Word: solzhenitsyn
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...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...
...Solzhenitsyn has been a voice quite literally crying in the wilderness. His call for Russians to set their sights on higher things has been welcomed by enthusiastic crowds in the hinterlands, but he faces a much tougher audience in Moscow. Few urban sophisticates have time anymore for the kitchen conversations about the Russian soul that were a staple of intellectual life when Solzhenitsyn first lived in the country. A savage commentary in the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta proposed what to do with this troubling revivalist preacher: "Give him mothballs! And more mothballs! And put him to rest...
...afraid to get his hands dirty or his feet wet in his quest to discover modern Russia. One day he braved floodwaters to visit the small farming community of Bichyovka, plagued by heavy rains. An old babushka, who obviously did not know the identity of the visitor, shrilly confronted Solzhenitsyn with a timeless, rural Russian lament: "The roads are full of water. Why can't you do something about it?" Said Solzhenitsyn: "I'm not an official. I can't do anything." It was a humble admission from a literary giant, proving the biblical dictum that prophets have no honor...