Word: solzhenitsyn
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...what kind of future? In a country where the idols and ideals of the past have been shattered, Solzhenitsyn, at 75, remains a moral authority for millions of Russians: one man who stood up against the totalitarian state and survived. During nearly two decades in a sylvan Vermont retreat, he has been preparing for the end of communism and nurturing his own vision of a new Russia...
...perhaps only appropriate that Solzhenitsyn spent his first days traveling through the very land where millions of victims of Stalin's purges perished in the Soviet Union's system of forced-labor camps. In Khabarovsk he visited a large, privately maintained cemetery. At the entrance to the graveyard, he paid his respects at a small chapel built to commemorate those who had perished in the totalitarianism whirlwind of the '30s. Two young priests were reading the Orthodox "Eternal Memory" service from a prayer book. It was one of many symbolic moments on an odyssey that has become a kind...
...Solzhenitsyn's message to Russians can be summed up in one word: Repent! He believes deeply that Russia cannot move into the future until it has exorcised its communist past. "In this country, there are murderers and victims, the persecutors and the persecuted," he says. "The murderers and the persecutors must personally repent for what they have done." But when a handful of Russians told him they regretted not speaking up for him and asked for his forgiveness, Solzhenitsyn said he "responded with a laugh that this was the smallest possible reason for them to come up with for repentance...
...Although Solzhenitsyn has continually asserted, "I am not going into politics, will not run for any office, will not accept any position," the temptation will be great to take sides in the cold civil war between Western- oriented reformers and nationalist-hard-line communists. The reformers have misgivings about Solzhenitsyn's nationalist views, but they have cautiously welcomed his return. Hard-liners see Solzhenitsyn as a rival for the hearts and minds of Russian "patriots," and question his motives; he has already called ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky "an evil caricature of a Russian patriot." The weekly Zavtra, which speaks for hard...
...Solzhenitsyn must pull off a careful balancing act if he intends to influence the course of politics. Should he decide to intervene in the partisan mudslinging, he risks compromising his high moral standing. But if his solution to Russia's woes amounts to nothing more than pious platitudes, he is in danger of becoming irrelevant, reduced to the status of an eccentric who has exchanged geographical exile in the West for spiritual exile in Russia...