this page and did a straight copy-edit on the narrative part. But the majority of the article is an excruciatingly long bibliography that no one except a Russian literature fan is going to look at. Meanwhile, so little is said about Solzhenitsyn other than the fact that he wrote books. Now that I look at the August 16 version, I see a much better written and trimmer article. Yoninah 21:49, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

OK- I just did a big edit, mostly a revert to the August 16 version, moving the long bibliography over to the new Alexandr Solzhenitsyn bibliography. The short bibliography that remains on the page should probably be trimmed down, but I'm not familiar enough with them to know which are major/minor works. --Staecker 12:14, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Anon editor wrote: "removed anti-semitic charges that, though sourced, are potentially libellous; for example, the quote "Lenin-Jewish revolution" DOES NOT EXIST in "Two Hundred Years Together"; the 1968 "manuscript" to"

No one said or implied that 200YT contains these words. Solzh's 1968 "treatise" does. It is worth adding that at first Solzh denied his authorship, and that was before the second volume came out. But the second volume contained much of the information from 1968 book, often in exact form. So if this anonymous jerk tried to imply that the 1968 work was not authentic, he would be wrong. --85.140.23.11 09:41, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

It's been quiet for a while, but it looks like he's back! I'll keep on reverting. --Staecker 19:02, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Ideology
I think this article lacks any decent description of Solzhenitsyn's ideological convictions. Currently this is mentioned only in passing. In a addition, it would be good if someone could write on his idol-like status in certain circles and criticisms of this status. --Yes, my comment here is that Solzhenitsyn and the term "gulag" have become sanctimonious political slogans and epithets (like "Holocaust") that are glibly used by, mostly right wing, political pundits and propagandists who have never read the author or his works merely as a way of emphasizing how bad communism is or was. I read two and half volumes of Gulag twenty five years ago and found it very enlightening and absorbing. It is a book that details the horrors of Stalinism but one that also fleshes out in great detail the ostensible Marxist-Leninist foundations of Soviet society over a thirty year period. For example "gulag" is an acronym that translated from the Russian means, "Central Administration of Corrective Labor Camps." His book is not a maudlin rant at all, but a work of great scholarship by someone who lived through and experienced personally much of what he chronicles. I highly recommend it.

New changes
(moving this to the bottom, where it belongs --Staecker) I am restoring the much more balanced entry of September 6,2005(which I did not write). This Wikipedia entry on Solzhenitsyn should aim to provide an informed and judicious account of the Nobel Laureate's life and work. It should not serve as an opportunity for ideologues to distort maliciously this great man's contribution to the cause of human liberty and dignity. For the record, Solzhenitsyn has emphatically repudiated the irresponsible assertion of the extreme Russian Right that the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 were somehow the work of a Jewish "conspiracy"(see chapter 25 of RUSSIA IN COLLPASE("The Maladies of Russian Nationalism" and chapters 9,14 and 15 of TWO HUNDRED YEARS TOGETHER). A casual reader of earlier entries would never learn about Solzhenitsyn's criticisms of the Russian state for its "unpardonable inaction" in anticipating and responding to the pogroms or his criticism of the White forces in the CIvil War for their inexcusable toleration of anti-Semitic violence and propaganda in areas under their control(see the conclusion of chapter 16 of TWO HUNDRED YEARS TOGETHER). And it is Solzhenitsyn who has provided us with an admirable model of introspection and repentance in addressing mistakes that he made in his early years of imprisonment. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with "collaboration" or being an informant.--Daniel J. Mahoney, author of ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN:THE ASCENT FROM IDEOLOGY (2001) and co-editor of the forthcoming THE SOLZHENITSYN READER:NEW AND ESSENTIAL WRITINGS,1947-2005. (this from User:DMahoney --Staecker)
 * Welcome to Wikipedia! As you'll see above (under the heading What happened to this page?), there was fair consensus that the Sep 6 edition which you have restored is of a significantly lesser quality with respect (in particular) to the writing and absurdly detailed bibliography (which now has its own page). I think it would be more helpful for you to delete or modify what portions of the current article you feel are inaccurate, and we'll have a better idea of exactly what the issues are. Part of why that edition was discarded is that it was created by someone who never explained in detail what his problems were. Maybe you can clarify for us.Staecker 20:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

(moved again by Staecker) The "consensus" document is filled with lies and distortions and is thoroughly beyond repair. The "absurdly detailed bibliogarphy," as Mr. Staecker calls it, provides the best available listing of Solzhenitsyn's writings and of the scholarly commentary on it. Your shorter bibiliography does not begin to give readers access to a truly balanced appreciation of Solzhenitsyn's corpus. But I do not think that balance is what Solzhenitsyn's more fevered critics have in mind.--DM
 * DM- could you please post your replies down here? It makes it easier for us all to follow the discussion. I'm not an expert on AS, so I'm not sure how exactly to respond to your criticism. But it seems to me that the bulk of the article consists of either historically objective facts about the man's life (lived here, exiled from here, Laureate here, etc) or adequately sourced criticism of the man and his views. Which of these are lies? I assume that you refer to the criticism. If there is some dispute about the content of the criticism (which seems to be what you're saying), why not add some sourced rebuttal? I respect your scholarship on the matter, and I'm sure that you can come up with some good responses to the issues that you have (although I'll direct you to glance at No original research before bringing your own scholarship to bear). And I didn't mean to put down the huge bibliography- I'm the one who enshrined it with its own article. But this page really isn't the place for that kind of depth (this seems to be a consensus as well- see above discussion.). I'd also suggest you look at Three-revert rule. I've reverted this page twice already today, so this'll be my last time. Staecker 23:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Let me cite one obvious example. Every serious student of Solzhenitsyn knows the book that was written by his first wife was sponsored and edited by the KGB(see Scammell and Thomas biographies). The charge that Solzhenitsyn was an "informant" is rejected by all reputable students of this matter. And TWO HUNDRED YEARS TOGETHER has been subject of a series of thoughtful and balanced analyses in THE NEW YORKER, THE NEW REPUBLIC the TLS, COMMENTAIRE, and SOCIETY. None of this is reflected in the prosecutorial-conspiratorial assumptions(clearly indebted to Semyon Reznik) undergirding this egregious entry. I'll do my best,however, to edit the "consensus document" by providing some "sourced rebuttals" as you put it.--DM

And why does this entry say nothing about Solzhenitsyn's principled defense of the "middle line" of social development in his magnum opus THE RED WHEEL, his admiration for the great Russian statesman Pyotr Stolypin and his rejection of both revolutionary nihilism and reactionary nostalgia? A student looking for basic information would never learn that Solzhenitsyn identifies patriotism with "repentance and self-limitation" and rejects all dreams of empire and imperial conquest(as Solzhenitsyn put it in a 1979 BBC interview, Russia need a 1,000 years of "recuperation")... And what of his admirable defense of local self-government in such works as REBUILDING RUSSIA(1990) and RUSSIA IN COLLAPSE(1998)?How much easier it is to accuse Solzhenitsyn of xenophobia and nationalism. On all of these matters, see my essay "Traducing Solzhenitsyn"(FIRST THINGS,August-September 2004, and readily available on the web). See also the writings of such distinguished scholars as John B. Dunlop. Alexis Klimoff, Edward E. Ericson, and Martin Malia.--Daniel J. Mahoney


 * You obviously know more about AS than I do. I look forward to your contributions. Staecker 00:43, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Dear Daniel, please understand how wikipedia works. You cannot come and just delete some text because you don't like it or, as you put it, they are "lies and distortions". They are here not with the pupose of discrediting the person you admire (if I understand you correctly). Editors of wikipedia do not do original research (<-- please click here; it is a wikipedia policy); they enter information found elsewhere. Therefore the best way to deal with "lies and distortions," especially extracted from published sources is to refute them in the article (again, using published references), since people, you know, can use google and will find these "distortions" somewhere anyway. mikka (t) 05:12, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I want to enter this debate if I may. Like Daniel, I was surprised to see in the article allegations of collaboration with NKVD as well as allegations published by AS's first wife. I think most people familiar with the subejct do not consider these sources to be reliable. However, I agree with Staecker and mikka that rather than deleted, these allegations have to be accompanied by a sourced rebuttal. Even if it is difficult to find evidence for the rebuttal, it could be done by saying something like 'Since publishing anything about AS in the Soviet Union without an official sanction was impossible, this book is widely believed to have been edited if not forged by KGB' or something to that effect. Notwithstanding such rebuttals however, I understand Daniel's frustration that these dubious allegations occupy disproportionally large space in the article. To give an analogy, one would not be happy with an artcile on the Holocaust whose 40% are devoted to Holocaust denial even if denial is rebutted. However, I beleive the onus here is on the critic: rather than asking why certain material isn't here, he should add it to the article. Information about Solzehnitsyn's political and social views would be very welcome here.

However, allegations of xenophobia or extreme nationalism are a different matter altogether. Unlike, say, allegations of collaboration with KGB, the views of AS on these matters are in his books for all to see. Everyone can make their own judgement. Nobody can accuse the editors of selective use of sources, since the sources are AS's books. I have read "200 years together" (well, not in full, but as much as I could stomach), and I can't understand how one can dispute that this is an anti-semitic book. But my views of course don't count. It is sufficient that such views have been published. Again, these views can be disputed. However, a rebuttal based on other AS's publications or interviews where he expresses a different view on the role of the Jews are a strange form of rebuttal. We all can see what he wrote in his book, and unless he denies authorship, his veiws can and should be criticized based on these texts.

Finally, a word about 'great man' and such words. Wikipedia is not a place to provide one point of view, even if it is dominant. Besides, the opinion about AS in Russia is divided. Many admire AS as a personality and as a great writer. Others, while admiring his courage and contribution to the fight for freedoms in USSR, do not see him as a great literary figure. We should either show both points of view, or refrain from any value judgement altogether. This will be NPOV.BorisG 13:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Having read Solzhenitsyn over a long time (more than fifteen years, and an array of his work) makes it obvious that his views on the Soviet union, like those of any polemist or thinker, changed over time, and he'll stress things different ways depending on which axe he has to grind. Plainly he became more straight-off condamnatory as the state stepped up its persecution and especially after settling in Vermont. AS has often been perceived in the West as if he were idyllizing and excusing the brutalities of Czarist Russia (like, "it was fussy to want to get rid of the Czar who was kind or at least weak and didn't really torture anybody, and certainly did not have thousands shot in cold blood" - oh yeah, how about the Bloody Sunday of January 1905? - and this kind of reasoning is taken up by people - academics and prestigious comentators in the media - posing as experts of Russian history, and then mirrored back on Solzhenitsyn. AS has of course never since 1950 been a loyal believer in Lenin, but at least in the sixties he was not into this "blame it all on the commies" line of argument (no, I am not in any sympathy with communism myself, it's the bluntness of the view that I'm after).

Stolypin's appproach to reform compares to Bismarck's in Germany; he saw the need for social reforms to allevaite the sources of tension among the workers and peasants but he would not have wanted to see even a peaceful liberal or social democrat takeover of the state. Of course this middle way made him a prime target for revolutionaries (see August 1914, 2nd ed., 1984) One point that he stresses is that the road to a functioning democracy was not wide open in Russia in 1917, after the abdication of the Czar. The parties were rudimentary, discussion clubs more than real parties and largely confined to Petrograd and Moscow, so there was much talking but little sense of responsibility or thought-through strategy. This is an issiue that many people who have been writing in the West about late Imperial Russia and the revolution tend to ignore or sweep aside, they'll just state ad hoc that Russia was in a phase of rapid economic expansion and industrial breakthrough and this would have fostered a strong middle class that would soon have become the anchor of liberal democracy if Lenin hadn't stepped in and deviously thrown the game over by blatant violence. That's certainly not how Solzhenitsyn would see it, and the anthology From under the rubble (1977) as well as The Red Wheel has some thoughtful discussions of the questions of Russian history and her historical possibilities. Strausszek August 23, 2006 04:31 (CET)

Further Revisions
The following is a rational for editorial changes made by Dmahoney on 11/19/2005:


 * Removed 3rd and 4th paragraphs from the previous edition:
 * The previous version lacked crucial information. In addition, it erroneously refers to a correspondence between Solzhenitsyn and his "brother-in-law," and reverses the order of AIS's time in the sharashka and forced labor camps.


 * Completely removed libelous "Samutin" paragraph:
 * These charges are not considered reputable by any serious Solzhenitsyn scholars and biographers (see Scammell and Thomas). Moreover, Solzhenitsyn has very effectively responded to similar, KGB-inspired mendacities in The Los Angeles Times.


 * Remove final sentence of previous 6th paragraph
 * There is no need to give the "Soviet" point of view. Camps were by no means closed down in 1960 even if there were far fewer prisoners than during the heyday of the Stalinist regime.  On the last phase of the Gulag, see volume three of The Gulag Archipelago and Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History (2003).


 * Following paragraph: removed 2nd and 3rd sentences
 * The time-frame is backward--KGB discovered the manuscript in the fall of 1973--see major biographies as well as Solzhenitsyn's autobiographical The Oak and the Calf and Invisible Allies.


 * Removed: "spent mostly in rural seclusion."
 * The phrase is gratuitous. Cavendish, VT was not in the middle of nowhere and Solzhenitsyn also traveled to Japan, Taiwan, Britain, France, Italy, etc (see The Grain Between the Millstones.)


 * Removed and replaced last sentence of the same paragraph
 * Something more descriptive was needed. These are, after all, disputed questions.


 * Removed and replaced final three paragraphs
 * These paragraphs display a one-sided "prosecutorial" feel, which is certainly not in keeping with the principle of a NPOV. One needs to be more balanced and descriptive--Solzhenitsyn has repudiated the 1968 manuscript as fraudulent--a radical distortion of an earlier, uncompleted work.
 * Solzhenitsyn has never referred to a "Judeo-Bolshevik" revolution, and has explicitly repudiated such a view in chapter 25 of Russia in Collapse and in chapters 9, 14, and 15 of Two Hundred Years Together.--Dmahoney 03:30, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Views on history and politics
This page needs some cleanup and adding... Ive started writing some about his view on history, and Im going to continue with politics. Anyway, my english isnt that good (I know), so I would be thankfull if someone could correct grammar and spelling for me.

Ive written some about his nobel prize as well.

--81.225.76.180 23:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Serbian academy
I removed this from the first paragraph:

"In 1994 he was elected as a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in the Department of Language and Literature."

It doesn't seem important enough to be in the leading paragraph of the article. Perhaps it should appear in a separate chapter, "Honors", giving details on the Nobel prize, the Harvard honorary degree, and other notable distinctions. Kaicarver 12:43, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I re-added it. Next time if you want to make an edit please complete the job - don`t just remove the sentence if you think it should be included in the new section. Next time please create the honors section and the information there but don`t remove information as that is just the worst you can do in an encyclopedia. Avala 23:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Avala, how about next time you make a change you put a comment indicating what it is? And how about next time you add minor information you don't just dump it at the head of the entry? I'm all for having more Serbian information in Wikipedia, but do you really think Solzhenitsyn is best described as "Russian author, Nobel winner, and member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in the Department of Language and Literature"? I don't care enough about this to make the change again. I suppose this rather random information at the start can serve to indicate that the article is likely to be far from NPOV. Kaicarver 12:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Timeline
As mentioned previously, this page requires major edits. I do not have enough knowledge about the author to complete these, but at minimum a timeline of events should be made explicit. A specific example is that it is not clear when AS was released from prison. LLP 17:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Historical And Political Views -> Stalinism
In the section "Historical And Political Views", in the subsection "Stalinism" we read the following: Lenin ... founded the Cheka that would later be turned into the KGB... Now, the problem with this, to me, is that it seems to imply that the VCheKa grew into something that eventually reached the apogee of evil in its incarnation as the KGB. Of course, this does not reflect reality; the VCheKa became the GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MVD, MGB, and various other acronyms that I do not recall off the top of my head. My point, however, is that, if we divide the history of this organization into periods corresponding with its various names, and then compare the violence and lawless acts committed in each of these periods as defined by the particular name it was using, then we would find that the "KGB Period" would probably be amongst the most benign of the organization's manifestations, easily outstripped by all other periods. A possibly better way to phrase the sentence in question might be, for example,: "... founded the Cheka, the repressive apparatus that underwent a series of name-changes but survived to the end of the Soviet regime." Of course, one could easily say that it actually outlasted the Soviet regime, but that would require the opening of several large cans of worms, I think. Hi There 09:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Forehead fissure
What is that deep fissure in his forehead? Is that a scar from some accident or surgery? -- 71.141.253.210 19:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

as an aside
pertaining s´s expulsion from the Union of Socialist Republics, the article should be modified in its section "in the west".

it wasn´t the great rostropovich who gave s. a shelter from the storm in the first place, it was heinrich böll, s´s fellow nobel laureate, who gave him refuge. it´s not only true, it´s even referenced in the english article about heinrich böll.

good old heinrich böll (whom i dearly love. he was an antifascist and just a wonderful human being) - as a lapsed catholic always had a soft spot for socialist turncoats like s., or wolf biermann in ´76. who after his expulsion from the German Democratic Republic did find his first refuge in the west at böll´s house, too.

biermann still is mourning the fact that in ´89 they did not kill the east german communists; s. is more or less an advocate for a tsarist revival; and heinrich böll is dead.

go figure.

the important part is that dealing with s.s first refuge/home "in the west"

best regards, carl —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ossie schreckengost (talk • contribs) 14:56, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

photo
I see this article is up to Wikipedia's usual standards. A fake photograph is put in, with a vague caption, so that people hopefully pass over it and think they are seeing Solzhenitsyn being searched in prison. This isn't enough for Stacker, who removes the correct caption due to his desire to make people think they are seeing the real thing. I don't suppose this is much different from standard Wikipedia lies about the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Iraq or so forth, but I'll correct it anyway. I know most of Wikipedia is a bunch of half-baked lies and propaganda of this type, but once in a while people will read this and realize this is just another lie and distortion on Wikipedia in the service of a certain cause. I find it humorous how while the reality of Solzhenitsyn's anti-semitism is removed from this article, the non-reality of this picture increases in Wikiality. Ruy Lopez 10:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Interested parties can read my response at my talk. Ruy can read WP:AGF, though his other criticisms may hold weight. Staecker 13:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Any writings composed while incarcerated?
There is a category Category:Prison writings, which I am trying to populate with appropriate books. The case of Solzhenitsyn is a bit confusing to me, especially in characterizing his condition as "incarceration" at various stages of his exile. Could someone more knowledgeable give me some guidance about which of his books (that have Wikipedia articles) could appropriately be said to have been composed under conditions of incarceration? Wareh 16:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

A.Solzhenitsyn's claim on Count Cancrin
In chapter 8 of 200 years together Mr Solzhenitsyn recalls number of notable personalities with Jewish heritage who became Christians in first half of the XIX-th century and includes there name of Count Georg von Cancrin, Russian finance minister, asserting that he was son of a rabbi. This seems to imply that Franz Ludwig von Cancrin (1738 - 1812) was a rabbi however there is nothing to assume he was even Jewish. According to the available information the finance minister's grandfather was also involved with mining and salt manufacturing in Hanau and has pledged that Franz Ludwig will be trained in business as well, accordingly latter attended Jena as a student of Law, Math and Mining - what seems to exclude Rabbinic studies. Tracing the family roots it appears that the name 'Cancrin' was (or might have been) derived from latinized 'Krebs' and there is no indication of having some rabbi among Count's ancestors. It is also worth mentioning that Mr Solzhenitsyn does not provide any reference to back up his claim, in contrast to names like Peretz or Stieglitz (where Jewish Encyclopedia entries are referenced) DBWikis 17:10, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Richard Pipes Quote in "The West" Section
Richard Pipes is possibly the most divisive figure anyone could have picked for a quote. Is this really needed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.121.215 (talk) 21:10, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Balance
I think we should mention that he's an appallingly bad writer only fascists like.

^whoever wrote that has obviously never read a single book he has written and should probably be sure they are knowledgable in somethign before they are so quick to judge it.

I certainly agree concerning the quality of AS's prose. However, perhaps it would be more constructive to add a section on criticisms of AS, especially from historians.

More balance needed concerning gulag camps versus concentration camps: Victorianezine (talk) 17:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)Historians, writers, teachers today wisely repeat and reinforce info about Hitler's concentration camps. However, WIKIPEDIA could help children, teens by filling a scholarship VOID here: There's MUCH LESS child suitable scholarship, reference material on the "other" mass murder camp system - the Soviet gulag: (i.e. child suitable or teen-suitable books, programs, plays, comparable accounts in history books similar to what can be found for Nazi camps). Thus, I suggest that scholars on Solzhenitsyn/gulags briefly compare and contrast the basic gulag horrors with the FAMOUS Nazi concentration camp horrors in this article--not to fuel any "left wing versus right wing" American ideology war, but to reflect a bit of the historical reality. I've seen estimates from scholars ranging from 40-60 million gulag dead in most sources. Our Children need to know! True objectivity is to try & cover the bad stuff objectively- no matter who did it! Exposing the Gulag horror is the main thing that made Solzhenitsyn famous! (Note I did find one recent teen source: an Ann Fine teen book on Gulag cannibalism "The Road of Bones") Maybe my teen daughter's teachers will again allow her to use Wikipedia if it shows more scholarly detachment in articles like this.

> I've seen estimates from scholars ranging from 40-60 million gulag dead in most sources

Propaganda travels widely. There is nothing to support such charges however. The total number of executions and Gulag deaths from the beginning of the 1930s to the Soviet entrance into WWII was more like 1.5 million, approximately. See Getty & Naumov, THE ROAD TO TERROR. Also, Haynes & Husan, A CENTURY OF STATE MURDER? and Khlevniuk, THE HISTORY OF THE GULAG. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.247.134.80 (talk) 12:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

MAJOR CONTROVERSY should be flagged as such: The Getty source is said to rely on the newly opened KGB records, which record an extremely modest Gulag total. This significantly contradicts the GULAG books as they claim the Gulag death toll is probably MANY MILLIONS higher. The GULAG books generally present many grim to ghastly tales of gulag life which would make the KGB's official 1.5 million total unbelievably low.

Thus, it would be more logical to represent this EXTREME contrast (official KGB records versus Solzhenitsyn, and his corroborating witnesses) as a MAJOR CONTROVERSY till more evidence (and more testimony) is sifted to reach a sound conclusion either way. Either Solzhenitsyn and his corroborating witnesses are mostly wrong - or the KGB is mostly wrong. It is too early to take the recently opened official KGB sources as "gospel".Victorianezine (talk) 21:06, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

nice censorship
i see all references to his ex-wife Natalya Reshetovskaya and her book 'Life with Alexander' have been removed. Whether or not you feel it was a government propaganda book, is irrelevant. removing this information from a wikipedia article about solzhenytsin is censorship of the most bull headed, stupid kind, the kind that solzhenytsin and other russian dissidents would probably find vomit worthy.

in short, thanks for proving yet again the complete and utter failure of wikipedia to protect the truth. im sure all the new regulations, rules, hierarchy, bureaucracy, and millions of dollars are being used for something, but it sure as hell isnt in protecting intellectualism.

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7207-17.cfm

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.207.222.130 (talk • contribs) 21:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I essentially agree with the person above. The controversial ex-wife and her book could be briefly mentioned. It could also be noted that it is highly likely she and her book were used as a tool by the former Soviet Union to embarrass Solzhenitsyn. The new students of Solzhenitsyn should be aware of this disputed area so they do not cite her book uncritically.Victorianezine (talk) 21:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Dr Boris Kornfeld
Should the above man be mentioned, he cured his cancer and converted him to christianity, —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.21.33.99 (talk • contribs) 12:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I hope that that Dr. Kornfeld's SIGNIFICANT contribution to S's conversion from Communism to Christianity is noted in a new section dedicated to summarizing AS's faith and its VAST effects on his views.

Many of S's books, including the GULAG books, mention his and other prisoners' Christian faith (and others of faith) as a STARK contrast to the Communist/secular socialist "faith" of his captors and of the government officials in the former Soviet Union. I can't claim to know enough about S to write this FAITH section, but hope one of the AS scholars who watch this article will write that most critical section (and include Dr. Kornfeld).Victorianezine (talk) 22:38, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Where are the references ?
This is an interesting article, but where are the citations? No doubt the GA reviewer will also ask this. Michael Scammell's biography could be used to substantiate facts up to 1980, and better use could be made of Solzhenitsyn's The Oak and the Calf and Invisible Allies. I am also a little concerned with the required neutral point of view; the article should be checked for neutrality, Solzhenitsyn was one the most controversial figures of the mid 20th century, both in the East and the West. --Graham Colm Talk 16:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

ps. Allow me a few days to work on this and I will add appropriate citations where I can from the sources above and from a few others I have eg. Björkegren, ISBN 0856280054, Moody 005552600 and Medvedev SBN 33152174. --Graham Colm Talk 22:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Failed GA
Hi there, I am afraid that this article has quickfailed GA due to severely substandard referencing as per 2(b) of good article criteria. I suggest that an article of this importance be referenced by at least five different reliable and reputable sources on this subject and that a reference be provided at least once every paragraph, for any controversial statements and for any direct quotes and statistics. Without referencing to this standard, the article will never pass GA.

In addition to the above, the article suffered from problems with poor prose quality, poor and confusing layout, lack of comprehensiveness (there is substantially more which could be said about Solzhenitsyn) and too few images to name several of many faults. I see that some one has said they will begin the process of sourcing the article above. I commend this effort and wish you luck, but I do not have confidence that this article can reach the required standard in the seven days waiting period and so would recommend that this be resubmitted in the future when it is of the correct quality. Thankyou and I am sorry the review was not more positive. I hope you have better luck next time, all the best.--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Assertion of Soviet Instability
From my reading, a central point he makes is that the Russian people were always nearly ready to revolt and always anticipating intervention from the West. Is this really true? Other views of the Soviet Union made it look like Stalin, however much the product of state propaganda, was regarded by the people as their expected savior in spite of the conditions his government had caused. The Bay of Pigs invasion comes to mind as an analogy, where Cuba did not revolt when we invaded. Or perhaps Sozhenitsyn is referring to the transition period from the revolution to Stalin's peak of power? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.29.1.202 (talk) 18:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

That line is consistent with Solzhenitsyn's usual tendentious bias. I've noticed how when commenting upon the Russian civil war the closest he comes to acknowledging the White Terror is to comment on the anti-Jewish pogroms, and even here one gets the sense that he is mainly interested in responding to charges of anti-Jew bias made against himself by others. One would hardly realize that White Terror massacred at least as many Russian peasants as it did Jews. But that's consistent with Solzhenitsyn's way of downplaying things which undercut his thesis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.247.134.80 (talk) 12:22, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Chapter "The Ascent"
I modified the sentence lightly and removed the word "Christianity" in the paragraph about Part IV of The Gulag Archipelago because what can be read in that chapter is not necessarily Christian. See e.g. these quotations in wikiquote (I've read the whole chapter BTW). —Cesar Tort 06:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * That's actually very true. However, I think that the sentence needs to be reworded because your new text doesn't read smoothly. --Veritas (talk) 06:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Please do it: English is not my native language :) Cesar Tort 07:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, I will think on how to do it. I did not guess that from your user page which is quite interesting. --Veritas (talk) 12:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the compliment! I've tried to improve it by expanding the sentence. —Cesar Tort 16:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Awarded the Nobel Prize for his efforts letting the world know about GULAG?
The NP in literature is not a Peace NP, and it is not given for efforts like that, but rather for literary merits of the work. This should be changed I think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.204.90.106 (talk) 12:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The commentator above is no doubt technically correct. However, as a college student at the time, I remember the BIG buzz his GULAG book caused. For a brief time (until after his Harvard speech) Solzhenitsyn was hailed as a great writer who put a big gash into the Iron Curtain. For a brief time, people realized that the evil national death house totalitarians built has both right and left wings.Victorianezine (talk) 20:48, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Father's name
Isaaky (as we have it), or just Isaak? I've never heard the name "Isaaky". -- JackofOz (talk) 22:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I'd never heard of that name in Russian, either; and the pairing Isaakiy, Isayevich is irregular. But just navigate to the Russian Wikipedia biography, and it's there, Isaakiy. That is, if you hava a smidgen of Russian. Hurmata (talk) 05:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Infobox
His birthplace was Moscow; but it wasn't Moscow, the Russian Federation. He was born in Bolshevik Russia. -- GoodDay (talk) 23:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * When everybody is saying Kislovodsk, why the hell would you claim his birthplace was Moscow? The Russian Wikipedia biography, Britannica Online, and Encarta all concur it was Kislovodsk. And stop politicizing things with "Bolshevik Russia". That's not a country name. The guy was not born in Persia or the Ottoman Empire or the Austrian Empire, he was born in Russia. You can't even say he was born in territory than belonged to the Russian Empire, but now lies outside Russia. Hurmata (talk) 06:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if his intention was to politicise the birthplace. Follow this logic for a second; Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 in Russia ... 1 year after their 2 Revolutions and in the midst of the civil war that eventually saw the USSR taking control of most of the deceased Tzar's Russian Empire. However at this particular point in time (1918) there were numerous forces with different strategic and ideological ideas vying for power and territory. From the Western interventionists, to the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and finally to the Imperial forces. Think of it like specifying between "Taliban controlled Afghanistan" and "Northern Alliance controlled Afghanistan" in 2001 rather then labelling the territory as being ideologically linked to a political party. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.107.140.247 (talk) 10:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Solzhenitsyn wasn't born in the Russian Federation (which came into being in 1991). GoodDay (talk) 14:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * These infoboxes often contain little flags: should we perhaps give one for his birth and one for his death? If we give it for his birth, it should be the flag of the RSFSR.  Nyttend (talk) 14:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The user who didn't log on (two indents; my reply is three indents). Bullshit, because you're point is irrelevant. We don't specify regime when we specify place of birth. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was born in Scotland and he died in America. Yes, he was born during the reign of Victoria, who belonged to some specific dynasty, but that information is not part of bare bones biographical info, IS IT? Hurmata (talk) 14:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite understand why foul language is being used in this discussion. GoodDay (talk) 14:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Anyways, I've corrected the name of his birth country. It was (in 1918) Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. -- GoodDay (talk) 15:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Death date
The article says the 3rd, but some sources seem to say Monday or the 4th. Did he perhaps die a little after midnight Moscow time, when it was still Sunday in Western Europe and America? Nyttend (talk) 02:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * No, he died at 11:45 p.m. (Moscow time) on July 3rd. --Tigga en (talk) 05:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That's August 3rd. --  JackofOz (talk) 05:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Removing apparently useless info
I have removed the line

From the death of Naguib Mahfouz in 2006 until his own death in August 2008, Solzhenitsyn was the oldest living Nobel laureate in literature.

from the Legacy section, as it does not appear to be of any value. When he was alive, it was trivia. Now it seems well below any reasonable threshold for inclusion. Dfeuer (talk) 06:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Putin
I've heard it said that Solzhenitsyn made a number of statements publicly in favour of Putin (despite being initially cautious) in particular, Putin's actions on chasing up the Oligarch's. This article seems to be lacking any information on this. Is there a reason why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.107.140.247 (talk) 10:36, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You seem to be lacking the information as well. If you find it, you can add it. But it's fair of you to mention this, in case you can't provide any substantiation and somebody else can. The phrase "chasing up the Oligarch's" make no sense in English. Hurmata (talk) 12:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair point, I only raised it because I had seen it in an Associated Press article so I thought that, if in a short article commemorating the man, it would be in a longer Wikipedia article. Was suggesting this could be an interesting area for someone to add to this article with. As for the phrase "chasing up the Oligarch's" ... this makes perfect sense to me in English (my first language) ... it was a rather casual comment really and for that I apologise but what I meant was that Solzhenitsyn thought that Putin's prosecution of the Oligarch's was a praise-worthy, which makes sense in the context that he was highly critical of Yeltsin, to the point of saying he should've been jailed after losing his presidency. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.81.118 (talk) 05:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The West
Any reference link from this text should refer to The Western world, not to The West. The latter merely links to a disambiguation page.Dogru144 (talk) 12:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

English pronunciation dubious
In addition to the IPA given for the English pronunciation being an incorrect rendering of the audio links provided, the audio for the first name seems to be an attempt to insert Russian phonotactics into English. From the clips I've found at youtube, most English speakers seem to pronounce Aleksandr as they would the English name "Alexander." I suggest that, for the English pronunciation, we transcribe only the last name and transcribe it as. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Why shouldn't we do his given name, his patronym, and his surname? Nyttend (talk) 03:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The above comment was made before I looked back at the intro. Why do we need to IPA-transcribe anything except the actual pronunciation of his name?  Nyttend (talk) 03:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * My guess is that the English pronunciation is different enough from the Russian pronunciation that separate pronunciation indications are justified. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  19:04, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The soul and the barbed wire
These collection of Wikiquotes seem to go to the heart of S's soul. May one of them have a place in this article? —Cesar Tort 20:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

"Main Article"
A number of the subsections in the historical/political views section have, underneath the title, "Main article" written, with a wikilink to the wikipedia article matching that title. Isn't this wrong? For example, Vietnam War is not the main article of Solzhenitsyn's views on the Vietnam War, but of the war itself. Should this be changed? Or is it normal practice? Darimoma (talk) 08:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Good point. The relevant guideline is Summary style. Further, some of the links are redundant with ones already in the subsections. The simplest fix would be to remove the redundancies and use see also instead of main. --Jtir (talk) 18:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Was the "three-man tribunal" a troika?
The article says: "… he was sentenced in his absence by a three-man tribunal of the Soviet security police (NKGB) … ." A "three-man tribunal" sounds like a troika. Would it be correct to link to that article? There is also an article on NKVD troikas, but those seem to have been abolished in 1938. --Jtir (talk) 20:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It was Special Council of the NKVD. Olegwiki (talk) 11:26, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Solzhenitsyn's faith needs its own section.
I have been viewing the "Dialogues Avec Soljenitsyne" by filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (1999) i.e. dialogues of Solzhenitsyn which is a three hour documentary which is mostly Solzhenitsyn talking on many subjects - including his faith. There is a very long section (with almost no editing cuts) where S. discussed his faith journey.

As this long, only minimally edited documentary clearly proves - he regarded his Christian faith as significant.

Thus, students learning about S. should be informed of the basic facts of his faith journey and perhaps a summary of its effect on his belief system and works could be mentioned.

Solzhenitsyn's faith is cited in some of this article's sections, but it deserves a dispassionate summary of its own.Victorianezine (talk) 21:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Very unreliable source
Two sections: "Accusations of arranging his own arrest" and "Accusations of colloborating with NKVD" are based on a single source an unsigned satire published in the section "the yolk" (meaning yellow) of an unknown Russian internet publication  obozrevatel.com The allegations basically repeat old KGB-fabricated allegations of 70ies. I do not think we could use such unreliable sources. I propose to remove the sections unless more reliable sources are found Alex Bakharev (talk) 13:32, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The article is NOT in the (clickable) Zheltok/Yolk section. The allegations are not KGB-fabricated, and there were voiced many times. I find the article to be quite sober, and well-written.Galassi (talk) 14:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Added more citations to both sections.Galassi (talk) 14:50, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I found both sources completely unreliable, I mean 2 random websites written in Cyrillic are just not good enough. Such serious accusations should better be WP:VERIFYed by works of serious historians published in secondary sources pr WP:RS. So it's up to you, should we make it less painful and just remove the section or do you want to go through WP:RSN with this?--Termer (talk) 05:11, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you sufficiently literate in Russian- to voice such an opinion?Galassi (talk) 08:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The Ekibastuz Report is on Russian wiki-commons:Image:Solzhenitsyn2.jpg Galassi (talk) 08:45, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is also cited by Semyon Reznik, a major historianm and the former editor of "ЖЗЛ" series.Galassi (talk) 08:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The new references and  say nothing about Solzhenitsyn arranging his own arrest so to escape the active duty. That is an absolutely ridiculous claim by itself. I have removed the misleading references and restored the OR tag for the first disputed section Alex Bakharev (talk) 07:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * RE:Galassi.Are you sufficiently literate in Russian? I personally am completely ignorant towards anything that is spelled in Cyrillic. And so is WP:VERIFY and WP:NONENG. I presume there are enough people on WP who are fluent in Russian, but that is not the question in this case. It's about getting such serious accusations verified according to Wikipedia core policies. So unless those accusations can get verified by secondary sources published in English, the section should be simply removed without further discussion. We're dealing with a writer on an international scale, a winner of the Nobel Prize. So any such accusations better come from adequate sources showing that those have gained wider acceptance at international level. Until this has not happened, opinions of Semyon Reznik can be added to his WP article once the guy is considered notable enough for WP purposes.--Termer (talk) 08:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I have put together a little bit more neutral version of allegations in being an informer Alex Bakharev (talk) 09:35, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * To Termer- Reznik has his own article on Russian Wiki.Galassi (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * To Alex B- You have inserted the word ALLEGED so many times that any semblance of NNPOV has evaporated. That needs to be cleaned up.Galassi (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I am sorry but the document is indeed alleged report. I think it is NPOV, using word forgery or report without alleged would be POV Alex Bakharev (talk) 13:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Solzhenitsyn's speech patterns are easily discernible in the alleged report. There are sources that mention that. Either way there is no consensus re AIS' guilt.Galassi (talk) 14:17, 3 December 2008 (UTC)