Talk:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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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 [1] about his new book, 200 Years Together, about Russians & Jews living harmoniously. Solzhenitsyn is not known for giving many interviews over the years. nobs
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[edit] 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)
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia: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)
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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)
