A truly remarkable man. I read 'The Gulag Archipelago' when I was 18. Whatever illusions I still held about the worth and utility of Communism were forever shattered.

I didn't agree with everything he wrote, by Solzhenitsyn was without a doubt a man of remarkable integrity and vision, capable of recognizing a sociological evil when he saw one.

Posted by: Cornelius at August 4, 2008 10:58 AM

"May his memory be eternal"?

Are you people nuts? Have you read his latest book "Two Hundred Years Together"? This anti-Semitic piece of shit could not die fast enough, as far as we're concerned.

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 11:48 AM

He was indeed a man of deep words.

He was a man of actions too...despite being ruled by commies he prayed a lot...you can see this by the characteristic "bump on the forehead" seen only on devout muslims.

Posted by: hindenberg at August 4, 2008 11:58 AM

Terror Free Oil

I am unaware that Solzhenitsyn was antisemitic. If he was, I of course do not endorse that aspect of his thought. I do not believe that for one to admire and respect someone else, one must believe him to be infallible.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at August 4, 2008 12:03 PM

This was a very great man. He had immense literary ability, tremendous courage and insight into human nature of the highest order.

Terror-Free Oil: You're a liar. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was not anti-Semitic. When he was charged with such because he had many enemies in the West who did not like his criticisms of Western elitism and liberalism (his 1978 Harvard commencement speech began this), he responded by putting out a challenge------find passages in his writings or statements which support such a charge. No one could. You can't either. Calling Solzhenitsyn an anti-Semite is a baseless lie.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 12:23 PM

Wellinton has laid down the gauntlet:

'Terror-Free-Oil'....document this supposed anti-semitism...put up or shut up!

Posted by: Cornelius at August 4, 2008 12:25 PM

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a brilliant mind, had a photographic memory, and great depth of insight. It is regrettable he did not address the rise of Islamic militancy in the latter part of this last century. His focus was on the failures of the Communist state, and subsequently also became critical of Western democracy and its consumerist culture, as well as its liberal freedoms without responsibility. Had he addressed the rising tide of Islamism, his critical mind would have been a valuable asset in fighting this war. Like fighting Communism, we must preserve our personal freedoms from the encroachments of a primitive totalitarian controlling system of 7th century Islam. The two have many parallels, and from his critical writings we can draw on similarities to overcome this 1400 year old jihad foe to our free civilization. A great man has gone by.

Posted by: Battle_of_Tours at August 4, 2008 12:40 PM

Those interested in learning more about the complicated case of Solzhenitsyn may find the work of Grigori Baklanov a good place to begin.

Posted by: Hugh at August 4, 2008 12:57 PM

Dear Robert,

I mentioned in my previous post, Solzhenitsyn's last book "Two Hundred Years Together" (http://www.amazon.com/Two-Hundred-Years-Together-Part/dp/5969703729/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217868402&sr=8-1)

Unfortunately, as far as I know, the book is not available in English, but I've personally spoken to a few Russian Jews who read the book and were enraged by it.

A positive review posted on the David Duke's site will give you some insight in this book. (http://www.davidduke.com/general/alexander-solzhenitsyn%E2%80%99s-book-two-hundred-years-together-on-the-role-of-jews-in-soviet-era-repression_3108.html)

Cordially,
Alex Porter
Terror-Free Oil

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 12:58 PM

Alex,

Thanks. I was loathe to go to Duke's site, but I went ahead and clicked on the link, and the article seems to be gone.

In any case, as I said above, if Solzhenitsyn was indeed antisemitic, that it is no way what I found admirable about him, and I repudiate it.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at August 4, 2008 1:02 PM

Robert,

The URL must have screwed up.

Google "Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the Jews", the second result is Duke's site.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the Jews

By Friedrich Braun

I just finished reading the French translation of Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together (2003) on Russian-Jewish relations since 1772 in two volumes (still no English translation available…”are we powerful or what?”). It’s both a quick and fascinating read; among other things, we learn that not only the October 1917 Revolution (really a just a well-organized, well-carried out Jewish coup) was dominated by Jewish agitators (a documented fact) but so was the 1905 Revolution (something I didn’t know). We also learn from the grand old man the awe-inspiring extent of the Jewish domination of the Soviet Union during its first two decades of existence, including its ruthless and murderous internal security system: Tcheka, OGPU, NKGB, and NKVD. A Russian in the hands of the Tcheka, etc. was almost certain to be in the hands of Jewish torturers and executioners. The litany of Jewish crimes committed against the long-suffering Russians (and other Slavic peoples: Ukrainians and Belarussians) and coldly listed by the author is simply nauseating and one should approach both volumes on an empty stomach. To this day there has been no acknowledgment on the part of international Jewry of their overwhelming support of the Bolshevik dictatorship during its first two decades. No asking for forgiveness. No reparations paid out to Russians. No chest-beating. No nothing…how un-Jewish that would be! Those few, rare Jewish voices who dared to speak about the Jewish role in the establishment of the communist terror machine in Russia were inevitably greeted with hostiliy and enmity by other Jews and told to shut their “self-hating” mouths.

Another interesting aspect brought up by the author concerns the so-called era of “National Bolshevism” (a real misnomer) allegedly inaugurated by Stalin. Solzhenitsyn points out that Stalinism was as much hostile to Russian interests as Lenin and Trotsky. How many millions of Russian peasants and Russian Orthodox clergy perished under Stalin? To speak of a Russian nationalism on the part of Stalin is simply laughable when one considers the the slaughter accompanying collectivisation and religious persecutions. Additionally, Jews continued to be overrepresented at all levels of the Soviet bureaucracy (including their overwhelming participation in the administration of the Gulag system) during Stalin’s years at the helm.

Furthermore, Solzhenitsyn speaks of his personal contacts with Soviet Jews and their typical detached relativism on all issues, including communist crimes with their tens of millions of victims. However, all that cool, intellectual relativism and reluctance to see the world in black and white terms would disappear in the blink of an eye as soon as Hitlerism was mentioned. Another example of Jewish hypocrisy highlighted by the author concerns the Jews admonishing of Russians (namely Solzhenitsyn) to reject global generalisations regarding Jews and aspect of the Jewish character at the same time that they would form and propagate the most negative opinions on the Russian character and how it was the Russians’ fault that the fundamentally noble communist experiment failed. Expressing generalisations about Russians while demandind from them that they abstain from seeing in Jews some distinct personality traits is very Jewish and pure chuzpah. Nothing is ever the Jews’ fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. One standard for the Jews, another standard for the goyim.

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 1:11 PM

Solzhenitsyn's "Two Hundred Years Together" was an honest attempt by a devout Russian Orthodox man of great stature to come to grips with Russian-Jewish relations over centuries. In the course of this work, Solzhenitsyn was critical at times of Russian Christians and at other times of Russian Jews, mostly the former. NO ONE of substance who reviewed this book levelled a charge of anti-Semitism against Solzhenitsyn. Quite the contrary, this work was widely praised. Hearsay and David Duke's assessments of this work, or of any work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, do not constitute anything close to a valid charge of anti-Semitism. One knows this or should know it.

I detest, utterly detest, anti-Semitism. I am not Jewish but have a very high regard for what the Jews have accomplished in history. My heart also goes out to them for all the unnecessary suffering they have endured over the centuries. This is all the more reason why false charges of anti-Semtitism must be avoided. Such false charges dilute the real damage done to the Jewish people over time. And when these baseless charges occur, they must be condemned, as I am condemning them now.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's challenge, I aver, still has not been met------provide specific passages from his writings or statements that support a charge of anti-Semitism. None ever have.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 1:16 PM

Cornelius,
You've read the Gulag Archipelago. I did a quick search on the internet and below is a link to an article from Reason Magazine that discusses Solzhenitsyn's supposed anti-Semitism.

It presents some interesting arguments. You might have more insight into this area, given your familiarity with Solzhenitsyn. I'm not sure that the arguments made are sufficient, since this is a highly subjective matter.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/29113.html

Accusations of anti-Semitism are not new for Solzhenitsyn. Critics have long pointed to passages in The Gulag Archipelago that selectively list the Jewish last names of labor camp commandants. And Solzhenitsyn's historical novel August 1914, published in English in 1972, emphasizes the Jewishness of Dmitry Bogrov, assassin of Russia's reformist prime minister Pyotr Stolypin.

Not having read his works, I can't comment on what he was like but his exposes on Stalin's Russia should not be lost. His writings could have gotten him killed rather than exiled to the West.

Posted by: PMK at August 4, 2008 1:17 PM

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence."

....a true hallmark of Islam.

Posted by: champ at August 4, 2008 1:19 PM

Are you people nuts? Have you read his latest book "Two Hundred Years Together"? This anti-Semitic piece of shit could not die fast enough, as far as we're concerned.
-Terror-Free Oil

Here is a good sampling of this 'anti-semitic shit'
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/10/important-literary-historiographical.html

As a Jew, I am immediately repulsed but then fascinated by the ideas here. As my people remain in the vanguard of multi-cultural progressivism, the selling out of Israel, the hideous Frankenstein monster concoction of wishful thinking and lies that is 'liberalism' - I, as a Jew, must feel a sudden sense of shame and self-recognition. If I'm a self-hating Jew its because I am hating other self-hating Jews so it DOES get confusing.

Insofar as so many of MY people are involved in the enthusiastic destruction of the nation state including, USA and Israel in the name of some One World pipe dream. His arguments are depressingly resonant.

Posted by: poetcomic1 at August 4, 2008 1:20 PM

The same cheap trick of accusing another great man, Pope Pius XII (who saved more Jews by far during WWII than anyone else), of anti-Semitism has been used by authors like John Cornwell. In Cornewll's dishonest work, "Hitler's Pope," he "proves" Pius' anti-Semitism by noting that Pius mentioned that many of the hierarchy in the Communist movement in the early twentieth century were Jewish. Never mind that this was absolutely true. And this was the chief evidence that Cornwell produced to sustain a charge of anti-Semitism against Pius. The same thing has happened with Solzhenitsyn. For simply telling it like it was, one gets charged with anti-Semitism. Very cheap. Very.

Solzhenitsyn was constituted such that he felt all peoples are answerable for their misdeeds. He spared no one, not his fellow Russians, not Jews, not anyone. This does not make a person an anti-Semite. Not by a long shot.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 1:39 PM

Wellington: "NO ONE of substance who reviewed this book levelled a charge of anti-Semitism against Solzhenitsyn."

It is reasonable to say that this is another BS statement since you cannot prove the negative. Also, the fact that “Two Hundred Years Together” is quoted more often than “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” by Russian Nazi websites should give you some idea. Even you (I hope) won’t argue that denying or diminishing the magnitude of the Holocaust is anti-Semitic. Solzhenitsyn’s “Two Hundred Years Together” has done a marvelous job in describing “Pogroms” as minor incidents.

Your pathetic attempts at whitewashing Pius XII are simply laughable. If you don’t like “Cornewll's dishonest work”, why don’t you read “The Secret War Against The Jews” and “Unholy Trinity” by John Loftus, the former president of the Holocaust Museum in Florida.

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 1:50 PM

Here’s what Wikipedia says on Solzhenitsyn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

He considered it far-fetched to blame the catastrophes of the 20th century on one 16th century and one 18th century czar, when there were many other examples of violence which could have inspired the Bolshevik in other countries earlier in time, especially mentioning similarities with the Jacobins of the Reign of Terror of France. Instead of blaming Russian conditions, he blamed the teachings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, arguing Marxism itself is violent. His conclusion is Communism will always be totalitarian and violent, wherever it is practiced. There was nothing special in the Russian conditions which affected the outcome. He also criticized the view that the Soviet Union was Russian in any way. He argued Communism was international and only cared for nationalism as a tool to use when getting into power, or for fooling the people. Once in power, Communism tried to wipe clean every nation, destroying its culture and oppressing its people.

Marxism itself is violent: “Once in power, Communism tried to wipe clean every nation, destroying its culture and oppressing its people.”

Sound familiar?

On the issue of his ‘anti-semitism’ it says: "After returning to Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn published eight two-part short stories, a series of contemplative "miniatures" or prose poems, a literary memoir on his years in the West (The Grain Between the Millstones) and a two-volume work on the history of Russian-Jewish relations (Two Hundred Years Together 2001, 2002). In it, Solzhenitsyn emphatically repudiates the idea the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 were the work of a "Jewish conspiracy" (see chapters 9, 14, and 15 of that work). Yet he documents the predominance of Jews in the early Bolshevik leaderships, excepting Lenin. At the same time, he calls on both Russians and Jews to come to terms with the members of their peoples who acted in complicity with the Communist regime."

Not a “Jewish conspiracy”, though many idealists of that early Communist utopia were Jews, which is a historical fact. But that is not anti-Semitism to state the facts. Sound familiar line of argument? Who else claims repeatedly that our stating the facts of Islam is "Islamophobia"?

Posted by: Battle_of_Tours at August 4, 2008 1:51 PM

One thing to remember is the Jews have, for millenia treasured and preserved a record of their relations with God in which they are called terrible things by that God, reproached and raged at by their prophets. It is as though we've saved every letter from our Father - the ones teaching us how to live, the ones expressing love for us and the ones that rage at us for selling out our birthright and besmirching our souls. I have no problem with Solzhenitsyn's carefully presented statements. As he said 'the boundary between good and evil runs through every human heart'.

Posted by: poetcomic1 at August 4, 2008 1:54 PM

Wellington: "Solzhenitsyn's "Two Hundred Years Together" was an honest attempt by a devout Russian Orthodox man of great stature to come to grips with Russian-Jewish relations over centuries."

Did you actually read the book or are you just quoting another idiot?

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 1:55 PM

Alex:

I don't know anything about the charges of antisemitism against Solzhenitsyn, but as for Pius XII, you might find the book The Myth of Hitler's Pope by Rabbi David Dalin quite interesting.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at August 4, 2008 2:09 PM

Terror-Free Oil: I hardly think when one has to invoke David Duke and hearsay to prove one's point, he has any room to cast further aspersioins. David Duke also praised Ronald Reagan from time to time. Does that make Reagan a hater?

Your arguments are pathetic. As for John Loftus, he's a loon. He's a conspiracy nut. He thinks there was a major conspiracy with the USS Liberty in 1967, which is hogwash.

As for Pius, he saved upwards of 800,000 Jews. No one else came close. He authorized fake baptismal certificates to get Jewish children out of places like France. He had seminaries, monasteries, churches, etc. secretly house Jews. And much more. The reason why Pius is criticized today is because he didn't speak out publicly against the Nazis. But not only he, but prominent Jewish leaders at the time, concluded this would be counter-productive, most bitterly proven by the Dutch incident in 1943 when the Dutch Catholic hierarchy spoke out against Nazi treament of the Jews and the Nazis responded by rounding up Jewish converts to Catholicism while leaving Jewish converts to Protestantism alone. Pius worked furtively and adeptly to rescue a huge number of Jews. When he died in 1958, Golda Meir gave him a moving eulogy. It was only beginning in the 1960s that stupid revisionism began to sully his legacy. Obviously, you've bought into this nonsense. You've bought into a lot of nonsense and you still haven't met Solzhenitsyn's challenge. People who make accusations and can't back them up are themselves liars, as you are.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 2:15 PM

The link to Baklanov's article about Solzhenitsyn(in Russian):

http://www.lib.ru/PROZA/BAKLANOW/kumir.txt

Posted by: Hugh at August 4, 2008 3:13 PM

"Accusations of anti-Semitism are not new for Solzhenitsyn. Critics have long pointed to passages in The Gulag Archipelago that selectively list the Jewish last names of labor camp commandants. And Solzhenitsyn's historical novel August 1914, published in English in 1972, emphasizes the Jewishness of Dmitry Bogrov, assassin of Russia's reformist prime minister Pyotr Stolypin."

RESPONSE: Nothing remotely explicit here.

I'm with Wellington until the facts speak otherwise.

'Terror-Free-Oil' has already revealed that he himself never read the book upon which he basis his accusation of Solzhenitsyn's anti-Semitism.

Hearsay is hardly conclusive evidence.

Posted by: Cornelius at August 4, 2008 3:20 PM

Did you actually read the book or are you just quoting another idiot?

It's almost impossible for *anyone* in the United States to read the book, since it hasn't been published here (and has been published abroad only in its original Russian and in French translation).

Posted by: Seamus at August 4, 2008 3:31 PM

Wellington, "800,000 Jews" were not alive in Europe (outside areas of the Soviet Union that had not been occupied by the Germans) in 1945. Pope Pius xii can not be credited with saving Jews when their salvation was the result of the independent actions of INDIVIDUAL churchmen and women among Europe's Catholics. Read what James Carroll says about this issue in his "Constantine's Sword."

Though one can not deny that many assimilated Jews were involved in supporting the Soviet State, particularly in its early years, one has to consider the near obliteration of Jewish secular, national, and religious culture that was the fruit of Soviet communist efforts to destroy the Jewish people. Individual Jews may have played a role in communism, but the system itself worked tirelessly to crush all aspects of Jewish culture and national memory; and in this the Jews of Russia were not alone. Jewish communists often participated in their own people's demise, as witnessed by the notorious Yevsektsiyah, or "Jewish" branch of the party designed to propagandize the community and destroy its traditional institutions. These people of Jewish descent were no different than the medieval Jewish converts to Catholicism who persecuted their Jewish brothers and sisters.

One must also not forget that, from start to finish, the "greatest" leaders and controllers of the bolshevik vision, if you will, were people of Russian and other non-Jewish origin. Stalin was Georgian, and Lenin was Russian.

If you look, you will also find that Letts and Armenians were active in the revolution in numbers out-of-proportion to their number in the population.

Also, don't forget that socialism and communism appeared to so many to be progressive forces whose goal was the liberation of the oppressed. Could this one fact have accounted for the attraction the revolution held for many? Read the "God that Failed" for a look into their hearts and minds to see what motivated such people.

Posted by: ikonklast29palms at August 4, 2008 3:32 PM

Terror Free Oil:

Racists may also find occassion to cite Jihadwatch from time to time in an effort to fan flames against Arabs, but that doesn't make Jihadwatch racist.

Solzhenitsyn was a great man. Like all men, great and not so great, he was also flawed. That being said, his moral courage and insight, two attributes he had in abundance, should be acknowledged on this sad day.

Even the devil quoted scripture, so the fact that Nazi's cite Solzhenitsyn is not indicative of anything.

The giants of the war against communism are dying off. They shall be missed. We need more of their kind in the war against Islam. We definitely need a Solzhenitsyn or two.

Posted by: JSobieski at August 4, 2008 3:37 PM

This review by Richard Pipes (no apologist for anti-semitism, he) of "Two Hundred Years Together" suggests that, while there's plenty to argue with in the book, it's far from an "anti-Semitic piece of shit." (And since Pipes almost certainly read the entire book in the original Russian (and since Terror-Free Oil never claims to have done so himself, but simply keeps asking if those who disagree with him have read it), I'm going to take Pipes a lot more seriously than Terror-Free Oil.)

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/141

(Also, Terror-Free Oil's slurs on Pius XII pretty much confirm that I shouldn't take seriously anything he has to say about Solzhenitsyn.)

Posted by: Seamus at August 4, 2008 3:43 PM

Solzhenitsyn was a populist with a terrible anti-Western viewpoint. He hated not only Jews, but what they represented to him: the "corrupt" West. He never wanted Russia to be western. In fact, he bemoaned Yeltsin's Russia as being too "free". Solzhenitsyn was also a hater of gays. He was so rabidly - anti-homosexual one wonders about him. After all, we know well about most anti rabid homosexuals and their self hatred.

Posted by: Kafir Nonbeliever at August 4, 2008 3:56 PM

Cornelius,
Did you read the article? I didn't want to put the whole thing up here. It was written by a Russian-born journalist, not a David Duke type.

Cathy Young is a columnist for The Boston Globe and Reason, an author and a public speaker.

Born in Moscow, Russia in 1963, Young came to the United States with her family in 1980. She received her B.A. degree in English from Rutgers University in 1988, where she was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa.

Posted by: PMK at August 4, 2008 4:14 PM

It was quite surprising to find out that some people here never heard about Solzhenitsyn's antisemitic tendencies (or at least, accusations thereof), so let me provide for you several quotes.

From a review of "Two Hundred Years Together" by Richard Pipes:

Someone familiar with Solzhenitsyn's treatment of Jews in his historical novels cannot escape the feeling that, at least in some measure, this undertaking is an effort to rid the author of the reputation for anti-Semitism. Although Solzhenitsyn has always indignantly rejected this accusation, it was not entirely unmerited. In Lenin in Zurich, he depicted the Russian Jew Alexander Parvus-Helphand as a slimy, sinister, almost satanic figure as he attempted to hire the exile Lenin to work for the Germans. In The Red Wheel, when dealing with the assassination of his hero Peter Stolypin by Dmitry Bogrov (whom he named "Mordka" or Mordechai, lest anyone miss his nationality), Solzhenitsyn attributed to the assassin, without any historical warrant, a desire to prevent Stolypin from reforming Russia, since what was good for Russia was bad for the Jews. In fact, Bogrov came from a thoroughly assimilated family--his grandfather was a convert and his father a member of the Kievan Nobles' Club--and he had no Jewish interests in mind... His [Solzhenitsyn's] difficulty is due to the fact that he is a nationalist; nationalism in general-and Russian nationalism in particular-is not readily compatible with tolerance toward Jews.

Pipes goes ahead to actually exonerate Solzhenitsyn of the charge of antisemitism and thus faces a rebuttal by David Klinghoffer:

The book in question, "Dvesti let vmeste" — "Two Hundred Years Together" — tells the story of Jews in Russia from 1775, the year that Russia enveloped part of freshly partitioned Poland, thus gaining a Jewish population of 1 million, to 1995. While certain passages in this generally laudable contribution to historical literature may sound downright philosemitic, one also notes that Solzhenitsyn is careful to distinguish between good Jews and bad Jews — the former being the religious and the Zionists, the latter being the secularists and the socialists... This tendency to split us into good and bad Jews is very ancient, and typically comes to no good.

In another review Zinaida Gimpelevich writes:

In the West, apart from a few contrarian articles from such critics and scholars as Donald M. Thomas, Daniel J. Mahoney, Robert Service, and Aleksander Eterman, the reaction to THYT from historians, liberal Gentiles, and Jewish leaders has ranged from polite but sharp skepticism to harsh criticism and even fury.

She continues:

The ... chapter concentrates on Bolsheviks of Jewish origin, analyzing their individual and collective involvement and guilt during the Revolution and for fifteen years thereafter. The premise of these forty-odd pages is that Jews bear irrevocable guilt with respect to revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russia. These pages are written powerfully. And despite the fact that most of the participants were themselves consumed by the fires of the Revolution, the Civil War, and pre-World War II purges, the discourse makes painfully clear why Russian ultranationalists turn to Solzhenitsyn's work as their new-found Gospel (S, II, 87-89). Solzhenitsyn does have many fleeting negative remarks about Latvians, Poles, Hungarians, and Chinese Bolsheviks (the latter noted by Solzhenitsyn for their special cruelty). But Solzhenitsyn reinforces his premise by a powerful literary device: he provides the names and biographies of many of the Jewish Bolsheviks. By individualizing them as savages and attributing the lion's share of responsibility for Bolshevik violence to Jews, the author presents millions of unknown Russians as their helpless victims. The numerous Jewish victims during the White and Red Terrors, however, are hardly mentioned. And certainly they are not honoured by a single proper name.

This article also contains multiple references to and quotes from other reviews.

It is worth mentioning that Solzhenitsyn was a self-professed Russian nationalist and expressed his position in multiple works, not just "Two Hundred Years Together". Probably, the most notorious of them is "How Should We Organize Russia" (HSWOR). From the same article by Zinaida Gimpelevich:

HSWOR evoked furious responses from representatives of many nationalities in the former Soviet empire. It is interesting to note that Belarusans and Ukrainians, whom Solzhenitsyn invited into his Russia as "little" Russian brothers, were particularly angry...

Solzhenitsyn's appeal to Ukrainians and Belarusans in HSWOR is as emotional as his preamble to his later two volumes of THYT... This sentimental account continues with a serious misinterpretation of history: "Yes, our people hud been divided into three branches, but only because of a terrible misfortune in connection with Mongol aggression and Polish colonization" (HSWOR 10). Such statements clearly reflect the ignorance of a Soviet-educated person. The author seems unaware of the twelve Eastern Slavic tribes, their different origins, and less than peaceful histories.35

The section of HSWOR titled "To Ukrainians and Belarusans" is an appalling instance of an anti-Stalinist author reiterating Stalinist national policies and misinformation: "In Lithuania and Poland, Belarusans and Little Russians 36 considered themselves Russians and fought against forceful conversion to Catholicism. Return of these lands to Russia was recognized by everyone back then as the Reunification" (HSWOR 11; italics in original). It is hard to countenance Solzhenitsyn's discourse because of its lack of historical knowledge of the very nations he claims to love so dearly. This is particularly evident in his treatment of Belarusans, a people that he barely differentiates from Ukrainians. At the end of the essay, we read: "everything that was said is completely applicable to Belarus, except that unrestrained separatism was not inflamed there" (12). This view of Belarusan and Ukrainian history is typical of so-called Russian nationalism. The same two-dimensional nationalist vision (but without any consideration of the more than seven hundred years that Belarusans and Belarusan Jews spent "together") found its way into THYT.

Posted by: Liggett at August 4, 2008 4:34 PM

PMK,

I'm sure Cathy Young can't possibly be wrong about everything, but please see these:

Cathy Young's jihad against "Islamophobes"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/011785.php

Cathy Young strikes back
http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/011954.php

Forever Young
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/012118.php

Fitzgerald: Last thoughts on Cathy Young
http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/012145.php

Cathy Young, useful idiot
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/013206.php

Cathy Young: D'Souza and Spencer both wrong
http://jihadwatch.org/archives/016492.php

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at August 4, 2008 4:35 PM

Liggett: I don't think Solzhenitsyn dividing Jews into good and bad means anything, though David Klinghoffer does. Solzhenitsyn divided virtually every people into good and bad, including Russians. Also, references to him as a nationalist are off the mark. He actually decried nationalism and distinguised it from a proper love of country which he termed patriotism. Others called him a nationalist, but that didn't make him such. As for some non-Russians thinking Solzhenitsyn was too Russian and all that, that is a fair charge but rather a matter of interpretation than fact. I too thought at times that Solzhenitsyn placed too much emphasis on the uniqueness of the Russian soul and the many distinctions it had from the Western soul. But this was his right and there is nothing offensive I ever found in it.

Solzhenitsyn loved Russia and looked back to Kievan Rus with fondness. Thus the splitting of this state eventually into Russians, Ukranians and Belorussians was something tragic for him. Perhaps he was too nostalgic, but he didn't mean offense when he referred to Ukrainians and Belorussians as little brothers or some such thing. Besides, there are many Ukrainians, particularly in eastern Ukraine, who look fondly towards Russia. Most Belorussians do too. But yes, I'm aware that most in western Ukraine particularly don't think this way. As for Solzhenitsyn's interpretation of the damage Mongols and others did to Mother Russia, that's all it is-----interpretation. Yes, there are other rational interpretations of Russian history, but Solzhenitsyn had as much right to an interpretation as the next historian as long as it wasn't in egregious contradiction of the facts, which it wasn't.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 4:57 PM

Wellington wrote:

"Thus the splitting of this state eventually into Russians, Ukranians and Belorussians was something tragic for him."

What Gimpelevich wrote about Solzhenitsyn applies to others as well: "Such statements clearly reflect the ignorance of a Soviet-educated person. The author seems unaware of the twelve Eastern Slavic tribes, their different origins, and less than peaceful histories."

Posted by: Liggett at August 4, 2008 5:08 PM

When I was in high school, I read an excerpt of his book in Reader's Digest. In the story, if I recall correctly, there was a part where a Communist party official was visiting the prison camp and a prisoner was selected to give the official a bouquet of the local flora as a welcome gift. When the prisoner approached the official, he gave him a fistful of barbed-wire strand ~ the fruit of Communism.

On the back of the magazine was an artist's rendition of that bouquet, which I took and glued to a board, covered with clear shellac and mounted on my wall. It sits on my bookcase today, after more than thirty years.

When I look at it today, the barbed-wire in the bouquet signifies to me the lies of Islam that bind, enslave and scar so many millions. And which must be defeated like the evil that was Communism.

Posted by: undaunted at August 4, 2008 5:12 PM

I find it interesting that this track - on the subject of a major figure who challenged totalitarianism - who saw clearly the violence that surrounds and covers up a lie - has been almost completely derailed.

So let's go back to that one phrase which deserves to be written in letters of fire, and which applies just as firmly to the totalitarian geopolitical war-cult which is the Arab Imperial Religion, as it did to the Russia of Lenin and Stalin and Khruschev, and as it does to Maoist and post-Maoist China:

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence" -

And what Mr Spencer said:

"Think about that in the context of the Organization of the Islamic Conference's attempts to compel the UN to outlaw all criticism of Islam, and the international riots against the Muhammad cartoons that led up to these attempts."

*THAT* is what we should be discussing and reflecting upon.

I will share, myself, the phrase that struck me when I read the Gulag Archipelago long ago, a phrase describing the many Christians who vanished into the labor camps, persecuted for their faith: "a silent procession carrying invisible candles".

That phrase might also be used of the dhimmi Christian - and, too, the dhimmi Jewish - communities who basically lived as exploited and despised prisoners within the chaotic and murderous collective that is the Ummah.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at August 4, 2008 5:27 PM

ikonklast29palms: Thanks for your post. By 1945 perhaps, but we're talking about all the years leading up to that year. Actually, I have seen a number as high as 860,000 respecting the number of Jews saved by the Vatican. You can go to http://www.ewtn.com/library/answers/factsp12.htm. for more information on this. Also, a great site for information about Pius is http://www.holycross.edu/department/history/vlapomar/hiatt/piusXII.htm.

You're correct that many times local Catholic clergy acted on their own to save Jews but Pius' hand in this matter was all over the place. In the massive reference work, The Oxford Companion To World War II, it states that Pius had his own personal secretary and many others act as intermediaries between anti-Nazis and the Allies, though often not successfully. Pius personally wrote to Admiral Horthy to help Hungarian Jews and upwards of 80,000 were saved. The Pontifical Aid Commission, set up by the Pope, also did a great deal to help Jews. Jewish scholars like Joseph Lichten have chronicled Pius' efforts to ransom a large number of Jews. Directly on Pius' orders many Jews, particularly Italian Jews, were hdden in Vatican City, convents, churches and so on. Pius, in short, did a great deal, more than any other single person in Europe to save Jews from Nazi barbarism.

After the war, Pius openly expressed grief that he was not able to do even more. This act of Christian humility was turned on its head by cynics who used it as evidence that Pius really didn't do anything, in fact that he was sympathetic to Nazism, a horrible lie. Having taught history for many years now, I would be hard pressed to come up with many individuals who have been more unfairly abused by posterity than Pius. He would be my choice for the single most underrated person of the twentieth cntury. Just a few days ago here at JW I had the opportunity to indicate that Mahatma Gandhi would be my choice for the most overrated person for the same century. Sometimes, life is a fraud and Napoleon's assessment (which I also noted a few days ago and will repeat here), that history is a pack of lies agreed upon, rings true.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 5:29 PM

dumbledoresarmy: You're right that things got derailed and I take significant responsibility for that but I could not let a great man like Alexander Solzhenitsyn be maligned. I just couldn't.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 5:36 PM

"May his memory be eternal".

It will be.

ONe of my most overwhelming experiences ever was to read a few pages of THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO for research. I had avoided it because descriptions of tyranny and atrocity depress me; but, to the contrary, it was one of the most invigorating, even cheering things I had ever read. The man's clear moral compass, his ability to distinguish, his understanding of people and things, shone like a lamp, and made the reading of a story of oppression and tragedy into a positive and strengthening experience. He is the voice of human freedom incarnate and personified.

Posted by: Paolo at August 4, 2008 5:46 PM

WELLINGTON: "As for Solzhenitsyn's interpretation of the damage Mongols and others did to Mother Russia, that's all it is-----interpretation. Yes, there are other rational interpretations of Russian history, but Solzhenitsyn had as much right to an interpretation as the next historian as long as it wasn't in egregious contradiction of the facts, which it wasn't."

It certainly wasn't.

Though the first Russian state (Kiev) was a Swedish enterprise, the essence of Russian history was the endless battle between the steppe and the forest. The mounted peoples of the steppe had the upper hand for centuries, until the industrial revolution and European money and influence transformed and Westernized the "forest".

One shouldn't underestimate the enduring profundity of the Mongol terror on the collective Russian psyche. Some Russian historians have even referred to Stalin's despotism as "Asiatic" due to its depth and depravity.

Posted by: Cornelius at August 4, 2008 5:47 PM

And since we're talking about 'Western civilisation' (but let's broaden it - there are two poles, Greek and Latin, Byzantium and Rome), and mourning the passing of a great (however flawed) Defender of civilisation, here's an unforgettable thread from Dhimmiwatch, May 18, 2005, centred on a posting from Mr Fitzgerald entitled "What's At Stake".

I copied it and kept it in a file I call 'Reasons for Resisting'.

I'm reposting Hugh's article in full. But click on the link and scroll down through the comments field as well: where different posters added to Hugh's their own lists of what we stand to lose. It's dazzling, and incredibly moving.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/006213.php#comments

Fitzgerald: What's at stake

Jihad Watch's Hugh Fitzgerald compiles a short list of what has been put at risk with the rapid Islamization of Europe:

"Some time ago I observed that “without Europe the West becomes comical” – and was almost immediately asked to explain. Here goes:

The British Museum.
The Louvre.
The Prado.
The National Gallery.
The Uffizi.
The Rijksmeum.
Alte Pinakothek.
The Vatican Museum.
The Library at Chatsworth.
The Concertgebouw.
The canals of Venice.
The Piazza della Signoria.
Florence.
Umbria.
The Dulwich Gallery.
Paris.
Toledo.
The Tivoli Gardens.
The Boboli Gardens.
The Jardin des Plantes.
Las Ramblas in Barcelona.
The Juderia in Cordoba.
The Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam.
Trinity College Great Court.
Rome.
Pushkin's house and library in St. Petersburg.
Musee Guimet. Musee of Nissim Camondo. Jeu de Paume. The Luxembourg Gardens
Versailles.
Tolstoy's house at Yasnaya Polyana.
Linnaeus's house in Uppsala.
Uppsala.
Tsarskoe Selo.
The Dulwich Gallery.
Dickens's House.
Samuel Johnson's House.
Oxford.
Cambridge.
The National Railway Museum in York.
The islands of Lewis and Harris.
Chartres.
The house of Bourges.
The birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen in Odense.
Stratford-on-Avon.
Swans on the Avon River.
The Thames.
The Seine.
The Ebro.
The Tiber.
The Danube.
The Palazzo of the D'Este family in Ferrara.
The Palazzo Pubblico in Siena.
The Pinacoteca in Siena.
Spoleto.
San Gimignano.
The Villa Lante.
The caves of Lascaux.
The caves of Altamira.
St. Sulpice.
The Palazzo Farnese.
The Piazza Farnese.
The Piazza Navona.
The Spanish Steps.
The house of Gogol at 47, via Sistina.
The house of Keats (now called the Keats-Shelley House).
Via Condotti. Via del Babuino.
The obelisk in the Piazza Minerva.
The fountain in the Piazza Navona.
La Barcaccia.
Trinita dei Monti.
Musee de Cluny.
Mont Saint-Michel.
Ile de Re.
Musee Andre-Jacquemart.
The lavander fields in Senanque.
The Bibliotheque Nationale.
The Colosseum.
The Parthenon.
Arezzo.
The street of alfarrabistas in Lisbon.
Lisbon.
The mist on Malvern Hill.
Tintern Abbey.
The gardens at Chiswick.
Lac Leman.
Prague.
Cracow.
Buda.
Pest.
And all the rest.
The King James version of the Bible. The Wyclif. The Tyndale.
Wynkyn de Worde. Sir Kenelm Digby. Sir John Maundeville. Boswell. Bosworth Field.
And lest we forget, Geoffrey and William and John , and Jane , and Charles, and Philip. Michel, Andre, Victor, Charles, Paul, Marcel, and Georges and Philip. Wislawa and Zbigniew and Czeslaw. Jaroslav. Jorge, Teresa, Francisco, Miguel, Teresa, JorgePiet, Harry. Gavriil, Aleksandr, Nikolai, Fyodor, Afanasy, Lev, Anton, Ivan, Mark, Osip, Marina, Boris, Vladimir, Vladislav, Mikhail. Jacopone, Guido, Francesco and Dante, all the way up to Giacomo, Eugenio, Dino and Primo and Italo. Christoph, Johann, Franz, Karl.
Have I left anyone out? Yes, because I only have 3 minutes to write this article before other duties call.
So fill it all in yourself. Don't forget a few it may be, in all the fuss, simply to overlook -- you know, such as Mozart, and Isaac Newton, and Spinoza, and Hume, and Rembrandt, and a few people like that whom I just forgot to list.

Gosh, I left out Leonardo. And Michelangelo. And Beethoven. Oops, I keep thinking of new names, new places, new things to add.
Goodness, this could go on for more than five minutes -- I'm now up to seven minutes.
Not all Europeans are named Patten, Solana, and Prodi. Not all are called Jacques Chirac, Dominique de Villepin, George Galloway, and Gerhard Schroder. Some of them are worth thinking about.
Everyone has his own private list. I open to my own O and find Odile, Oswyn, Osvaldo, and Oscar, and...well, you do it with your own mental address-book. And ask yourself, would you like to turn your backs on all of these people, and have them, or their descendants, live in an islamized Europe, with all that that implies?
You don't care? They deserve what they get? But aren't you looking forward to the American version of a British original -- "The Office" -- tonight? You're not?
Why not?
- Posted by Robert at May 18, 2005 7:33 AM

At the time I hadn't discovered Jihadwatch, so I'll take this opportunity to add a few of my own favourites to Hugh's list, belatedly

- Jacques Ellul, Oriana Fallaci, Simone Weil, Irina Ratushinskaya, Terry Pratchett, Adrian Plass, Graham Kendrick, C S Lewis, Dorothy L Sayers, Charles Williams, J R R Tolkien, G K Chesterton, J K Rowlings, John Rutter, Kryzysztof Kieslowski, Zbigniew Preisner, Maximilian Kolbe, J S Bach, Gabrieli, Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, Thomas Tallis, Henry Purcell, Abelard, Hildegard of Bingen, the Lady Julian of Norwich (she who is remembered for the phrase, 'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well'...but she was no Pollyanna, far from it).

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at August 4, 2008 5:50 PM

dumbledoresarmy,

Well said, hope this thread gets back on track. There are two things that completely changed how I looked at humanity and my culture: One was the book Cancer Ward and the other was Solzenitsyn's speech at Harvard in 1978. Both are relevent to todays battles with respect to the totalitarianism that is Islam. Islam is a cancer, and the death of the West will be a result of what he called Fashion. His term of "Fashion" is what has now become Political Correctness. What we need now is another one like him that has the luck, the courage, the health, and the brilliance to articulate this.

Posted by: never_submit at August 4, 2008 6:00 PM

Incidentally, the creature who called him an anti-semite also bought into the lies about Pius XII. That shows the sort of thing it is. Such things do not deserve being refuted - since refuting it would suggest that there is something about its lies worth touching. All you human beings just wash your hands rather carefully as you go, and try to find some nice flowers to smell and remove the stink from your nostrils.

Posted by: Paolo at August 4, 2008 6:01 PM

When I read Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago” I had “Deliverance” like nightmares, with rotted arms thrusting through the permafrost. Yet I was able work my way through all three volumes and I gained a good foundation on the evil that is Communism. I tried to read the Koran around the same time and got no where with it. I even tried two different translations but I gave up thinking the Koran was disjointed gibberish. I am indebted to Mr. Spencer for pointing out, in the introduction to his biography of Mohammad, that the Koran is not the easiest work to get one’s head around.

Is not the disjointed gibberish that is the Koran one of the problems the denizens of Jihad Watch face in trying to spread the alarm over stealth, or not so stealthy, jihad? Even before 9/11, when I tried to point out that yes the Koran does enjoin the faithful to bring death to unbelievers, I was admonished that I had not even read the Koran. That my protagonists had not read it either meant naught in my attempts to overcome their PC induced oblivion to the evil that threatens us.

All I can offer is a prayer that those of us who still love Freedom never give up, never cease speaking the truth about the enemy and never permit the powers that be to silence us.

What city do you think good Muslims will nuke first?

Posted by: Ralph127 at August 4, 2008 6:16 PM

Mr. Solzhenitsyn was a writer who put his life and livelihood on the line in order to document the experiences of his life, and gave a voice to many whose lives were ruined by the ideologues of Marxism-Leninism and would have perished in obscurity except for his chronicling their lives in the prisons scattered about the vast soviet empire.

My personal favorite short story by Solzhenitsyn was Matryonas House.

Posted by: stickman at August 4, 2008 6:18 PM

Ralph127, a good translation of the koran is Sales translation, because it is annotated with many notes explaining much of the origins of Mhmds "revelations".

Posted by: stickman at August 4, 2008 6:32 PM

Friends, like most of us, I only know Solzhenitsyn through his breath-taking Gulag (BTW if that interests you, and cryptozoology interests you, check out The Long Walk--forget his name, but it's only a couple-hundred pages and chronicles an escape from a Gulag, then a 4,000 mile hike to (then) British India.)

I'd seen his names for years, maybe my whole life (I'm 42) in the classics section. Read something about the Alaskan archipelago, and the metaphor sinked it for me. I bought it, probably around 35.

Two things that really boggled my mind were his afterword account of spending the day on that canal... I think it goes from St. Pete to the White Sea or somesuch... any way, he noted that after watching it ALL day, he saw ONE barge of firewood heading north, and another heading south... then he notes, "For this, 250,000 people lost their lives."

The other thing--and this literally made me queasy when I read it--was that the entire Gulag enterprise never even turned a profit. It was so full of privateers, cheats, bribe-takers and -makers, etc. that it was actually a burden on the taxpayers of the USSR. This, despite that 50,000 new "conscripts" could literally be called up at the stroke of a pen... and often were.

This, despite virtually unlimited access to every sort of (temperate zone) natural harvest: blubber, furs, oil, iron, gold, silver, uranium, timber, jewels, coal... the list is practically endless. And the whole rotten system, which enslaved and murdered millions, never turned a single ruble.

He doesn't have much to do with Jihad awareness, other than being listed on that great list of the many glitterati that will disappear IF Islam takes over Europe... but Gulag should be required reading for everyone that values freedom.

I don't think that Marx ever intended for Communism to be this way... more appropriately it should be called Leninism or Stalinism. But this is what happens when crazy people take over (hey, what do you know? Another link to Islam.)

Posted by: kj at August 4, 2008 7:37 PM

I hereby offer a challenge to non-Western members of Mr Spencer's Hedge School of the Counter-Jihad. Here's your chance.

Above I posted an essay in which Hugh Fitzgerald listed, unforgettably, the Treasures of the West, what one might call, perhaps, the Treasures of Christendom and of the Enlightenment.

But I *know* - in light of Traditional Mainline Islam's condemnation of, and insane intent to eradicate, all music sacred and profane, vocal and instrumental, and all representation of living beings, and all sculpture, and the keeping of pet dogs, and all alcohol, and all display of uncovered female faces and forms in the public square, and all sacred places other than its own - that all the Glory of the Nations is in its crosshairs for demolition.

Indian posters, Filipinos, Thai visitors, African visitors - educate us. Give us that long long list, as Hugh has done for 'the West', of all those civilisational treasures, those works of art, those holy places, those poets and painters and sculptors, those fashion designers, those film-makers, whose work could never have come into being within Islam, and that would be destroyed by Muslims. Provide links if you can - for example, to major artworks, or classical traditional female costume.

I don't know a lot, but Angkor Wat would be at the top of my list, as would the exquisite classical dance forms of Thailand, India and Cambodia. (It is a testament to Bali that up till now their dancers and sculptors and temples have survived - but for how much longer, as the jihad tide rises in Indonesia?).

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at August 4, 2008 8:12 PM

Now, squarely back on topic.

Solzhenitsyn was a champion of the human soul.

Today, let's honour his memory by celebrating the best that that human soul has created, both in the West *and* in the [non-Muslim] East.

Mr Fitzgerald: you're our resident expert on things Russian - could you provide a suitable Interlude?

I suggest also a round of virtual vodka?

In honour of Aleksandri Solzhenitsyn, and of all the Saints and Martyrs of all the Russias, I herewith provide a couple of links to the works of Anton Rublev, Russia's greatest painter of icons:

http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/rublev.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev

(scroll down: there are colour representations of sixteen Rublev icons)

And here is a setting of the most ancient known Christian hymn, Phos hilaron, sung in Church Slavonic:

http://www.grkat.nfo.sk/hudba/zbors13.mp3

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at August 4, 2008 8:14 PM

kj: You cut Karl Marx way too much slack. His ideas are a prescription for evil, just as Islam's ideology is. Marx was a fool. His labor value theory maintained that the only reason anything had value was because labor was put into it to produce it. This is ridiculous. Marx didn't even take into account such things as intrinsic value (e.g., gold) and advertising costs. His dialectical materialism is jibberish. His theory of determinism is akin to palm reading and astrology. But most malicious is his class struggle theory, which asserted that certain socio-econommic classes must be done away with violently in order to establish the worker's paradise. No gradualism allowed. In other words, huge numbers of people must be killed.

Any ideology that singles out groups of human beings to be slaughtered is evil. Marx singled out social and economic classes. Hitler singled out ethnic groups. And Islam singles out non-believers unless they're prepared to accept second-class status. All three are evil. So, someone averring that Marxism in theory has merit is no different for me from someone maintaining that Nazism or Islam is just fine in theory.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 8:33 PM

Babel Fish translation of Hugh's link to Grigori Baklanov above:

Interesting conversation occurred once between The [solzhenitsynym] and Varlam Shalamov. They were introduced in the editorial staff of the periodical of " New [mir]" , where was printed the narrative of " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]" , Solzhenitsyn's name thundered, his glory was yet not world, but already All-Union, yes even by the highest authority it at that time was warmed, advanced to the Lenin prize, from which, hating Lenin, to refuse it did not attempt. And here it- that Shalamov returned his stories for the transfer to Tvardovsky.In the essence repeated that the fact that itself made to it Solzhenitsyn. Indeed into " New [mir]" the narrative of " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]" not Solzhenitsyn brought, they helped it. The plan was developed: by arrangement [s] Copel, with which it together sat in the buffing-wheel, narrative carried the wife It is copel Raisa Orlov and confidence transmitted to its close familiar the ace [Berzer]. Anna [Solomonovna] [Berzer] did not occupy large position in the editorial staff, but Tvardovsky entrusted to her. And here, passing the division of prose, passing [Dementeva], the first deputy editor in chief, who for sure would embark on the path the manuscript (it still it will dissuade Tvardovsky to print it), A Of [berzer], after reading, returned narrative from hand to hand to Tvardovsky. Thus they were reached two purposes immediately: the manuscript without the delay reached that, who decided, and on the case, if suddenly it ascertained the KGB, to Solzhenitsyn left the possibility to be unlocked: nothing, it is said, I to the editorial staff carried, nothing he saw, not it heard, nothing not I know.Camp experience: in the narrative of " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]" it is described, as ZEKs they steal during the building the cylinder of roofing, in order to to shield from the wind the aperture of the window: protection will miss, we nothing know, thus it was. Here Shalamov, turned himself to the recent bartender, to the fellow: the matter general to describe to peace about the Stalin camps. It only did not surmise in to simplicity of sincere, which to Solzhenitsyn was not completely required, in order to in the strong searchlight light of glory, already directed toward it and only to it, still someone's silhouette appeared, albeit not next, let in the reflection, on the side somewhere, but - martyr, who finished distilling 19 years in the most terrible camps and in the reference, on top of that it is talented about this written. Here is the conversation, recorded by Shalamov, now this together with that not sent by letter to Solzhenitsyn it is published in the book of " [Vospominaniya]" (publishing house [AST], Moscow " 2003 g.): " For America, rapidly and preceptorially spoke my new familiar, hero must be religious. There even laws exist about [this], therefore not one book publisher American will take not one conversion the story, where the hero - atheist or simply skeptic or being doubted. - A Jefferson, the author of declaration?- Well, when this was. But now I examined rapidly (how to Shalamov was to hear this insulting: it did not read, but examined rapidly) several your stories. There is nowhere so that the hero would be [veruyushchim]." Let us interrupt. Kant wrote: " Hope to the god so absolutely that we cannot implicate hope on it not into what its of [dela]." Let us continue. " The small fingers of my new familiar, writes Shalamov, - rapidly sorted out typewritten pages. - I even am astonished, as these are you… And not to believe in the god. - I do not have need for this [gopoteze] as in Volterra. - Well, afterward Volterra there was the Second World War. - Those more. - Yes the matter even not in the god. Writer must speak in the language large Christian culture, entire equal- hellene he or israelite. Only then it can achieve success to [Zapade]." Then they were introduced nearer, Solzhenitsyn even invited sludge to himself in guests, into [Solotchu], and from there, after listening to and after seeing him closely, Shalamov ran on the second day, before the breakfast, secretly. Subsequently, in notebook of 1971 Shalamov writes: " Activity Solzhenitsyn - this is the activity of businessman, directed toward the narrowly personal successes by all provocative accessories of similar of [deyatelnosti]." Possibly in these sharp determinations there is a portion of personal. But it is striking on the enlightenment and to depth thought in the not sent letter to Solzhenitsyn, I will isolate it: " I know accurately - Pasternak was the victim of the Cold War, you - its [orudie]." Shalamov's books, him staggering of " [Kolymskie] of [rasskazy]" it is, it goes without saying, published in America, recommendation it was not required. But it is here about the fact that the writer must speak in the language of the large Christian culture, to speak and respectively to act. Who from the writers did not obtain letters, also, from the readers, and from the libraries with the request to send his book? I will not recollect so that someone would notify about this people. But is here before me the newspaper of " [Trud]" , on the front page - Solzhenitsyn's portrait, not present, but youthful, which is smiled, here - the text of the letter of the teacher of the rural school: it [s] by the most great respect it requests to send one of its books so that the children could write composition on it. And Solzhenitsyn's answer: sends to them the copy of " As to us to [obustroit] [Rossiyu]" , since all the remaining books it already, it is said, sent out on the numerous requests. Wrote teacher, it goes without saying, not into the newspaper, it personally, no one to know about this could besides it and close ones, and here this they converted into the self-advertisement, after supplying with portrait. But indeed on the biblical commandments, on the Christian morals if you create good, even your left hand must not know that makes right. [Vosmidesyatipyatiletie] Solzhenitsyn they noted it is wide, going around on possibility its last two-volume edition of " Two hundred years of [vmeste]" as they go around on the road that, in that better not to [vlyapatsya]. Were urgently taken new telecine film about the celebrant, newspapers, radios… On the television congratulated it and desired the longevity Of [prokhanov], editor of one of the quite [mrakobesnykh] newspapers, worker of present communist party, who flew into London to recently set up financial communications of communist party with the quick oligarch to Berezovsky. Well not miracles whether: one of the leaders of communist party congratulates. It was so that but earlier, its its not [poznasha]? In the letter to the leaders of the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn required dropping the bloody shirt of ideology, but in general he did not encroach on the totalitarian authority. In " [Izvestiyakh]" - many photographs of celebrant, and the adjusting article, in which they compare it with Leo Tolstoy, but this time - not with the artist, but with late Tolstoy, [s] by preacher, and in the confirmation here such the curious detail: " … you tell - in Tolstoy, and it is here understandable, from what stove further to dance, to what side to move, what scale on the map to assign. The same also
Well, and if Szymon Perez afterward Tolstoy's museum homes visited me - " Not without reason! " - this that would place me on one board with Leo Tolstoy? Even errors of Tolstoy were the errors genius, they are pierced by pain and repentance, and that, whom they attempt to equalize with it, it is occupied with self assertion and reduces, it reduces the calculations with those, who once helped to him and even life for it placed as that unhappy Vadim Borisov, whom threw its matter, it went wholly into the service to Solzhenitsyn, published it the books in the first years of reconstruction, and then required from it the strict accounting, which to be in those years it did not can, and they accused it in [moshenichestve], and it soon died. But also dead, not capable itself to protect so that and on its children fall disgrace, Solzhenitsyn printed by word in its now published of " [Zernyshke]" , which in no way was mislaid " between two [zhernovov]" , and on the contrary, these of millstone excellently it knew how to use: " Error - it is possible to forgive the millionth. Fraud - it is not possible to transfer [kopeechnogo]." In the press they wrote that in the course of encounter Solzhenitsyn reported to Perez that as once finished " Two hundred years of [vmeste]" , and the first volume already leaves or it appeared. I read this book in the hospital, time there was much, it read with the pencil, not hurrying. Solzhenitsyn does not love Jews. This him right, it cannot be condemned for this. Even if it hates, even if this hatred of zoological property. Well and bear it as stone in the soul. But word and aforesaid and written is the matter, in the beginning of all matters and matters of bloody there was word. Subsequently, when it leaves and the second volume, will appear the article, not admitted on the tone, but accurate actually, epigraph to it undertook Feuchtwanger's words: " Not each scoundrel - antisemite. But each antisemite - [podlets]." This so is correct as that each russophobe - scoundrel. And scoundrel each, who hates Tatars because they - Tatars. But if there is a difference, then in the fact that the Jews they pursue already two thousand years. Them they cursed both in the Catholic temples and in [tserkvyakh], forcibly they turned into Christianity, and in those, who returned to their faith, they selected children. In the article of " Christianity and [antisemitizm]" Nikolai [Berdyaev] wrote: " Jewish problem is testing Christian conscience and Christian spiritual force. In the world they were always and now there are two races, and this division of races is more important than all remaining divisions. There are crucifying and crucified, suppressing and oppressed, that hate and hated, that cause suffering and suffering, persecutors and persecuted. It does not require explanations, on whose side must be present of [khristiane]". Catholic Church has long since brought apologies for all persecutions and atrocities, which it lime-pit for a period of centuries, removed from the Jews slander.And Polish President [Kvasnevskiy] apologized himself before the Jews for the tragedy in [Edvabne]. I will resemble: in Poland, in 150 kilometers from Warsaw, in the populated area To [edvabne] on July 10, 1941, when Poland was it is occupied by Germans and the German troops already approached Smolensk, Poles by axes and by scythes drove in their neighbors of Jews into the barn, placed output and set fire. Are burnt-out 1600 people: children, woman, old men. Houses of those burnt, them they divided between themselves the property of killer. On this there was known everything sixty postwar years, in this region there were still several centers of the Jewish pogroms, about this knew and kept silent not only those, who arranged mob-law, but also [ksendtsy], and historians, and writers, and on the spot burnt barn was set boulder, they wrote that on it this made the Germans - occupiers. But the book left the professor of political science from New York Tomasz Gross " [Sosedi]" , in it is proven, who bears the responsibility after the mass murder, in the future it was the documentary film Of [agneshki] Arnold " [Sosedi]" , in the course of two evenings it went on the Polish television, and the former neighbors said before the camera, as everything occurred on the very the matter, as they buried in the earth of even living, trod down by feet the [shevelyashchiesya] graves, as rural fellows the football by the cut off head of recent their neighbor - Jew. President [Kvasnevskiy] stated that precisely on July 10 he will ask forgiveness in Jews on the spot to tragedy, although on the interrogation 48% Poles consider the apologies inappropriate, and the former interior minister even gave to it action to the law court - for the insult Polish people. But [Kvasnevskiy] remained inflexible: " This is a question of our responsibility, our moral consciousness, our the vision of the problems modern world and that which occurred in the past and it remained in our
Here against this background left the first volume, as it is said, historical study of Solzhenitsyn " Two hundred years of [vmeste]" , in it - in the masked form that many years it bore in the soul. However, as will be explained by late, the main thing, without hiding, without veiling authentic feelings, with the entire fury it wrote it even 65- m and 68- m years, but calculation it prompted: not time, in front thus far still in the dreams, in the fog the Nobel Prize lit. And it suffered, waited, and now, it publishes, allegedly because much of this was opened to it, when it it wrote his main chunk " Red [koleso]" , but it did not contain itself: he sewed suit- troika, it remained material also to [kepochku], whereas not to disappear. However, it told before hand the book in the first interview by here this falsity, it pierced entire book.
By the way, on the spaces, which became subsequently the Russian Empire, Jews were encountered and it is earlier than these selected two hundred years, the names of some remained in history. And there were tribes, for example the Turkish tribe of [khazar], powerful [Khazarskoe] reign with the capital Of [itil] in the lower reaches of the river of the Volga, whose lords accepted Judaism even in [USH] century. This is how [khazarskiy] tsar it is cream-colored it selected faith, after deciding to forego the idolatry. It arranged in its presence the debate of three religions: Islam, Christians, who arrived from Byzantium, and israelites. Anything having plainly understood from their disputes, where each praised its faith, it was cream-colored it entered simply: it called to itself one by one Christian, then Muslim. It asked Christian: if for you it was in prospect to select religion judaic or Moslem, what you would select. " [Iudeyskuyu]" , Christian said. And it based as follows: it was given to the selected people by god himself, but god then rejected this people for the sins. Asked tsar it was cream-colored Muslim, whatever he selected religion, Christian or judaic, if to it it was represented to select. " [Iudeyskuyu]" he said Muslim. A Christian therefore for it is poor, which permits to eat unclean (pork) and to pray to the articles of the human hands: to icons. And tsar selected judaic faith, so to speak, on the majority of voices. Two centuries (this now it seems to us, that they flickered, and while today, each day from the morning to the evening it was long), two centuries [khazarskie] rulers extended its authority to the southeastern strip of subsequent European Russia, they managed the territory of previous [Bosporskogo] reign, i.e., by the territory of Kerch', [Tamani], accomplished raids to the Slav tribes on the South Dnepr, [obkladyvaya] by tribute. You remember: " As now [sbiraetsya] prophetic Oleg [Otmstit] unreasonable of [khazaram]/of their village and field for the violent raid/he doomed to swords and to the fires… of "
But all this - the matters of the long ago past days, by the author are undertaken two hundred years from that the division of Poland, when to Russia was added the part of its east, and for us - the western earth, populated in essence by catholics, with them - even seven hundred thousand Jews, who lived in the places and the villages. Crusaders in the years of three crusades drove home their ancestors here from Western Europe: leaving to protect the coffin Of [gospoden] from the Moslems of incorrect, they on the course of events, first of all, robbed and killed incorrect israelites in their countries: in the [prireynskikh] regions of France of those days, Germany, they destroyed or by force crossed. Solzhenitsyn writes, manifesting the striking ignorance: " … into " [dikie]" The Middle Ages people could mass kill only in the assault of fury, in the heat of [bitvy]." What already here battle? This was slaughter the armed hordes of defenseless people. And horror before them was so it was great, what mothers in the desperation themselves killed their children, by track - itself. But on the distance of centuries, all this by now living is not painful. Let us take it is closer. After the Second World War, when Englishmen for the demand of Stalin gave out captured cossacks to us, they gave out together with the families, one young Cossacks threw up from the bridge its two children into [Dravu], and itself then rushed. Can because the front our was passed near these places and I know these places, I see, as it tore off children as kittens from itself, and they were caught for it in the fear, and it one after by others threw they into the boiling flow, before by the very there throw. Mothers are mothers and children are children, whose they not were. Both fear and pain, and death - one. Specifically, in the years of crusades, escaping, ran the part of the Jews to the east: in Hungary, into Poland.
As it already to them there lived, another question, but in the composition of Russia they were not requested, they joined them. And they here drew the feature, for which them and by foot to step was not permitted: the feature of permanent residency. If we look historically, then it is clear that never any feature held in control the settling of peoples, even oceans did not become obstacle, ancient on the rafts, as by stage by Hyerdahl they proved swam across them. Did not prevent the feature of permanent residency what is inevitable. Already Nikolai 1, having given no rights, commanded to call into the army of Jews, to pull out them from there, because of the feature. Were taken 12-13 summer children, eightyear old were sufficient and they chased by stage, and there were this in essence the children of the poor, who to [pobogache], was ransomed. Herzen along the road into the short heavy horse met one such stage, where he was exiled. After the cup of tea in the cottage he asked the stage officer: " - Whom and where you do conduct? - I do not ask, Indus heart tears slightly; well yes about that know [pershie], our matter to fulfill, not we in the answer, and on- human it is not beautiful. - Yes in what matter? - You see, was collected the crowd of cursed they [zhidenyat] from the eight- nine-year age. That whether they collect in the fleet - I do not know.
It was first they ordered to chase them into Perm'. Yes left change, it was persecuted in Kazan. I them accepted versts for one hundred; officer, that it passed, he said: " Misfortune yes even only, third remained on the road (and officer it showed by finger into the earth). Half will not reach the designation, it added. - General diseases that whether? - I asked, shaken to the interior. - No, not that, in order to general, A so they die as flies… well, it will cough, it will cough also into [Mogilev]. And say, make favor, that this by it was given, that it is possible with the children to make? I it kept silent. - You when do appear? - Yes time long ago, rain was already painful it is strong… Hey you, service, is great small fry to gather! They brought babies and constructed in the correct front; this was one of the most terrible spectacles, which I it saw… Boys of twelve, thirteen years even barely were held… but baby of eight, ten years… Pale, [iznurennye], with the frightened form, they stood in the awkward, thick soldier overcoats with the standing collar. Turning some helpless, sorrowful view on the garrison soldiers, it is rough evened them; white lips, dark-blue circles under the eyes - showed fever or a chill. And these sick children without to withdrawal, the bases of kindness, blown out by the wind, which without difficulty it blows from the Arctic sea, dispatch into the grave. And with that, you will notice, that them conducted the good soul- officer, to whom there was clearly it's a pity [detey]." Of course such evidence into " [ravnovesnom]" an historical study of Solzhenitsyn we not let us meet, A let us meet, for example, statistical given, percentage the relationship of a quantity of Jews in the army in 1903 and 1904. In 1904 them in army became less: began war with Japan, they did not want, it is said, to go to the war, to protect the native land.
And as if [nevdomek] to researcher, that 1904- mu it preceded the terrible Kishinev pogrom 1903- GO of year. But that is incomprehensible, and, is more accurate, it is consciously gone around by our historical thinker, understood, for example, the hero of the First World War Russian General Brusilov. In the book of " My of [vospominaniya]" , for the first time completely published in 2001 by publishing house [ROSSPEN], it writes Brusilov: " Several words also about the Jewish problem in the troops. I think that these words will be unconditionally impartial, since in me there is no predilection to this tribe not into good not to the bad side, and during the war I of them, as soldiers thoroughly were studied… During the standing on Bouguer, with the riding round me positions, in one of the regiments to me was seemed the intelligence officer- Jew, as best not only in this regiment, but also in the entire division. He was situated in the system since the beginning of the campaign, valiantly he participated in all battles, three times were injured and rapidly it was made operational without any compulsion, started on the most risky and dangerous reconnaissance and became famous by its courage and [smyshlennostyu]. In the reward were obtained 4 Georgievskiys the medals and 3 Georgievskiys cross, deserved also Georgievskiy the cross of the 1st degree, but hull commander to me reported, that in view of the production ban of Jews in master sergeants he does not risk to represent him to this high award, since it is cmbined with the required production in master sergeants. Although on deserved them to rewards this intelligence officer has long ago been must would be produced in non-comissioned officers, he was still Private… It is understandable that I embraced and kissed him before the system and here, although it is illegal, produced it directly in master sergeants and hung up to it cross 1st [stepeni]." It gives Brusilov still and another similar example, and although and writes that " the large part of the Jews there were the soldiers of [posredstvennye]" , the general conclusion of combat General is such:
" It is evident from these two examples that to Jews in the essence not because of what it was be crucified for the native land, which for them was [machekhoy]." But we were postponed from The [nikolaevskoy] epoch. But then, on the assertion of historian [Dubnov], in the army of Jews in the percent ratio to the population it served more than any other national character, including - and Russians. There them they crossed by force. But the period of service was 25 years. By the way, grandfather Admiral [Nakhimova], who destroyed Turkish fleet in The [sinopskom] battle, the hero of Sevastopol, where it perished, where was established to it monument and in 1944 by the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR they were founded order and the medal Of [nakhimova] of the 1st and 2nd degree, they rewarded naval commanders for those put outting themselves to orders operation, sailors - for the heroism, and there is Nakhimov sea school, so here the grandfather of future Admiral [Nukhim] was [mestechkovyy] shoemaker, and the father of his, twelve-year old [kantonista], they crossed: there was Samuel, became [Stepan]. The descendants Of [nakhimova] are living until now, they bear his glorious surname: this from its [nevenchannoy] wife of Rachels, who refused to be crossed, and they banished it with the children from their estate in the Kursk province, when Admiral died. But we again were distracted, although history, these are not [ostrugannyy] telegraphic post, but living tree with many grown in the side of branches.
So it is here with Nikolai 1, after serving 25 years, soldier from the Jews obtained the right (with Alexander Sh this right it was abolished) not to return to the feature of permanent residency, but to select in Russia place for the residence, where to it will be wanted, they settled in Moscow, in the petty-bourgeois settlement. To you this nothing does resemble from our recent times? With the Soviet regime the peasants, who into the revolution battled " for the earth, for the will, for best [dolyu]" , and they were then again enslaved, also indeed, in the essence the matters, lived after by the feature of permanent residency, passportless, not had right without permission to leave the place of residence. But, after serving in the army, soldier could not return there, for the feature.
All this Solzhenitsyn knows, it is not possible to visualize so that he so would not know the history of Russia, but where by silence, but where and with the disturbance with sorrowful [podpleskivaet] to [kerosintsu] into the fire that not perished. And method selected experienced: by strange hands. Selects of two encyclopedias, from periodical 22, from other journalism, all that is poor, that the Jews themselves about themselves write, leaving to themselves the possibility like even to be surprised and reproachful to rock by head - ouch- I -[yay]! - yes by commentaries appropriate to direct the thought of the reader into the necessary river bed. If we from the great Russian classical literature [povybrat] necessary places, terrible will be comprised picture. But the same " [Matrenin] of [dvor]" , written To [solzhenitsynym], when it still was artist. Or thus, for instance: if " [Pyshku]" , where is represented entire French society in the section - aristocrats, bourgeoisie, church saint in the person of two [monashenok], and person- that among them proved to be for the check only prostitute, dishwasher yes German soldier- occupier, if all this wrote not Frenchman Maupassant, while, let us say, captain Dreyfus, this they would fasten to his accusatory conclusion.
But already Solzhenitsyn loves to cite [vykrestov]. I bear in mind not those, whom forcibly they baptized, and for the believers apostasy became flour for life, but those, who were sold, voluntarily he went to serve. Here already who hates his people, here already who, knowing on itself, is capable to reverse outside all his defects! And this hatred is intelligible, but otherwise as you, traitor, you will be cleaned? Here and in this war the most cruel chastisers were [politsai]. And the nevertheless most shameful, that Solzhenitsyn justifies the pogroms: if we, it is said, are dismantled impartially, then victims themselves aroused to themselves anger people. Both it calculates and discovers on by different source, which was not as many killed and raped, as it communicated, but it is less, it is here as many, but with here this pogrom to generally only one-eyed Jew they knocked out by weight the second eye. Altogether only. Men, which during our days after by fascists was made the oecumenical pogrom, in course of which are destroyed one-and-a-half million children, it was capable after this to justify the crowd, which thirsts the blood, which goes with impunity to kill and to rob those, who and be protected cannot, this person - out of the morals.
In November last year they noted 40- anniversary from that day, when into " New [mire]" was printed Solzhenitsyn's narrative " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]". [O] the editor of " New [mira]" , about the Tvardovsky, and this it printed, not it was mentioned, other names were called. The matter is known: the victory has it is many fathers, defeat - orphan. However, in one of the newspapers it was nevertheless said: On November 11 Tvardovsky signed in the press the number of periodical. As about the technical worker: they charged to it, it signed. Already twenty years ago in the interview the BBC Solzhenitsyn spoke: " It is completely clear: if there would be no Tvardovsky as there is no editor in chief of periodical -, this narrative would not be [napechatana]." In this interview it recognized as " Archipelago Of [gULAG]" it would not be written, if it did not appear and people did not read " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]": " It in my biographies played that large role, that it helped to write " [Arkhipelag]". Because of that I printed " Ivan [Denisovicha]" - in the short months, thus far me still they did not begin to chase, hundreds of people began to write letters to me. But some and to arrive and to say still.
And so I gathered the indescribable material, which in, The Soviet Union and cannot be gathered. - only because of " To Ivan [Denisovichu]". So that it became as if pedestal for " Archipelago Of [gULAGa]". But past already twenty years, and Tvardovsky in its fate, as it did not occur. Thus, in the general of complexity it passed 40 years. This means, by the way that those, to whom now forty, at that time only were born to the light. But those, to whom fifty, who already sometimes they begin to think about the pension, the fact at that time were only ten years. Not by them the time is experienced, from where by them what to know? But the author of narrative, which subsequently became for it Nobel prize winner, but at that time - no one the yet not well-known author, he knows and remembers, as everything was as in the future for this narrative was hunted Tvardovsky, earlier than the period they brought together to the grave. But now, after the already twenty years, Solzhenitsyn was silent about the Tvardovsky: him to recall, itself to diminish. Why? And by silence its certified entire this lie. But indeed precisely it, Solzhenitsyn, speaking in deformed modern language, threw the slogan: " To live not on [lzhi]." Dostoyevsky spoke: we do not pardon not those, who caused evil to us, who it is guilty before us, we do not pardon those, before whom we are guilty. Here them not we pardon. Yes even generally, it takes a long time to bear in the soul appreciation, to share with whom- or glory, this burdensome matter. Ivan [Denisovich] from the similar narrative, without philosophizing, but according to its hungry camp experience discussed simply: " the Belly- villain of the good not of [pomnit]."
But where, as not into " New [mir]" at that time it was possible to return narrative? In to the head of the periodical of " [Oktyabr]" - [Kochetov], well-known obscurantist. " [Znamya]" it headed Kozhevnikov. It loved literature, but - by secret by love. This is it, after reading the manuscript of Grossman's novel " Life and [sudba]" , sent it not into the collection, but in the KGB. Leningrad periodicals? They yet did not go away from the fear after the crushing defeat of the periodicals " [Zvezda]" and " [Lenigrad]" , after the fact that they made above The [akhmatovoy] and [Zoshchenko]. But into " New in [mire]" with the Tvardovsky was printed entire most talented, that it composed the glory of our literature. And Yuri Trifon printed here his the best narratives. Then, when they removed Tvardovsky from the post of editor in chief, The Trifons it passed into " Friendship of [narodov]". And Vladimir [Tendryakov]. And Vasiliy [Shukshin] it printed here its stories. Generally the majority of the so-called country bumpkins it began and took place into " New in [mire]": and novels and to bring Fedor Abramov, and Boris [Mozhaev]'s novel " From Fedor [Kuzkina]"'s life;. Their narratives here printed Vasil Bykov, Georgiy [Vladimov], is here printed was printed " Blockade [kniga]" [Alesya] Of [adamovicha] and Danil [Granin], whom with the fear rejected Leningrad periodicals. Here it began, it became stronger and was obtained the world reknown of Chingiz [Aytmatov]. As he for everything for this [otblagodaril] of Tvardovsky, I already wrote. Here was printed best, in my view, the book Of [fazilya] Of [iskandera]: " Constellation [Kozlotura]."
In the poetry Alexander [Trifonovich] was [pereborchiv], many, especially young poets, they had a foundation for offend to it. For example, it could print the talentless longest so-called poem on the production theme, plug by it breach. But the author proved to be still and it was intractable, it did not agree to reduce its [rifmovannuyu] [gazetchinu]. Then Tvardovsky said to it: " Here if for you very it was necessary to carve this on the stone-, you themselves reduced everything to [minimuma]." But whole branch of young poetry, which was judged the future, it did not note, to it this was not on the taste. But the best prose was printed here, into " New in [mire]". With the Tvardovsky the periodical became the center of attraction, the center of the spiritual life of society. Here they strove. And here is - the narrative of " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]". Tvardovsky read it within the night. And it solved: I will place head, but I will print. Writer, if this not craftsman, but artist, cannot but write that which in it was born and it ripens and auto is requested to the light. Talent is stronger than the fear, it overcomes. Yes, there are the cases, when artist, after yielding to temptations, [zadavlival] in himself its child, and in it perished and artist and man.
Tvardovsky there were editor, citizen, but, first of all, he was artist. He knew: neither management of the writers' union nor in TsK nor on one of the floors, where it was solved all and entire, it will not support. It is sooner - they will drown. It wrote preface to the narrative, thus covering by its its name, and it turned to Khrushchev through his assistant Lebedev, it knocked itself, as itself spoke, into those doors, which least of all [otverzayutsya] for this. From the days of the present, when the entire layer of history is forgotten, all this can to seem suprising: and what, strictly speaking, it was fear? After Khrushchev's report on [KHKH] congress, after the disclosure of " the cult of [lichnosti]" this narrative was to Khrushchev exactly in the color. But this - from the days of the present, we everything clever and daring then. But there was outside only 62- y year, only nine years passed from the day of Stalin's death, corpse still strongly held in the numbed cam of the soul of living, and its companions-in-arms were arranged everywhere, they sat at their places. Today Khrushchev it exposes " [kult]" , and tomorrow, after calling, thus the called, creative intelligentsia, it [stuchit] by cam on the table and, after being poured by the blood, it shouts: in everything I Leninist, and with respect to the skill - [stalinets]! Yes what there to speak, when his speech on [KHKH] congress Khrushchev was not decided or they did not give to it to print. But after [KHKH] of congress in six years was formed [okrepla
In " Working [tetradyakh]" Tvardovsky, which now print, described, as days were pulled and the months of expectation, when suddenly rang to the dacha Lebedev, he said: narrative is permitted. And Tvardovsky threw to Maria [Illarionovne], wife of its and associate, and it heard entire conversation on another tube, and kissed it, without having held in control tears. It costs expensive, when man is capable to be glad for other as for himself. But are terrible people, which do not know appreciation. Especially those, who in their [messianskom] consciousness are assured: all living already for one that must be grateful to them, that they [uschastlivilis] to live into one with them time.
I remember, I read into " New in [mire]" the narrative of " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]" and it was bewitched by the force of talent. And at the same time it wrote about it, this was the first review into " Literary of [gazete]". This they will then to me recollect. But then met me randomly Tvardovsky in the house of writers he says: certainly, review your is not strong by analytical analysis, but - thanks. Subsequently, when wind changed and the head of the writers' union nonpartisan Fedin [zakolebalsya] together with the line of party, Tvardovsky shamed by his several phrases from that my review, this is in his collected works. Solzhenitsyn's narrative literally produced explosion in the public consciousness. More accurately to say thus: society matured, it waited, and it appeared at this moment. But they thus far praised it, and following the periodical urgently they let out by the book, and also into " Roman -[gazete]" - by print run into several million copies, abroad they related to it very [sderzhenno]. But they here drove off Khrushchev from the post, after leaving under the supervision to be occupied by vegetable-garden on that diverted to it dacha, and in the chapter of party became Brezhnev. And were developed the hunting of Solzhenitsyn, the hunting of " New in [mira]" and, it goes without saying, Tvardovsky. Finnish publisher [Yarl] [Khelleman], it to year in the sixtieth published my narrative of " Span of [zemli]" , subsequently we made friends, so here he told as they initially from a distance " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]" trial print run into 3 thousand copies, and half of this print run, not bought up, remained to lie on the storage: this for you, he spoke, the news, and about everything which is here described, it is long ago known. But here you they helped us: noise in the newspapers began, and we immediately republished by its print run into 20 thousand. And they bought up everything.
Swedish publisher [Per] told the same to me [Gedin], he published two my books. By the way, detail from those times: it arrived to Moscow, we sit down ourselves in me house to have dinner - bell from [VAAPa], i.e., from All-Union agency on the protection of copyrights. No copyrights it guarded, since we had no rights. Agency auto concluded for us agreements for the publication of our books abroad, fees it respectively took away to itself, for the visibility leaving to the authors of kopeck. Were there the deputy of the head of agency, civil, but former [SMERShevets], it did have a title that Colonel, then whether of the General of department, which pierced entire country. " In you now the peer Of [gedin]. It is assembled to publish Solzhenitsyn. So you say to it: either Solzhenitsyn or nine thousand Soviet writers! " " Yes are not necessary to it nine thousand Soviet [pisateley]." " No, you to it so communicate! " And it does not doubt, that " nine thousand Soviet [pisateley]" in it - in the handful. This was called the protection of copyrights. I promised: without fail thus and I will transmit. By the way, the reading person on the average manages to read 4 thousand books for his life.
But published at this time the peer Of [gedin] of " Archipelago Of [gULAG]" , it described to me, as arrived in it news business negotiations Solzhenitsyn, sent from the USSR and freely moved in the countries, as they secluded in the office, and Solzhenitsyn required, in order to all " veg! " But there was in the house the large black dog with the chopped off tail: " [Kanalya]" , trying and on the old age affectionate to all, in that number - to the guests. The not deprived of humor peer asked: " And the rascal also of veg? " (They spoke they in German). " Veg! " And similar to fear this guest overtook on all, that when the daughter of peer the Mari introduced on the tray tea and pastry, hand in it they shook, it dropped cups with the hot tea to Solzhenitsyn to the elbows. Our the propaganda, powerless in its fury, powerless because it departed nestling from the nest, it left into " New in [mire]" Solzhenitsyn's narrative " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]" , very and very our propaganda helped the Nobel committee to complete its selection. And this not for the first time. They advanced great poet Pasternak and it is earlier to the Nobel Prize, but they gave reward only after the novel of " Doctor [Zhivago]" , which underwent [iznichtozheniyu]. But it leave quietly by the book, in exact figures nothing not it [sotryaslos]. Poets generally rarely write the good prose. Speech, of course, not about Pushkin, not about [Lermontove]. " Hero of our of [vremeni]" - this beginning of psychological Russian prose. Tvardovsky died of cancer. Most widely known German oncologist surgeon [Rayk] [Khamer], inspecting more than 20 thousand patients different forms of cancer, arrived [k] to the conclusion that in all these people not long before the beginning of disease it occurred some strong stress, the emotional conflict, which for them it did not succeed to solve.
Tvardovsky died of cancer. Most widely known German oncologist surgeon [Rayk] [Khamer], inspecting more than 20 thousand patients different forms of cancer, came to the conclusion that in all these people not long before the beginning of disease occurred some strong stress, the emotional conflict, which they did not succeed in resolving. Nevertheless, when the couple Of [solzhenitsynykh] returned from The [vermontskogo] estate to the native land, met with the most great enthusiasm, it was heard soon from the family: and that, strictly speaking, " New [mir]" it did make for Solzhenitsyn? It printed three stories. And it was necessary to change the name of one of them, because Tvardovsky did not get along with The [kochetovym]: was called the story of " At [Kochetovka]" station; , and it was necessary to name " At [Krechetovka]" station;. It leaves, still and they suffered. And this was said to the after already departed from the life Tvardovsky. Recently the junior daughter of Alexander [Trifonovich] [Olya] said to me: " I all think: after whom the father ascended the bonfire… of " Thus are past forty years from that day, when into " New in [mire]" was printed the narrative of " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]" , this played role in Solzhenitsyn's fate. As artistic work is this - it is best of in all, which is created with it. On top of that, perhaps, - written from the nature " [Matrenin] of [dvor]". And again I will refer to Dostoyevsky, he wrote: " Before it is necessary to overcome the difficulties of the transfer of the truth real, in order to then to rise on the height the truth [khudozhestvennoy]." In the story of " [Matrenin] of [dvor]" - truth is real, in the narrative of " small in the size; One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]" the author could rise to the height of the truth of artistic. And therefore it will remain. Certainly, will remain " Archipelago Of [gULAG]". Not the fault of the author, that today in this book of a little readers, at that time, at the right time the Cold War, it played its role, yes even was written strongly. Dimensionless " Red [koleso]" , the main labor of its life? They say, after returning to Russia, the author, he stated: this book must lie in each on the table.
I do not know. how this is reliable, although to self-appraisal and it corresponds to the nature of the author. But here deceased now Vladimir Maximov he wrote: this is not simple failure, this crushing failure. I read the first " [uzel]" , " August of the fourteenth of [goda]" in the manuscript, when it was not there yet those 300 pages about the murder Of [stolypina] and about everything, that with this in its treatment it is connected. And after " Ivan [Denisovicha]" , that breathes by living life, it seemed me all this strained, by very literary and by simply dull. But when in the years reconstruction this labor was published, I began to read him anew. No, not artist wrote this and not historian, but terrible of [sudiya], on each page - finger [ukazuyushchiy]: to be therefore! Histories to from now on be such as I traced and to all to you I prescribe to know. However, who did not only force history, who not bent down it to its side, on its whatever molds curves they cut. And it is thus far slow I moved from " [uzla]" to " [uzlu]" , everything to me immortal Gogol sometimes it will be recalled: as entered Chichikov into the province city NN and " two Russians peasant, those stood at the doors of bar against the hotel, made some observations, related more to the crew, than to that sat into Ger. " You [Vish], said one to other, there what wheel! That you think, will arrive the wheel, if b it did happen, to Moscow or it will not arrive? " " [Doedet]". - answered other. " But in Kazan- that, I do think, he will not arrive? " - " In Kazan not [doedet]" , answered [drugoy]". In to recent its article of " [Potemshchiki] of the light not of [ishchut]" (Who - [potemshchiki]? Who - light?) Solzhenitsyn wrote [ozabochenno]: " But is here now clear [izbranno]: to defame me as personality, to [zalyapat], to trample my name itself. (A with the [taimoy] hope - and very future life of my books?)" The conversation still will be continued on the personality, and that it concerns the books… To it whether not to know that this is impossible. Entire propagandistic the apparatus of the second super-power of peace was cast to that in order to trample its small narrative of " One day of Ivan [Denisovicha]". And that, which result? Both the book and the author world became famous, the author was honored Nobel reward. And now, when passed decades and times they changed, the book it is living, because it is talented, it is included in school programs together with by many forbidden with the Soviet regime books. Of course political its value, echo of that explosion flew away, if today they knocked themselves by it in the door of Nobel committee, greatly can be, door would be opened slightly on chain, not more: " To you whom? "
The future life of the books is independent not " [sverkhusilnomu] of [naporu]" (Solzhenitsyn's expression) the authors, not to the judgments contemporaries, not to lords, it in - the authority of time. And only time. Roman " Cancerous [korpus]" I read in the manuscript, i.e. that printed on that recording to machine, on the thin paper, through one interval. Forbidden manuscript, which they give to you on the night, maximum - on two nights, it has the special force attraction. But I will not say, in order to " Cancerous [korpus]" it struck me, from " By Ivan [Denisovichem]" to equalize it it was cannot. But the hunting has already been turned havoc Solzhenitsyn, was assembled the section of the prose of the Moscow department of the writers' union, I it arrived to the session, it named disgrace, that this book they do not permit printing, it said to Solzhenitsyn (it sat at the small table of presidium, I it stood by a number), what whatever persecutions waited it in front, to it still many envy. He wanted still something to say, yes forgot. " You speak, you speak! " - it asked. In the years reconstruction, being by the editor of the periodical of " [Znamya]" , I wanted to print " Cancerous [korpus]" , after recalling all this, but Solzhenitsyn returned it into " New [mir]" To [zalyginu], which in the years of persecutions, signed the brutal letter into " [Pravde]" against it and [Sakharova]. How it was guided the author of novel, I do not know, possibly, was revealed relationship shower. And I entirely differently read the novel of " In the circle [pervom]" , it produced strong impression. But here is - reconstruction, novel is published. I remember, I went to the mail, I obtain periodical and it was not held, it opened, read here the first lines: " Lace pointers showed five minutes of the fifth. In the dying December bottom bronze of hours on the set of shelves was entirely [temnoy]." Yes in Chekhov - shadow of mill wheel [blestit] in it the splinter of bottle, here and entire it is perceived - lunar night.
Classical Russian literature - excellent school. And nevertheless as accurately, is briefly written the dying December day. But in order not to spoil impression, was shut periodical, I will read houses. And go- hurried. But miracle was not repeated, the further it read, the more it was surprised: yes the same social realism, typical on to all methods - social realism, although the content completely unthinkable for social realism. And generally, is possible novel without the woman, without the love? Ah, what women in the Russian literature! True, that " there are women in Russian [selenyakh]." We will not concern Leo Tolstoy, this entirely another measurement: Natasha of Rostov, Anna Karenin, [Betsi] is Tver, by Ellen Bezukhov… But Aksinia, Darya, [Ilinichna] into " Quiet Of [done]" in completely different epoch and in another medium. But in Bulgakov! Yes what to speak… However, what
Years of one-and-a-half after published the second volume of " Two hundred years of [meste]". It tried to read beginning, it read head [o] to the war - basic only the masked purpose - to prove that the Jews even if warred, then not on by foremost, thicker them it was found in the rear, and since in the people was formed persuasion, that bulk of the Jews of " taking by force Tashkent and [Alama]-[Atu]" , then, it [nazidaet] strictly, it is necessary to listen to this. But persuasion, the idea peoples about each other, they themselves are added, them they suggest, and Solzhenitsyn's book from that discharge, its task - to suggest. In Fascist Germany, in the times Hitler, it was suggested, that the malicious culprits of all misfortunes - Jews, and the majority this accepted populations, who silently approved, and who and from the platforms: and pogroms, and deportation, and " the final solution of the Jewish of [voprosa]". It is necessary to listen? But when dispatch the processes above " by the enemies of [naroda]" and thousands of thousands of our fellow citizens under the drum battle of propaganda they left at the demonstration, bearing the posters: " To destroy reptile! " , and to this it is now necessary to listen? But when it was deserted slogan to destroy cams as class, and upon command on top countrymen, as they could, they contributed, on the motion the matter [razgrablyaya] and appropriating another's property, to this opinion people it is also necessary to listen? And ten million people were sent to the ruin for the Urals, to the north, in swamp. And also laureate, is more accurate - future Nobel prize winner Sholokhov, blessed all this destruction by its book of " Raised [tselina]" , which many generations obediently were studied both in the school and in the institutes.
I repeat, peoples know about each other first of all that they suggest to them. So there were even two and three thousands years ago, so accurately and today, when peace they, it would seem, throw open for all, who want to see and to know. But nevertheless warred Jews or actually in to basic its mass of " taking by force Tashkent and [Alma] - [Atu]"? Solzhenitsyn writes: " The Soviet source of the middle of the 70th cites the data about the national composition two rifle divisions from January 1, 1943 to January 1, 1944 in the correlation [s] with the portion of each nationality in the general population of the USSR into " [starykh]" boundaries. In these divisions to the dates indicated Jews comprised respectively - 1,50% and 1,28% with the portion in population 1,78% (in 1939). But if we take, for example, the national composition of [opolchencheskikh] divisions, " in accordance with the portion of each nationality in the general population Of [sSSR]" , let us say, the [opolchencheskikh] divisions Moscow, Leningrad, i.e., people, not called into the army, but voluntarily those going to the war to protect my native land, I fear, Solzhenitsyn wait the here large disappointment. Generally it is possible to find two rifle divisions, where the Jews it was still, it is less than 1,50 and 1,28%, it is possible to find two rifle divisions, where the Jews it was considerably more, it is possible to find the rifle divisions, where, called from the republics of Central Asia soldiers composed almost half. Director the museum of the defense of " Stalingrad [bitva]" , military historian Boris [Usik] asserts, that in the divisions, which were battling themselves in the environs of Stalingrad, soldiers, called from the average Of Asia and from the Caucasus, comprised more than half. Yes perhaps they will believe in this, although to the eyes present archive documents, will believe those, for whom [sredneaziaty] - " [churki]"?
Solzhenitsyn recognizes that according to the number of Heroes of the Soviet Union Jews - in the fifth place after Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Tatars. One should add that half of them obtained this title posthumous. But if we take a quantity of Heroes of the Soviet Union for 10 thousand populations, then Jews - in the second place after Russians. And the absolute majority of Jews - Heroes of the Soviet Union - this Privates, sergeants and junior officers (36 people), mainly - infantrymen. But still - artillerymen, mortarmen, tankers, field engineers, pilots, the officers of Naval fleet, including - submariners. Political workers - 12 people. This is long ago published together with the portraits, and by the brief biography of each. In all it was called to the front according to the data of the central archive of the Defense Ministry of 434 thousand Jews (A also in the partisans for the different estimations it was to 25 thousands). Perished - 205 thousand. I.e. - almost half. In to rear so many it does not perish. But who these, that was killed? [V].[Kadzhaya] in the article " As the Jews warred: on [Solozhenitsynu] and in actuality " (this article is in the Internet) it gives the numbers: " Among the soldiers - Jews, who was killed and dead from wounds, 77,6 percent comprised series soldiers and sergeants 22,4 - young Lieutenants, Lieutenants and the elders of [leytenanty]." Nevertheless Solzhenitsyn writes: " painful sensation remained in the mass of Slavs, that our Jews could conduct that war of the [samootverzhenney]: that on the foremost, in the lower ranks, the Jews could consist [gushche]." Antisemitism is ineradicable, especially because for many it is advantageous: the quarries were built and are built on this, they were created on this state. Since 2000 years ago Romans conquered the not submitting themselves by it israelites and along the road from Jerusalem to Rome crucified on the crosses of soldiers - israelites, and remaining population was scattered in the countries of world, without having since then their native land, they, [inorodtsy], they everywhere became the culprits of all misfortunes, including - and anger of nature, by the eternal coachboxes of release.
But also in that they were guilty, that very frequently the matter did not get along without them. , That the antisemite knows in himself, he assigns entire disgusting, entire mean to the Jew, whom perhaps never and he saw. In order to eradicate antisemitism are necessary not decades, not century, millenia are necessary. Yes is here only tempered to people this period? And that here the number, when " remained [oshchushchenie]." And it not only " [ostalos]" , it was forced, this was the conscious postwar policy of state. In my first narrative about the war was the dedication: " Memories of the brothers of my - Yuri Friedman and Yuri [Zelkind], fallen by death of brave in the great domestic [voyne]." As to me they pressed in the periodical, as they extorted so that I would remove the dedication: and that indeed it turns out that Jews warred. I, it goes without saying, dedication did not remove. Then, in the secret from me, already in the collation, which to the author to read they did not give, him they dirtied. Years passed, and in the book I restored him. Here by these worthy the matter, absolutely in the river bed of Stalin policy, and occupied today Solzhenitsyn. Yes, it it recognizes that " the proportion Jew- participants in the war in the whole it corresponds to average on [strane]." But here - another calculation: among the Generals of the Red Army of Jews, Generals of medical service - 26, veterinary service -9, in the engineers it served 33 Generals of Jew. The calculation breaks itself on this, will read not competent person, but such today majority, and it will be convinced: neither artillerymen nor tankers nor pilots nor general military Generals - there were Jews. And the conclusion of the author: " But as are irrefutably important and necessary not were necessary all these services for the general victory, everyone will live until it. For the present series front line soldier, being examined with the foremost to himself for the back, saw, by all it is understandable that participants in the war they were considered and the 2nd and 3rd echelons of the front: deep staffs, supply service, entire medicine from the medical battalions is above, many rear technical sections, and in all them the, of course, service personnel, and [pisari], and still entire machine of the army propaganda, including crossing variety ensembles, front artistic brigades, and to everyone it was clearly: yes, there Jews it is considerably thicker than to [peredovoy]."
Private front line soldier, being examined with the foremost to himself for the back, would not examine, where there in the convoy and then in the second echelon was found Solzhenitsyn. Nevertheless he writes with the offence in the article of " [Potemshchiki] of the light not of [ishchut]" , that someone of the journalists reproached it in the fact that in volunteers it was not written down. " But I, he writes, as time- that it walked into the military registration and enlistment office, and repeatedly it attained, but to me as " [ogranichenno] suitable in the military time on the health ordered to wait [mobilizatsii]." [Svezho] legend, yes believes with difficulty. Health of camp was sufficient to overcome, of up to eighty five years to live and only to go to the war, where they can kill, health was not sufficient. After shameful Finnish war on the order of Minister of Defense Timoshenko they rowed into the army of all, that finished high school. My big brother Jura Mountains Friedman exactly finished the tenth class, but they did not take in his army: it barely saw by left eye. But began patriotic war, and it, the student of the historical department of MGU, it went into the militia, into the eighth Moscow division of the people's militia, he was at the front gunner and it perished on the approaches to Moscow. Yes perhaps it is one. Thousand, thousand dispatch. My uncle, max Of [grigorevich] Cantor, business manager of one of the Moscow plants (machine was given to it, machine before the war little was given to whom), already he could overstay war in the rear, yes even it was already in the years. But it also went into the militia, he served as medical orderly in the regiment and perished in the environs of Moscow. I here think: there was from it at the front of what - [nibud] sense? Hardly. But it entered in the manner that it commanded conscience. Who wanted to go to the front, he went. But also further in this article Solzhenitsyn continues to create myth about himself: " However, from the rear horse convoy, where me then was determined, I by [sverkhusilnym] pressure attained the transfer into [artilleriyu]." And all- that - over in connection with to itself: here - " [sverkhusilnym] of [naporom]" , let us further see - " superhuman of [resheniem]".
But that this it was after artillery, also, on what distance from the foremost it was arranged, conversation is in front. But in order to fall on front, no [sverkhusilnogo] pressure it was required, I can testify. After heavy injury, afterward half a year of that carried out in the hospitals - army, front, rear, after many surgical operations, I was acknowledged on the commission not by suitable for the combatant service, invalid, or as they spoke, then, it was commissioned. But I returned to my regiment, into my battery, into its platoon it warred in it to the end of the war. But here to be located, where was located Solzhenitsyn, for this really were required the specific qualities and [sverkhusilnyy] pressure. Indeed it for entire war never shot according to the Germans, there, where it was, bullets did not fly so far. So you although do not reproach others. No, it reproaches. In one of its articles it shames deceased poet David Samoilov (at the front David Samoilov - machine gunner the second number), what that not long stayed in the infantry, and after injury - clerk and someone even with the staff. But itself- that Solzhenitsyn day in the infantry was not, never it was injured, at least it compared, it looked at itself from the side, as it in this case appears. A it appeared thus: in the book Of [reshetovskoy] is printed its " [frontovaya]" the photograph: tent, table, chair itself Solzhenitsyn stands near the tent in the long to the ankles of cavalry overcoat with the section to the strap, in what high authorities usually showed off. It is possible to believe and not to believe so that the first, deserted wife, he writes about it in this book, but photograph - this document. Could the infantry officer or the artilleryman (I do not speak already about the soldier) stand thus into the total increase in broad daylight?
In the mud hut or in the entrenchment - to the darkness. And infantryman in the entrenchment was set right, and he will then wear under by small field-engineer blade yes and will throw out outside, after calculating, in order to by wind muzzle not to its side. Yes even that to infantryman or to artilleryman to make in such [pokazushnoy] overcoat, when it does knead mud on the roads and the impassable road? It the hem of short its overcoat and those tucked in for the belt. But which [podstelit] under itself in the entrenchment? Overcoat. But under the head? Overcoat. But it will be covered? By overcoat. But in this, through the section, star to see. Not according to the statistics, according to its personal observation, nevertheless almost entire war I stayed at the front not by infantryman, but with the infantry: there, in the infantry, [u] company commander it is nearer, in the trench, or on the high-rise, on its front slope, inverted [k] to enemy, there - the place the commander of the platoon for control, correcting the fire of battery, so here according to my observation of Jews - infantrymen in the percent ratio to entire population it was less than Russians. I will not astonish, if it seems that and Russians in the percent ratio to the population it was in the infantry less than, let us say, Uzbeks, Tadzhiks, Kirghizs, Turkmen. Here, I repeat, writes the director of the museum of " Stalingrad of [bitvy]" , that in the environs of Stalingrad the soldiers of the Central Asia and from the Caucasus comprised more than half of those battling. But indeed several of them and the Russian language they did not know, commands, including - into the attack transferred through the translator. Was such result. Not the loss by those killed and those wounded, and result. In the infantry they chased, in the first place, peasants. And not nation here solved, and formation level. Talented people, native ores, let us say, in the Russian village it was, possibly, not less than in the cities, yes here formation level differed.
It was such and result. Not the loss by those killed and those wounded, and result. In the infantry they chased, in the first turn, peasants. And not nation here solved, and formation level. Talented people, native ores, let us say, in the Russian village it was, possibly, not it is less than in the cities, yes here formation level differed. In the Germans tankers were, in essence, not peasants, but working, our " brothers on [klassu]". But toward the end the 42nd year they began to take aside from the front of steel founders, in the rear they they were more necessary than at the front. Researcher, if it actually investigates, A it does not distort history, it cannot but understand entire this, not know. Now - about the Generals. In English historian Alan Clark's book " Plan " [Barbarossa]" , transferred, published in a series " Second world [voyna]" , there is curious moment, I will give several quotations. Occurs the offensive of Germans on Moscow. Still by September we lost 18 thousand tanks, i.e., almost all tanks, and had them we so many, how much the Germans on top of that in all countries of Europe together in addition. They lost 14 thousand aircraft. I cite: " On this of stage in Zhukov remained only one independent tank unit, the 4th the tank brigade of Colonel [Katukov]… it remained only impact with the group between the Oka and [Mtsenskom], in the break the width of almost 70 miles. After obtaining order to turn around [Mtsenska] and to detain the attack of Guderian on Tula, [Katukov] applied sharp impact on the 4th tank division on October 6, after forcing it " to survive several difficult hours and to carry the heavy of [poteri]."
Sum: " From the rapid attack on Tula, which we planned, it was necessary [otkazatsya]." This Guderian writes. But through five days, " In the evening on October 11, when the advance guard of the 4th tank division entered the blazing suburb Of [mtsenska], division was extended per 15 miles along the narrow road, where the supporting artillery and infantry were located almost beyond the limits of radio communication, for [Katukova] came the moment to deliver the following impact…. The Russians [ozhestochenno] swiftly and attacked German column, after dismembering it into pieces, who underwent the systematic to destruction… the 4th tank division was actually it is destroyed, the defense of Tula obtained one additional small [peredyshku]." Division, as is known, is more and it is more powerful than the brigade. But [Katukov], subsequently - General and even, if I am not mistaken, the marshal armored troops, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Jew. I this did not know until recently, for the known reasons, this was not advertised. But here recently in Vienna passed the exhibition, which was placed to one room of Jewish museum. It was called " To Zarya [navstrechu]". On the walls - portraits of the Jews of Heroes of the Soviet Union. Twice heroes - three, among them - [M].[Katukov]. (Newspaper of " [Trud]" , 17/V-2002[g].) A
I do not know, how much in our army was the Generals of Jews, (however, if much, again exists an occasion to say: there them how much climbed to send people death, but on the foremost not to see them), was how much the Generals of Tatars, Armenians, never in this it was interested, it did not divide people in composition of the blood. With this fascists dealt, the war went on with them. I even in the platoon in itself less anything was interested who - who, the main thing was, as he wars. Here now it tried to recall on the surnames, yes indeed on the surname, as we saw, you will not always guess nationality, and this is what it came out: majority - Russians, Ukrainians - two, Armenian - one, Azerbaijanian - one, Tatar - one, Jew - one, Georgian two, both of [Mingrelii]. One of them, the squad leader of the connection Of [dzhgundzhgiya], we called " [patara] [kamechio]": in Georgian, if it is accurate it was memorized, this - the small buffalo: there was it strong unusually, although young over the years. Through many years after war it found me and he writes: " How do you do my expensive to front [odnupolchanu] Friedman (Baklanov) [Grigori] To [yakovlevychu]. From the solar Georgia The [zugdide] city from To [gabrielu] ([Gadzhi]) to [malkhazovichu] Of [dzhgundzhgiya]. By road my Of [lyubimiy] the commander of [grigori] To [yakovlevichu], are past - 41 years, that I you could not find where, how much encounter was on
In Solzhenitsyn Georgians in the camps almost one and all - in the [rasstrelnykh] commands, they shot, they led sentences for the performance. Well and Jews - on these and mark to place nowhere. In vain, it in vain studied this bloody arithmetic, it and for its sons was unsafe. On December 1, 1941, at night, into " Wolf of [logove]" , in one of table-talks Hitler spoke: " We do not know, why it is so brought that the Jew ruins peoples. It can be, nature created it for that, in order to it, rendering the disastrous action to other peoples, it stimulated them activity… It is amazing that the Jews cross-breeds in the second and third generation often again enter into the marriage with the Jews, but nature nevertheless as a result separates the harmful seed: in the seventh, eighth, ninth generations the Jewish beginning already in no way not it is manifested and the cleanliness the blood, apparently,
In exactly the same manner not for that it conducted war with Great Britain, it assembled submarine fleet, constructed the super-power battleship " [Bismark]" , which the Englishmen here heated, not for that was prepared the debarkation in England, in order to to destroy English Jews. Not to understand this, undertaking " historical [issledovanie]" , can only that, in whom the hostility above reason. And Solzhenitsyn no-no, yes even it tosses up [myslishku]: dispatch you to destroy, but you not so much at the front, as in the rear they crowded, there you it was condensed. But, following its logic, acting by its methods, calculating constantly in the percentages, it is possible so to say and by separate line to isolate: Jews - only nation, in which in the course of patriotic war it was not traitors. There were no Jews - [vlasovtsev], there were no Jews - the polys-TsAEva, chastisers. But so that they [svyatey] and above all? No, of course, everything too it is understandable. It looked a little head about the camps. There is a letter it is copel to Solzhenitsyn dated 1985, it is printed recently in the thirteenth release of the almanac " [Aprel]". To print its correspondence with The [solzhenitsynym] Of [kopelev] with the life it forbade. Here is paragraph from there: " Special, personal pain caused to me acknowledgement against " [Vetrove]". (" [Vetrov]" - so Solzhenitsyn signed or had to sign his the report, when in the camp it agreed to become [stukachem]. Note is my.) In the camps and on the buffing-wheel I became accustomed, that the friends, whom recruited the godparent, immediately they told me about this. My such story you even used into " [Kruge]". A you hid from To [miti] (Dmitriy Panin, the prototype Of [sologdina] of " In the circle of [pervom]". Note my.) and from me, it hid other years later. Of course I objected to those, who, following [Yakubovichem] asserted that, which means, you indeed carried out " [vetrovskie]" of function, otherwise it would not fall from the camp to the buffing-wheel. But I with the pain it realized, that our friendship was always one-sided, that you generally no one not he was friend, neither You [mite] nor [mne]."
Naive person! In friends it was written down… Yes you as all other, means, after climbing the pedestal, propped up and helped mount by all good people, not sin against them and feet to wipe. " My soul is clean, writes about himself Solzhenitsyn everything in the same article of " [Potemshchiki] of the light not of [ishchut]" , neither from my [odnosidchikov] on the buffing-wheel (nor, by the way, and from Vitkevich, that there sat) nor in [Osoblage] - I never met offence, reproach or suspicion, but only complete confidence… of " To reproach man in the fact that, after falling into the Stalinists of camp, into this hell desperate, the man wanted to survive, he lay, that in the peaceful life he was doctor, barber, by whom it is convenient, to provided rescue, to reproach in this it is inhuman. Here testifies [solagernik] Of [badash]: " In the brigade of Panin the ZEK- norm-setter walked, constantly with the [papochkoy] of normative reference books, this was Sasha Solzhenitsyn… in [Steplage], in [Ekibastuze], [pridurkom] there was Dmitriy Panin, who attached arrived [A].[S]. to the post of norm-setter. Up to the moment of our strike and hunger strike in winter 1951/1952 years [A].[S]. were already on the [pridurochnoy] the post of [brigadira]." But here also Solzhenitsyn itself writes about himself (quotation on YMRA-PRESS, 1974.): " Arriving to new [lagpunkt], you develop: after whom itself to this time give out… I during ferrying into the following camp, to the Kaluga gate, into very Moscow. but - from the threshold, directly on watch [sovral], that I am norm-setter… Junior Lieutenant [Nevezhin], high increase gloomy hunchback… by [ispodlobnym] view estimated… my [galife], charged into the boots, long overcoat, face my with the [pryamodyshashchey] readiness to pull service, he assigned to vapor of questions about the rate setting (me seemed - I it deftly answered, then- that he understood that exposed me [Nevezhin] from two words) - and already from the morning I to the zone did not leave - it means, it gained victory. Past two days it appointed me… not norm-setter, no, be sufficient above! - " by the manager of [proizvodstvom]" , i.e., it is older than the task master and by the chief of all [brigadirov]."
I repeat, it is not possible to condemn man for the fact that it saved its life, unless with the price of the life of others. And it saved, survived, but it was not destroyed as million and million, matched to the slaughter. And to peace, as a result, was appeared the writer large talent. But it is here - from " Two hundred years of [vmeste]" , from the head of " In the camps [Gulaga]": " Soon then they sent [Bershadera]… of the years misbehaved in MADI (Moscow Highway Institute) fifty, [nizenkiy], fatty, with the predatory view, it went around and looked around our habitable zone it is lenient as General from the main administration. Elder overseer asked him: - " In the specialty - who? " - " [Kladovshchik]". - " Such the specialty not of [byvaet]." - " But I - [kladovshchik]". - " Nevertheless you will go for the zone, in the handyman of [brigadu]". But… " thus novice confidently was held, that it was felt: after it force. Oppressed walked the storekeeper of zone Sevast'yanov. He two years managed the here coalescent storage of foodstuffs and [veshchsnabzheniya], solidly it sat, it lived rather well with the authorities, but it blew on it with cold: everything it is solved! [Bershader] - " storekeeper on [spetsialnosti]"! Yes already not from itself whether this is copied, so everything does coincide? " [Nizenkiy], fatty, with the predatory of [vzglyadom]" [Bershader], disgusting in all its manifestations, so vomits from the language - jew, and " [pryamodyshashchiy]" , " with the readiness to pull [sluzhbu]" (and it agreed to serve, it gave subscription) Solzhenitsyn - " the norm-setter on [spetsialnosti]". " … and already from the morning I for the zone not of [vyshel]". Why suddenly before it they did become frightened? They felt: " after it [sila]"? And was appointed " not by norm-setter, no be sufficient above! - " by the manager of [proizvodstvom]" i.e., it is older than the task master and by the chief of all [brigadirov]." And also someone for it they drove off with this post, who until now " solidly it sat, it lived rather well with the authorities… of " [S] what suddenly? Stars whether before the sky thus were arranged or star on the pursuits State Security Agents? But it is said into " [Arkhipelage]": " Brother is my! Do not condemn those, who thus fell, who proved to be weak it signed excess. Do not throw in it stone! " This it writes terrible of [sudiya] of all of those living Solzhenitsyn. Thus on the tenth day of the war had a fright Stalin turned himself to his people: " Brothers the sister… of " But then these brothers and sisters - in camp for its disgrace. However, I repeat, not to me, not passed camp, examination, prison, to judge. Shalamov can judge, he passed the most terrible of camp, but there from the post of brigade leader it refused: to be by brigade leader, he wrote, it indicated to send people to death. Dmitriy Sergeyevich Likhachev said repeatedly and he wrote about how in camp, on [Solovkakh], he randomly learned, that at night they will select to the shooting certain quantity of prisoners, and among them, in this list - its surname. And it hid in the firewood, it they did not find, but number - law, a quantity of the condemned men it was determined, and they shot someone on this night instead of it. This accompanied entire its its life.
With the same feeling they returned from the war and live their life many front line soldiers, for all for us it is with feeling and it is accurately said in the Tvardovsky: I know, any my fault In the fact that others did not arrive from the war, In the fact that they - who is older, who is younger - They remained there, and not about the same speech, That I them could, but he did not know how to take care, Speech not about that, but nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless… Observed war from a distance To Solzhenitsyn this feeling unknown, if we judge by his speeches and books. Here is here the time itself to give that the fact that " [priteklo]" as loves to be expressed Solzhenitsyn, from the Bryansk. But " [priteklo]" from there this is what: Olga [Korneevoy]'s article, printed in the newspaper " [Desnitsa]" On April 16, 2003: " Ten years of Nikolai [Dmitrievicha]". There it cites Dmitriy Vitkevich, son of the school friend of Solzhenitsyn. Newspaper small circulation, but article exists in the Internet- network, any person in any country, that manages the Russian language, it can read it, and the Internet use already 10 million people. Here, that in this article speaks Vitkevich: " I do not want so that the name of my father would be mentioned next to Solzhenitsyn's name. In one and the same situation they [poveli] themselves absolutely differently, and completely not to the honor of [poslednego]." And it is retold about their school years: " Nikolai especially made friends with classmates Cyril [Simonyanom] and Sasha [Solzhenitsyn]. In the autobiographical records of Vitkevich, which cited its son, was preserved the sketching, which describes, as three friends imitated to the dear heroes of the Dumases. There is in it interesting moment. Roles distributed [Simonyan], but friends immediately solved, that [d]^[Artanyanom] no one will be. So here [Simonyan] proclaimed: " You, the walrus (similar it was Solzhenitsyn's nickname in the school), since face, you will be [Aramisom]. Spinner (school nickname of Vitkevich) it will become [Partosom], and I By [atosom]. In several publications, where are mentioned this history, word of " [litsemer]" or it is substituted to " [khitryy]" , or simply it is absent. And further in the article of the newspaper: " Front counter espionage arrested Solzhenitsyn in February 1945. Vitkevich reached Berlin… on April 22 Vitkevich they also arrested. Turning over the withdrawn letters, (it is intended the correspondence of Solzhenitsyn - Vitkevich) inspector frankly said: " here to 10 years of [vpolne]". Later it produced for its under investigation of the statement of Solzhenitsyn, that reported that Vitkevich not only entered in Familiar handwriting did not leave doubts, this wrote its best [drug]." However, Solzhenitsyn himself acknowledged that he behaved on the consequence insufficiently stably, there is to it, about which to regret, although there is nowhere not word about the fact that to it were applied any forced measures. But - we will not this investigate. Which the KGB attempted to defame by its any by methods - it is undoubted. It is much more interesting, that writes Solzhenitsyn in the same article of " [Potemshchiki] of the light not of [vidyat]" , in it decided to answer all publications of last time abroad and, allegedly [porochashchie] its honor and the merit: " In the archipelago, and not only in it, I did not spare itself, and all repentances, which traversed my soul - everyone on the paper… In this number I did not oscillate to present history, as they recruited me into camp [stukachi] and appropriated nickname, although I neither time this nickname used and nor one report never he gave. I dishonest considered it about this to hush up, and to write - by interesting, having in mind the plurality of similar recruitings, even to [vole]." But nevertheless it hushed up, it hid from those, who were considered as its friends, he hushed up until the KGB it promulgates. And generally, that interesting to write about its disgrace? It did not maintain threats - yes, life saved - yes, but - " [interesno]"? … Make it possible to doubt. But that itself sent into the American newspaper the assigned or allegedly assigned to it denunciation to [solagernikov], well that zh, this is the completely calculated forestalling motion, by the way, advantageous to one of " [zhernovov]" that Cold War, which was conducted. However, the main thing - is further: " I had as a goal in the entire book, in all my books to show: it is possible from the man to make that. To show that the line between the good and the evil constantly is moved along the human heart. IN TsK and KGB not only of this level there is no understanding and it was not, but even there is no simple of [obrazumleniya]." No, not of each person it is possible to make anything, already this the history of humanity proved. And at the same time, if we look not of the days of the present, but from there, from the time of terrible, the fight, which conducted Solzhenitsyn with the entire regime, but this the regime, armed by rockets and A-bombs feared half of peace, this fight required not only precise calculation, but also heart of solid and merciless. And, possibly, into the name of the purpose it is actually ready it was to endow by its even children: they sent it from the country, and three sons of its small would remain here like in the hostages, and he wrote " … and here decision is made superhuman: our children not more expensive than the memory of tortured millions, that book we will leave not for [chto]." The book from the capital letter, so they write about the bible, purpose and self-appraisal - immense.
During the past domestic wars Germans took in the hostages of children of one of the partisan commanders, after placing the condition: it will leave the forest, it will be returned, they will free children. And girl, its daughter, with the [bozheskoy] wisdom wrote to father, she knew how to transmit the note: dad, do not leave, they will nevertheless kill you and us. And it did not leave. And they killed children. I will say immediately: so I was not able to enter. To me it is more intelligible and nearer than [Yanush] Of [korchak], which together with the children entered into the gas chamber. These were not its blood children, these were its students, it had the capability to rescue, to it they proposed, but it could not leave children in the hour of loss. This - in a human manner. But superhuman it frequently and superhuman. But now - about other. Year 1991- y. In Moscow - putsch. [Rastropovich], everything after throwing, after writing only will, it arrived flying to protect the White House. Solzhenitsyn waited, whose will take, will not return the past. Well at least word said. It then was such to legend, its word then much meant. No, shamefully it kept silent, living in America. But the fate of Russia was decided. But it was occupied where with the more big deal: " Red [koleso]" he wrote. But there was then gone down to us " As to us to [obustroit] [Rossiyu]". From first reading and especially after a lapse of the time auto went to the memory known from " Wars and [mira]": " Die of erste Of [k]olonne of marshirt… of die of zweite Of kolonne of marshirt… of die dritte Of kolonne of marshirt… of " But also war and life where is more complex than [izmyshlennykh] dispositions and rescripts and " feasible [razmyshleniy]". Two of three sons of Solzhenitsyn thus far [obustraivayut] their life in America, where Russia in English - Rasch. These are not reproach, in no way an attempt at someone in by something to reproach. Each is right to select, where to it to live, which is more on the soul, where its abilities better are claimed. But from " feasible of [razmyshleniyami]" (but the capacious word of " [posilnye]": in it that modesty, which to [pache] of pride, language does not give to [sovrat], bares essence) somehow all this it does not tally, badly it is combined: here the manual, confidently premised to entire people, to the enormous country, and here is it real life. And even about the life, as it there is, on the lie or not on the lie. [O] Solzhenitsyn already taken several documentary films. On one of them in the survey, in the newspaper of the union of the cameramen of " SK Of [novosti]" , in the October number of 2003 g, it is written: " Even more complex was Sergey [Miroshnichenko]'s task in the film of " Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Life not on [lzhi]". Picture began another documentary film-maker, who did not find contact with the writer, and Solzhenitsyn asked [Miroshnichenko] to continue the work on the project. Hero, thus, from the very beginning dictated conditions. Director, realizing shown to him honor, the scale of the personality of writer and the value of the forthcoming surveys for the film chronicle of Russia, nothing had against, but its task it was create the portrait of hero, and not to help that to write the self-portrait… of " [Vermontskiy] [otshelnik]" in its own country he appears by the recluse, who lives in the lock after the high fence and it is met only with the dignitaries (in this case the episode of the visit of Putin it pulls to the documentary comedy, and the luxurious the reception on occasion of the wedding of son as if it is undertaken from the film of " [Oligarkh]"). "
In its time, when Solzhenitsyn still lived in Ryazan and travelled about on bicycle neighbor Russian spaces, he wrote in one " [Krokhotke]" (it was called " [Segden]" lake;)as it stumbled on the forbidden part of the forest, where all roads were laid, where " to go it cannot be and flown it cannot be, gone it cannot be and crawled [nelzya]." But it lives there (I refine: the matter occurred even with the Soviet regime) " Lyutyy is prince, villain squint-eyed (it is incomprehensible only, why - " [kosoglazyy]")… there its dacha, the bath house of its… " In the dreams whether this did rush, but it did write, as it seemed, about itself future? , It Russia ruined from the hands of the Yeltsin authority cursed by it, it obtained, not [pobrezgovav], the estate in the environs of Moscow, which there is no time belonged to the merchants [Korzinkinym], then - to the hangman To [abakumovu], and now it there, on the space and [vozdvig] " mentioned above; [zamok]" , and there is there motion neither foot nor horse nor cyclist, and " to go it cannot be, and crawled [nelzya]". It is here such " Life not on [lzhi]".
In a word, harmless, but also completely useless, that was preserved [s] prewar times the branch of services, which somehow should have been put to the matter, here and they walked to propose their services to the brigade commander on foot, i.e., of bullet here not they whistled. I, for example the commander of our the 115-[oy] artillery brigade Colonel [Borisenko] it was honored to see at the front not to the time: from us to it, it was, as to gentlemen of god, for the first time saw it after war, in Bulgaria, there we then stood. The regiment-commander of our it saw at the front. They suddenly called me from the bridgehead in the daytime. Where - crawling, where - by bounds it reached the coast, on to boat swam across Dniester, and already on this side - control center of the commander battalion. And here in it - regiment-commander, Colonel [Komardin], it arrived [s] by check. It directed cross lines of the stereoscopic telescope to the purpose: " Grove of " [Ogurets]" you do see? On the edge - German battery. Three projectiles, open fire! " It was there, in the grove " [Ogurets]" , or there was no German battery, according to my data of any battery there it was not, but the third projectile lay on the edge of grove. The matter this not such is already complex: there was in me the adjusted bench-mark, from it you derive projectile to the purpose. Plus - success. And it became in me on the pursuits instead of one small asterisk - young Lieutenant - on two: Lieutenant. And still saw it in Hungary, in winter, on us dispatch tanks. But it ran to the fifth battery, it fell through into the snow, it fell, again it ran, it threatened from a distance [kulachishchem], was cursed: why, it is said, they linger to open fire… Daring there were peasant, Colonel [Komardin]. But this - so, by the way. But here to the direct question, where was arranged [solzhenitsynskaya] [zvukobatareya]: " This it was neighbor rear or front? " - [Solomin] answers: In combat the battery of participation did not assume, we have another task. To Solzhenitsyn it did fall out in combat to participate?
- I said - we have other tasks. I do not remember, in order to he directly in combat it participated, in combat infantry participated. But we - only when circumstance were added. In the environment for example. On this environment, from which Solzhenitsyn allegedly derived battery, and he wrote itself, and in the press they wrote repeatedly. Let us listen to the story Of [solomina], direct participant in the event: In January 45- GO of the second Belorussian the front made swift forced march and in Baltic sea cut off the large German group, very large. SS men there they proved to be, armored part… They they were regrouped and began to break through. But one-piece front line yet did not have time to be formed, as a result [zvukobatareya] fell in tongs. Alexander [Isaevich] was connected with the staff, he requested permission to step back. They answered - to stand to death. Then it made the decision: thus far there is a possibility - to export battery equipment (this it directed me) and very to remain with the people. It gave to me several men, we immersed all the equipment into the truck. They burst open among the deep, on the belt, snows, I remember, as with shovels raked passages, as machine they pushed… They reached the village Of [grossgermanaft], there was there the staff [diviziona]." Each detail is here important, and details are precise. " [Proryvalis]" through deep snow, they raked with its shovels. But not of the environment they burst open: not one German along the road they met, no one in them shot, not in whom they shot. Subsequently they constructed them into the column (apparently, together with someone still) and sent into the staff of housing, i.e., it is still further into the rear. And, in addition no Germans on the way. So there was environment? But - it is further:
But it where was at this time? With the personnel. We parted, when they occupied all around defense. But then arrived order from the staff of battalion - to break out of the encirclement. As they disentangled - I do not know, itself with them was not. But Solzhenitsyn not one person lost, all were derived. [Solomin] about its battery commander generally recalls benevolently, its learning notes and so forth, but to here this part of the story it is possible to believe, but it is possible also not to believe, since " I do not know, with them not [byl]." itself; To be opened with the battle from the environment, if this - environment, without having lost from the battery of one person, it is practically impossible. Entire armies our remained in the captivity, and how much perished, bursting open, not to consider. So there was environment, I will repeat my question? And that indicated this sudden emotional impulse, this embrace: " [Ilyusha], I to you on the coffin of life am grateful! " Front brotherhood, which did not know ranks? But the same [Solomin] to the question: " In Solzhenitsyn with the soldiers what was the relations? " it answers: " I did not say that he badly to the soldiers related. Simply Alexander [Isaevich] himself held so… on the distance from [vsekh]." This impulse in not inclined to the emotions person was not random. And here I again will refer to his own experience. In Hungary we took and returned Szekesfehervar city and again took, combat were very heavy. And our battery is here on the order, after sustaining losses, it left from the city at night, no longer there were projectiles. And they were encountered to us the artillerymen, whom they sent back into the city. They did leave their guns, having supposedly removed from them locks, they did ask us, where the Germans, where the German tanks? (Partially I wrote about this in the narrative of " South of the main thing of [udara]"). Regiment-commander ordered their battalion commander to go conversely and without the guns not to return. According to the front laws the regiment-commander could return its under the tribunal, but he sent them there, where their guns remained. They dispatch almost to certain death.
If [Solomin] it did not export battery equipment, then battery commander, Solzhenitsyn, they could send under the tribunal: itself left, and materiel threw. Here hence - " on the coffin of the life of [blagodaren]". Yes something this appreciation not in one it was not cut from its books, until now. It can because it would be necessary then and about itself entire truth to describe? However, there is evidence of the very Solzhenitsyn: its narrative of " [Adlig] Of [shvenkitten]": " on combat in East Prussia; [o] the output of my battery from environment into that [noch]" , - writes Solzhenitsyn. Subtitle - " daily [povest]". They gave it occurred also in the taverns and in restaurants daily cabbage soups, experts especially valued them. But " daily [povest]" … This, apparently, some new literary genre, more simply to say - literary [razblyudovka]. Well, yes although pot name… But is written narrative so weakly, thus it is primitive (but not without [izyskov]: " belched [orudie]"), what cannot be believed, that this wrote the same person, which once wrote " [Matrenin] of [dvor]". However, there is nothing unnatural here. Already Galsworthy noted: with the years inks in the inkpot thicken. To this many writers are subjected, excluding, of course geniuses. Leo Tolstoy in the end life, having already decided solidly to not write " [khudozhestvennoe]" , nevertheless it could not be held, wrote the narrative of " Hadji [Murat]" , by which in this year is fulfilled the century. It is necessary to assume, to note century they will not be: it is today even more topical, than at that time, when it it created. But not about Tolstoy speech, entirely not about Tolstoy: the scales others. But for the conversation initiated importantly not that the narrative is written primitively, and that it is written not of the battle, not by direct participant, this immediately it is felt, and from the sufficiently large distance from the scene of action. Therefore thus everything is not perceived. And no [zvukobatareya] there and closely is present, nothing no about it. But it is here in the list of those recommended for decoration, which is given in the end of the narrative, " [zvukovik]" , i.e., the commander of sonic battery, here as here. " After however, the successful output of battery from the environment on January 27, 1945 in Prussia I was it is represented to, as still several our brigade officers - but on February 9 overtake me arrest - and me they had time to cross out from reward of [spiska]" , he writes in the same article of " [Potemshchiki] of the light not of [vidyat]." This it writes [vosmidesyatipyatiletniy] of person, noted by all conceivable signs difference, he writes, that after its presence on to the war it something still it received less… [Solomin] randomly proved to be by the witness of his arrest: " Captain Solzhenitsyn? You are necessary to us. It them approached. Is further some short quiet conversation and then: " To [proedemte] on KP of [brigady]." They leave. I by track. In the court " [emka]". They sit down themselves, they leave. I do not know that it pushed me, but I for some reason immediately he understood: this is - " [SMERSh]" and the matter is political. It broke into a run to the battery cargo to machine - he knew that there, in the body, lies the black shell box, in which Solzhenitsyn held his records and books. Box gripped, carried to the forest and it began to rapidly shift contents into its haversack. Haversack was with me always, after war I everything that then he hid, returned [Natashe]." Well, you know, to this each would be decided, " [SMERSh]" it soared above us as death black, it and founded it was by Stalin so that its would fear its more than enemy. " [Ilyusha] then, in the essence, saved [Isaicha]. It had time to hide (or partially to destroy) the personal records, the books, including captured, which [Isaich] from curiosities were selected. If this fell in the hand inspector, another question, seemingly entire [povernulos]." This testifies the cousin sister of its first wife of Natalia [Reshetovskoy], to whom [Solomin] returned after war the carried out by it and taken care papers. It took care papers, it did not safeguard itself: following its commander it pleased there, into THE GULAG. It is natural that the interviewer asked [Solomina]: " In one book about you they write that you were orderly [Solzhenitsyna]." - Orderly I was not, nature inappropriate. Orderly in Solzhenitsyn was Zakharov, from Tashkent. He To [isaichu] and to Lieutenant [Ovsyannikov] [gotovil]." Here only by hands you will divorce: with the conveniences captain Solzhenitsyn was at the front. They brought wife: " You understand: war, justifies its [Solomin], men are four years the women they do not see… " What ate the soldiers, it, " father -[komandir]" , it did not eat, orderly separately prepared for it. This how it is necessary not to consider for the people of the soldiers trusted to you in order to [brezgovat] to eat that the fact that they eat. But indeed among them there were [Ivany] Of [denisovichi], not in the book, in the life. And they saw all this, they knew. And it is not shameful. " Simply Alexander [Isaevich] held himself on the distance from [vsekh]." " Sergeant [Solomin] captain [Solzhenitsyn]". [Solomin] warred from the first days, is twice injured, brother killed at the front, mother, father, [sestrenku] Germans destroyed in Minsk, as they destroyed all Jews. Solzhenitsyn is called into the army (it is repeated: not itself went to protect the native land by volunteer, military registration and enlistment office called to carry out the debt of man and citizen) in October 41. Germans already approached Moscow, the fate of Russia was decided, it continued to teach mathematics in the school, in the deep rear to children. And when in the environs of Stalingrad dispatch combat, there on the present calculations perished more than two and one-half millions of people, it was still in the rear, in the convoy, the secondly or even in the third echelon. And here this person judges, who warred, who did not war. Well, yes it will be sufficient. [Kayus]: and I at first helped to create from it idol, although, it goes without saying, main creator he itself. I already and then [koe] about which he began to surmise, but chased, chased from itself bad thoughts. The Tvardovsky has into " Working [tetradyakh]" about the fact that I the other side of this person saw, we about the much spoke frankly. But talent and human qualities completely not always in one vessel, and great in the ordinary life there are by no means not angels. If b only about this speech! Never in the period of persecutions I said nor signed not united word against Solzhenitsyn, but they extorted this by different methods. Do not have i and now intention of " to defame it as [lichnost]". Yes even no one is capable this to make in the manner that it made for a period of years and it made it itself: literature - dangerous kind of occupations, you write about someone, and itself you is visible by translumination. Interesting agreement, by the way: in person, who called to live not on the lie, in the very root of surname - false. Solzhenitsyn. However, all this already - the past. The Cold War, we will hope, it ended. Antiquated to a considerable degree and its instrument.

Posted by: heroyalwhyness at August 4, 2008 9:19 PM

heroyalwhyness: Why did you post what you did above? It's length is ridiculous and it's virtually unreadable. What's your point?

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 9:27 PM

Thanks heroyalwhyness -- but Babel Fish is more like the Tower of Babel when it comes to long passages of a difficult language, I think.

Posted by: DenverRodeo at August 4, 2008 9:30 PM

Wellington: "As for John Loftus, he's a loon. He's a conspiracy nut. He thinks there was a major conspiracy with the USS Liberty in 1967, which is hogwash."

You're right, it is hogwash. However, only a moron would claim that Loftus "thinks there was a major conspiracy with the USS Liberty." Why don't you read his book before accusing him of being a Liberty conspiracist?

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 9:31 PM

Solzhenitsyn, the subtle anti-Semite.

According to my Russian Jewish sources, main source of Solzhenitsyn’s “historical” review of Russian Jewry is “Jewish Encyclopedia” published by the same Russian government that produced “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. His other one-sided sources include Derzhavin and Denikin, both open anti-Semites. Solzhenitsyn claims that mass emigration of Russian Jews at the turn of 20th century had nothing to do with pogroms, but with prohibition of being winemakers due to the fact that the Jews were creating an alcoholism problem within Russian population. According to Solzhenitsyn, so-called “Cherta Osedlosti” (Jews were prohibited to live in mainland Russia; they could only live in Ukraine, Belorussisa, etc., and only in villages, not cities) had nothing to do with ghetto-like discrimination, but was rather done for the benefit of the general population, including the Jews. According to my Russian Jewish friends who did read both parts of Solzhenitsyn’s book, you are unlikely to find a Jew who read the book and won’t consider Solzhenitsyn an anti-Semite.

Robert,

I understand that you can’t read the original, so I suggest you do the next best thing. Talk to a Russian Jews who read the book and get his/her take on it. A normal Jew, not someone like Finkelstein or Lerner.

Alex

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 9:40 PM

The Western Left always hated Solzhenitsyn since his works effectively punctured the myth that Communism would have worked out well if it hadn't been "high-jacked" by Stalin -- an early version of the "Islam is a ROP that has been high-jacked by militants" line. Supposedly if Lenin had lived longer, and remained in good health, Stalin would never have come to power, and Communist Russia would have been a benign and humane state. Solzhenitsyn pointed out that the Gulag system was started almost immediately after the October Revolution. Within a year there were already thousands of killings, and the first Arctic prison-camps, with tens of thousands of prisoners. Stalin only intensified a system that Lenin had started in the first days after the Revolution. He was not an aberration of Bolshevism, he was its logical outcome.
The Western Left has never forgiven Solzhenitsyn for these revelations, and has seized on any opportunity to blacken his name and reputation.

Posted by: ebonystone at August 4, 2008 9:46 PM

Sorry for the OT:

Wakademia does it again:

This guy is all and everything to everybody: professor at Monash, an Anglican priest, a UN-stooge and an apologist to the ummah:

What a disgrace! Here's professor Bouma at a press conference during the ongoing Third International Conference of Islamic Scholars:

http://sheikyermami.com/2008/08/05/monash-wakademic-yammers-over-islamophobia-in-australia-indonesian-muslims-delighted/#more-9547

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at August 4, 2008 9:47 PM

hero - Think "link" the next time you have gobs of material to share. Thanks!

Posted by: champ at August 4, 2008 9:51 PM

Cornelius: "the first Russian state (Kiev) was a Swedish enterprise"

Dude, whatever you're smoking, I want me some of that.

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 9:52 PM

Cornelius: "the first Russian state (Kiev) was a Swedish enterprise"

Dude, whatever you're smoking, I want me some of that.

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil

Terror-Free, perhaps "Swedish" is a bit of a misnomer, but it was Scandinavians, some of them from the area now called Sweden, that established Novgorod in 862, and Kiev ca. 900. These are generally regarded as the starting points of Russian civilization. Cornelius isn't "smoking" anything.

Posted by: ebonystone at August 4, 2008 10:36 PM

Terror-Free Oil: Man, you're all over the map. And wrong on each count. First of all, let me defend Cornelius. He's eminently correct in stating that Russian history pretty much begins with the Swedes. Rurik and his buddies were Swedish Vikings in the mid-ninth century who went souteastwards from Scandinavia and who mixed with Slavic folk they found in what is now Ukraine and Russia (this is the beginning of Kievan Rus), just as Norwegian Vikings went westwards for the most part (settling Iceland, Greenland and Vinland {Newfoundland}) and Danish Vikings went southwestwards into the British Isles, France and even the Mediterranean (e.g., Sicily) at approximately the same time (down to about 1000 A.D.). The House of Rurik is the first dynasty in Russian history, which continued until Ivan the Terrible's son, Feodor I, died in 1598, bringing on the Time of the Troubles, when Boris Godunov and others (e.g., false Dmitris) pretty much made a mess of things (not helped at all by Poland) until the Romanov dynasty was established in 1613 with Michael as the first czar of that family.

Second, I assert again, emphatically, that Loftus is a loon. He see conspiracies everywhere. For instance, he maintains that the Bush family had major ties with Nazis. This is complete rubbish. Prescott Bush, the current President's grandfather and former Senator from Connecticut, did a minimal amount of business in the 1930s with one Nazi businessman, who himself later deserted the Nazi party and was put in a concentration camp by the Nazis. From this connection, Loftus sees all kinds of things imaginary. That you would invoke Loftus reveals far more about yourself than I think you'll ever realize. In effect, you condemn yourself out of your own mouth. Rather humorous. And you deserve to be the butt of the humor here, though I have no doubt you will remain clueless through it all.

Your Russian Jewish sources? Wow, you never learn, do you? What sources? Name them. Be specific. You can't. The challenge I posed to you many hours ago still remains and you can't reply effectively--------indicate specific passages from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's works or statements that reveal his anti-Semitism. You've not yet done so. That's because you can't. You're a smear merchant, and not even a very good one at that. Really, if this is the best you can do, give up the ghost.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 10:40 PM

Perhaps I should have warned those who rely on Babelfish that it is only good, I'm afraid, for wrapping newspapers in. Not just in its translations from the Russian, but in its translations from the everything.

Posted by: Hugh at August 4, 2008 10:44 PM

Terror-Free-Oil appears to need remedial history 101, regarding the origins of the Russian state and practically everything else. Meanwhile, the evidence of the original charge, that Solzhenitsyn was an anti-Semite, remains a scurrilous charge with no factual merit.

Wellington, it's yours...game, set, match. I wouldn't waste another moment on him.

EBONYSTONE: "Cornelius isn't "smoking" anything."

Tragically, you're right.

Posted by: Cornelius at August 4, 2008 11:00 PM

"“Jewish Encyclopedia” published by the same Russian government that produced “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. "

My understanding is that the Protocols were the concoction of an elite clique within the Russian government (secret police), not the whole government itself. Terror Free Oil, I need my house painted; I could use your "broad brush"...

Posted by: DenverRodeo at August 4, 2008 11:28 PM

Wellington: “He's eminently correct in stating that Russian history pretty much begins with the Swedes. Rurik and his buddies were Swedish Vikings in the mid-ninth century who went souteastwards from Scandinavia and who mixed with Slavic folk they found in what is now Ukraine and Russia (this is the beginning of Kievan Rus)”

Except for the facts that Rurik died in the 9th century and Kiev was founded in the 5th century. So, unless Rurik lived 400 years, your theory goes down the toilet. That’s even if we discard those historical points of view that Rurik also could have been a Dane or a myth. The first written source that mentions Rurik is “Povest’ Vremennykh Let” was written in the 12th century, which puts Rurik’s very existence in question.

“Second, I assert again, emphatically, that Loftus is a loon.”

A loon would be someone who blames Loftus for Liberty conspiracy without actually reading what Loftus wrote about Liberty. If you don’t want to look dumber than you are, I suggest you actually read the chapter called “The Liberty Incident” from “The Secret War Against The Jews” before embarrassing yourself any further.

“What sources? Name them”

What kind of idiot are you? If I give you a name, how is it going to help?

“You're a smear merchant”

I run Terror-Free Oil (www.bankruptterror.org). My friend John Loftus (http://www.intelligencesummit.org/speakers/JohnLoftus.php) runs the Intelligence Summit (www.intelligencesummit.org).
Some little piece of shit like you is hardly in the position to call him or me either a loon or smear merchant.

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 11:38 PM

Those who cannot read Russian, in which the most important material about Solzhenitsyn, by those best informed about him, has appeared, including the discussion of his relations with his fellow zek and memoirist Varlam Shalamov (and why Shalamov, visiting Solzhenitsyn, left before breakfast after his first night), and his failure to ever express gratitude to Alexander Tvardovsky, the editor of "Novy Mir" who risked everything to publish, in 1963, the year before Khrushchev was replaced, Solzhenitsyn's most important single work, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (and several other short early works, including Matryonin Dvor or Matruyshka's Homestead), his exaggerated attention to very minor matters, methodically stiched together with such deliberate tendentiousness in "Two Hundred Years Together," while the most important evidence on the topic, such as the testimony of the World War I hero General Brussilov (whose name is not quite as mangled in the Babelfish version above as is the name of Lev Kopelev, which came out as "Copel"), is ignored, may well be at a disadvantage in judging the merits of Solzhenitsyn as

1) literary artist

2) historian of Russia

3) figure in the political history of Russia

4) figure in world history

5) moral exemplar.

These are all different things.

Posted by: Hugh at August 4, 2008 11:41 PM

DenverRodeo, are you saying that "Jewish Encyclopedia" produced by Russian government (that treated Jews worse than contemporary American government treated Blacks) is a reliable source? The Blacks must have been segregated for their own good too, right? "Union of Russian People", a.k.a. "Black Hundred" killed more Jews than KKK killed Blacks. Anyone who whitewashes KKK would be considered a racist. Shouldn't anyone (i.e., Solzhenitsyn) who whitewashes “Black Hundred” be considered an anti-Semite?

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 4, 2008 11:53 PM

Alex

Some little piece of shit like you...

I like you and respect your work, but please don't do this here. Thanks.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at August 5, 2008 12:26 AM

Terror-Free Oil: Well, first of all, you still haven't met my original (actually Solzhenitsyn's) challenge. You just keep dodging and weaving.

Second, perhaps the actual site of the city of Kiev had some kind of village settlement as early as the fifth century, but so what? Rome took off as of the mid-eighth century B.C., just as the legends contend, even though there seems to have been a small settlement on some of the seven hills of Rome as far back as 1000 B.C. You're nitpicking. Sure, Rurik is semi-legendary, but the fledgling Russian state (Kievan Rus) began about the mid-ninth century and that's what is important. The actual person, Rurik, could be a composite, as is the case with so many origin myths, but there seems to be no doubt, archaeologically speaking, that Swedish Vikings mixing with early Slavic folk on the steppes form the start of what ended up as a Muscovy-dominated state by the time of Ivan III.

Third, Loftus is actually your friend? Well, do him a favor and tell him to ease up on the conspiracy nonsense. Remember, the vast majority of conspiracy theories are formed by amateurs with too much time on their hands. And Loftus' crap about the Bush family in league with Nazis is particularly loony. Also, no serious historian maintains that the Liberty was a set-up, nor does any serious historian aver that the Bush family was in tight with the Nazi regime. Wouldn't surprise me if Loftus thinks that JFK was killed by a conspiracy rather than by the lone loser that actually did the heinous deed.

Fourth, specifics, pal. You can't talk about friends and so on who've given you vital information demonstrating that this guy or that guy is an anti-Semite, a racist, a fascist, etc. When you make serious charges, you must back them up with serious evidence. You don't.

Fifth, I think I'll take Cornelius' advice and waste no more time on you. Have a good chat with Loftus. I'm sure you and he have most everything figured out.

Posted by: Wellington at August 5, 2008 12:38 AM

I read all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago. (Did you know he had sympathetic words for the Chechen-Ingush there?)

And Lenin in Zurich. And One Day... And The Oak and the Calf.

I read a lot of discussion about Solzhenitsyn's possible hostility toward the Jews--Lev Navrozov probably made the strongest arguments. But I thought Richard Pipes made the better points.

All of us are to some extent molded by our era, and our surroundings. AS was born in 1918, in newly Soviet Russia. The vast bulk of his oeuvre was devoted to (1) rescuing Russia from the "inevitable and eternal" grip of Leninism, and (2) cleansing Russia from that hideous poison once it was liberated. He no doubt had some kooky ideas, but he was an incredibly dedicated, sincere, and peace-loving human being. Not a saint, like Sakharov, but Sakarov didn't write Gulag, either.

If AS were Chinese, I'd say: "He was 90% good, 10% bad."

Oh, someone quoted:
"While certain passages in this generally laudable contribution to historical literature may sound downright philosemitic, one also notes that Solzhenitsyn is careful to distinguish between good Jews and bad Jews — the former being the religious and the Zionists, the latter being the secularists and the socialists..."

Your point being...?!

Posted by: JewishOdysseus at August 5, 2008 12:40 AM

"Except for the facts that Rurik died in the 9th century and Kiev was founded in the 5th century. So, unless Rurik lived 400 years, your theory goes down the toilet."

Except for the fact that we were briefly discussing the origins of the Russian state, not the origins of Kiev as a settlement. Wrong again Sherlock.

-------------------------------------------------

"Some little piece of shit like you is hardly in the position to call him or me either a loon or smear merchant."

My God. The unmistakable stench of bloated ego. Wellington, how dare you challenge a man of such import.

--------------------------------------------------

Wellington,

I'm off tomorrow morning to research some Civil War battlefields in the South. Will be back in a week. My plan of attack is to knock down a six of McKewen's Scotch Ale after the flight and hotel. It's a bit stout for my tastes, but the buzz is nice.

Have a great week.

Posted by: Cornelius at August 5, 2008 12:52 AM

Wellington and the rest: I did suggest that the creature who signs itself Terror-Free Oil should not be touched with a bargepole and gloves. He should be avoided like a nasty mess on the street. You are answering it. And what good are you doing? You are just allowing it more and more space for its delirium. Please, guys, leave it alone. Hugh, the details of ego-rubbing and wounded among literary persons would supply enough material to destroy any hero, if we were that way minded. Solzhenitsyn was a hero - period. What he did was equivalent to describing the atrocities of Auschwitz and Buchenwald while Hitler was still in power and the SS still omnipotent. Consider that. It makes us all rather small compared with him.

Posted by: Paolo at August 5, 2008 2:14 AM

correction, above:
"...the details of ego-rubbing and wounded vanities among literary persons..."

Posted by: Paolo at August 5, 2008 2:20 AM

Wellington,

Slightly OT, but I commend you on your fine scholarship of Russian history.

I refer you (and everyone else, of course) to this little gem about Staraya (Old) Ladoga

I am very proud to live in the only incorporated town in the USA with this fine name! You can't believe the immense joy I get explaining the origin and history of this very odd place name to people who ask.

Okay. Returning to topic.

Posted by: boneshack at August 5, 2008 2:40 AM

Hm, I went to that Loftus website, and saw a book they feature:

Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks with Mark Aarons

Then I see their list of "advisory council" includes Nonie Darwish, Brigitte Gabriel and Robert Spencer and also they've got Ibn Warraq and Magdi Allam on some "Summit".

Weird. I need an Alka Seltzer.

Posted by: DenverRodeo at August 5, 2008 3:34 AM

@HUGH

"Perhaps I should have warned those who rely on Babelfish that it is only good, I'm afraid, for wrapping newspapers in."

I see what you did there. Very amusing.

Posted by: Big Luke at August 5, 2008 6:18 AM

Terror-free Oil ,

What is a "normal Jew" in your opinion ? Are you Jewish ? You have posted no academic evidence to refute JW/Robert .

Show us the evidence .

By comparison, I know "a couple of(as you put it)" American Jews also that call FDR an anti-Semite because he banned Jewish mass immigration from Europe before the Holocaust .Should I believe them or qualified historians?

JW prides itself on evidence based argument . Show us your evidence Mr ???

Where is it ?

Posted by: purplemarbles at August 5, 2008 6:35 AM

Any ideology that singles out groups of human beings to be slaughtered is evil. Marx singled out social and economic classes. Hitler singled out ethnic groups. And Islam singles out non-believers unless they're prepared to accept second-class status. All three are evil. So, someone averring that Marxism in theory has merit is no different for me from someone maintaining that Nazism or Islam is just fine in theory.

Posted by: Wellington at August 4, 2008 8:33 PM

This is so well said that it deserves to be singled out and seen again. It goes to the heart of what our Judeao-Christian culture is all about. The Golden Rule is the ancient guidepost.

Posted by: Spot on at August 5, 2008 8:00 AM

Robert: "please don't do this here"

My apologies. I was out of line. Won't happen again.

Alex

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 5, 2008 9:58 AM

Please stop feeding the trol. Stop it, STOP IT. I want to read about how others were affected by the literature of AS, and how his ideology affects the current battle that is being waged against Jihad. The blathering arguments about anti-semitism during the Stalinist history are not appropriate to this thread.

If you want a good objective account of anti-semitism during Stalinist Russia, I recommend "The Whisperers".

Posted by: never_submit at August 5, 2008 10:34 AM

Wellington: "first of all, you still haven't met my original (actually Solzhenitsyn's) challenge."

I don't think it is possible if you do not consider whitewashing "Black Hundred" anti-Semetic.

"perhaps the actual site of the city of Kiev had some kind of village settlement as early as the fifth century, but so what?"

According to "По́весть временны́х лет" (povest vremennyh let - first written source that mentions Rurik) Kiev was founded by princes Кия, Щека, and Хорива (Kiya, Stcheka, and Horiva). That means that Kievskaya Rus' existed (as a city-state) before Rurik.

"do him a favor and tell him to ease up on the conspiracy nonsense."

Can you actually quote what Loftus said about either Bush-Nazi connection or Liberty instead of making your ridiculous claims about him being a conspiracy theorist?

"When you make serious charges, you must back them up with serious evidence. You don't."

Which part of Solzhenitsyn's book is whitewashing "Black Hundred" confused you?

This is what your favorite anti-Semite writes:

Dvesti Let Vmesti, Part I, page 240.

"Ещё утвердилось, что погромами октября 1905 руководил Союз Русского Народа. Это – неправда, он только в ноябре 1905, тоже от инстинкта народной обиды, стал возникать."

There was an opinion that Union of Russian People commanded pogroms of October 1905. This is not true. It started to appear only in November of 1905, because [Russian] people felt being insulted [by Jews].

"Однако Союз этот, раздутый слухами и страхами в легендарный, был в реальности жалкой, бессильной и безденежной партией."

However, this Union, blown by rumors into legendary, in reality was a pathetic, weak, and hopeless party.

"погромы от Союза Русского Народа не известны, а прежние – были от стихийного взрыва масс."

pogroms by Union of Russian People are unknown, but previous [pogoms] were results of spontaneous explosions of masses [people’s actions]

"Через несколько лет после загасания революции 1905 Союз Русского Народа – и от начала бутафорский – бесславно растаял."

Few years after decline of revolution of 1905, Union of Russian People, a sham to begin with, ingloriously melted

"Есть и ещё клеймо, прикипевшее крепко: «чёрная сотня», неотразимое именно в неопределённости своего смысла. … И оказалось отлично действующим ярлыком для этого стихийного народного патриотического движения."

There is also a brand, strongly attached: «black hundred» irresistible particularly in its vagueness. … It happened to become an operating label for spontaneous patriotic movement of the [Russian] people.

Now, find me a single person who claims that the KKK is a “spontaneous patriotic movement of the American people” and who is also NOT a racist?

Purplemarbles: “What is a "normal Jew" in your opinion ?”

Which part of “not someone like Finkelstein or Lerner” don’t you understand?

“Show us the evidence”

Your sense of entitlement is astounding. Why do you feel that someone has an obligation to alleviate your ignorance? However, if the Solzhenitsyn’s own words are not good enough as evidence, nothing will convince you.

“By comparison, I know "a couple of(as you put it)" American Jews also that call FDR an anti-Semite because he banned Jewish mass immigration from Europe before the Holocaust .Should I believe them or qualified historians?”

And you don’t consider banning “Jewish mass immigration from Europe before the Holocaust” an anti-Semitic move? What would qualify as anti-Semitism in your opinion, then? Killing a Jew for being a Jew? Killing a dozen of them? A million? Was Hitler an anti-Semite, or was he just a German patriot trying to cleanse Germany of some filth?

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 5, 2008 11:13 AM

People today claim anyone who is nationalist, Christian or criticizes Jews at all is anti-Semitic.

Read Norman Podhoretz's article on Solzhenitsyn in Commentary and the follow up letters to the editor. Podhoretz says that post-1967 Zionist by definition cannot be anti-Semitic. He brings Solzhenitsyn and Pat Robertson as examples.

Posted by: whatwemaybe at August 5, 2008 12:52 PM

This article is also worth a read:

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=368

I personally would not determine if one was an anti-Semite based on a book review by David Duke.

Posted by: whatwemaybe at August 5, 2008 12:57 PM

Re. http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=368

“Nor would one learn about his moving and somber discussion in chapter twenty-one of Two Hundred Years Together of the Holocaust unleashed against Jews on Soviet territory. In that chapter Solzhenitsyn narrates the truly mind-boggling facts regarding the extermination of Soviet Jews in the western territories of the Soviet Union.”

Moving and somber? What exactly is moving or somber about the Chapter 21? He provides statistics without passing any judgments. The only judgment he passes is when he refers to some Jewish authors who denied “good will” of the Soviet government in reference to evacuating the Jews from advancing German armies. According to Solzhenitsyn, the Soviets were bending over backwards to evacuate the Jews, which makes those Jewish authors look like ungrateful pigs.

From the very beginning of the war, the Soviet government knew that the Jews left on German-occupied territory were as good as dead. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet (civilian) Jews were murdered by the Nazis. So when some Jewish authors complain that the Soviet government was less than enthusiastic about evacuating the Jews, their complaints are not entirely without merit, to say the least. And Solzhenitsyn’s bitching about it, while not passing judgment on Nazi’s actions makes him an anti-Semite.

He could have been a great humanitarian, as long as we do not consider the Jews human. His attitude is very similar to Muslim human rights declaration. Humans have all the rights in the world, as long as they are Muslim.

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 5, 2008 1:51 PM

I feel to tiptoe among shattered remnants of china, here.
Whatever we say about Solzhenitsyn, he was hmm, kak skazat'? Ochen' slozhny chelovek, pravdali?
I read his speech to Harvard when it was published into a book, many moons ago.
Having read the First Circle, Cancer Ward, Odin Dyen' Ivana Denisovicha, and both Gulag books in my teens, this little book, this gem packed speech stands out for me as the best of what it is he truly believed.
He minced no words.
What pissed off the Harvardites is that they were of the belief that he came to praise them, and when he didn't, they turned on him.
Even then, the Ivy League was full of itself.
What I got for myself, from reading his works is deep spirituality, which he decried as lacking in the West.
He was no intolerant authoritarian, but a deeply religious man, a Christian, and thus his world view emanated from that point.
He was indeed, a complex man, but as a teenager, I found him breathtakingly blunt, which I may have mistaken for sheer simplicity. Silly girl.

Posted by: Jewel Atkins at August 5, 2008 3:03 PM

Do you see what you've done? DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE?

STOP FEEDING THE TROLL.

Solzhenitsyn no more needs us to defend him than the Niagara Falls need us to toss thimblefuls of water in them. When Hochhuth - yes, the same propagandist who invented the "Hitler's Pope" slander, and who, according to Ion Pacepa, was a bought and paid for KGB hireling - tried to peddle the notion that Churchill had had the Polish leader Sikorski murdered, the mud flew back in his face, and rightly so. (Would that there had been more honest men to ridicule his first play as well!) And mind you, Hochhuth was promoted and supported by a mighty secret apparatus and by hordes of fashionable idiots. Who, except his mother, knows Terror-Free Oil? For the love of Heaven, fellows, leave it alone.

Posted by: Paolo at August 5, 2008 3:39 PM

Solzhenitsyn was no anti-Semite. In fact most of his closest associates and co-writers were Jews. These include men such as the late Mikhail Agursky who was one of the co-authors with Solzhenitsyn of "From Under the Rubble" (1975) probably the greatest work of anti-Soviet dissidence ever written.

Posted by: Provoslavni at August 5, 2008 3:46 PM

"find me a single person who claims that the KKK is a “spontaneous patriotic movement of the American people” and who is also NOT a racist?"

Many of the KKK were (and are) "patriotic" in that they thought/think of their movement as patriotic. Many times people are patriotic for the wrong reasons and base what they think is patriotism on mistaken or twisted ideals, like case in point all those illustrious men and women of various professional pedigrees including former government positions who are featured illustriously on a roster over at a website called "Patriots Question 911" -- including John Loftus himself:

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/#Loftus

These men and women might think they are being patriotic but in my book they are enabling the "Truthers" and could not be more despicable.

Posted by: DenverRodeo at August 5, 2008 3:59 PM

No fewer than three thousand Jews found refuge at Castel Gandolfo, the pope's summer residence [emphasis mine].

So says Rabbi David G. Dalin, in his book, The Myth of Hitler's Pope. In addition to other examples of saving beneficence cited, he adds that

Pope Pius himself granted sanctuary within the walls of the Vatican in Rome to hundreds of homeless Jews.

Given thatCastel Gandolfo and the Vatican City State are sovereign enclaves within Italy, directly ruled by the pope himself, these demonstrable facts belie the appelations of antisemite and "Hitler's Pope." It seems to me that Pope Pius XII personally accomplished rather more than either Oscar Schindler or Raoul Wallenberg, and should be reckoned a philosemite and "Righteous Gentile." Space prevents me from citing other notable facts that clearly establish my point.

Posted by: John C at August 6, 2008 12:41 AM

Jewel Atkins: "Whatever we say about Solzhenitsyn, he was hmm, kak skazat'? Ochen' slozhny chelovek, pravdali?"

OK, he was a slozhy anti-Semite, but still an anti-Semite. And none of his civil rights accomplishments can changed that. Take Jesse Jackson. None of his civil rights accomplishments will change the fact that he is an anti-Semitic piece of shit. Why should Solzhenitsyn be treated any differently?

DenverRodeo: "http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/#Loftus"

You can’t blame John Loftus for one moron misquoting him and another putting his picture/bio/misquote on some idiotic site. Those 9/11 truthers do it all the time. Just look at Dr. Ehrenfeld’s site (http://acdemocracy.org/): “PLEASE NOTE: Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is not a signatory of the 911Truth.org. She has asked several times to have her name removed from the list, but the organization failed to comply.”

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 6, 2008 2:51 AM

TerrorFree Oil, I emailed John Loftus about 24 hours ago asking him why his name and picture are on that site and what his position is,and no reply still. Maybe he's too busy.

Posted by: DenverRodeo at August 6, 2008 4:38 AM

Moving and somber? What exactly is moving or somber about the Chapter 21? He provides statistics without passing any judgments.

I think that "providing statistics" is what Mahoney meant by "narrat[ing] the truly mind-boggling facts." Sometimes facts speak for themselves, and don't require the narrator to explicitly "pass[] any judgments." Most of us, reading a detailed narrative about extermination of Jews, would assume that the narrator disapproved of the extermination, even if he didn't add "And this was a bad thing."

Anyway, Terro-Free Oil's trolling has inspired me to order the book. I don't read Russian, but I do read French, so I ordered the translation from amazon.fr. Unfortunately, it won't arrive until well after the comment period has closed, so I won't be able to provide a detailed response to Terror-Free Oil's slurs. (Maybe it's good that I won't be able to feed the troll.)

Posted by: Seamus at August 6, 2008 10:04 PM

Seamus, are you too retarded to read the rest of the paragraph?

DenverRodeo: "Maybe he's too busy."

Yes, he is. I'll see if I can get you the answer.

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 7, 2008 2:10 AM

Seamus, are you too retarded to read the rest of the paragraph?

Your use of personal invective only underscores the poverty of your arguments.

Yes, I read the rest of the paragraph. I chose to be kind and not call attention to the fact that Solzhenitsyn's reference to "some Jewish authors who denied 'good will' of the Soviet government in reference to evacuating the Jews from advancing German armies" is not a "moral judgment," but a statement (which may or may not be accurate) about the facts. Perhaps Solzhenitsyn made a moral judgment, but you'd never know if from your description. You claim that "According to Solzhenitsyn, the Soviets were bending over backwards to evacuate the Jews, which makes those Jewish authors look like ungrateful pigs." The first part of that sentence reports another statement about the facts; the second part is your conclusion about the kind of judgment that could be made (note: not one that, so far as you tell us, Solzhenitsyn himself makes).

As I said, I've bought the book, and I'll read it myself to see how much there is in it to justify your accusations. I'm not expecting much; someone who argues with a straight face that it's appropriate to call FDR an anti-Semite is someone who sees anti-Semites all kinds of places where they aren't there.

Anyone who whitewashes KKK would be considered a racist.

Not necessarily. For example, if the KKK had been widely believed to have planned and carried out a particular lynching, someone who examined the evidence and concluded that they weren't in fact guilty of that lynching shouldn't, for that reason, be considered a racist. (After all, one can defend the Germans against the accusation of having carried out the Katyn Forest massacre without being a Nazi sympathizer.) Similarly, one can conclude (as you cite Solzhenitsyn as concluding) that the Union of Russian People did not order certain pogroms in October 1905, without being an anti-Semite.

Posted by: Seamus at August 7, 2008 12:23 PM

DenverRodeo,

This is John Loftus’ response to http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/#Loftus. It's ont a quote, I’m paraphrasing our conversation.

There could have been negligence on the part of the government agencies in not sharing the information that may or may not have prevented the 9/11 attacks, but one must be crazy to claim that the government planned the attacks or intentionally withheld information. Loftus has not seen a single shred of evidence supporting government’s involvement and with the conspiracy of this magnitude something would have come up by now. As far as the link, Loftus cannot control what other people write about him or attribute to him. If you need to know what he says, you can visit either www.john-loftus.com or www.intelligencesummit.org

I hope this puts to rest all the BS about Loftus.

Seamus: “it's appropriate to call FDR an anti-Semite”

Considering banning “Jewish mass immigration from Europe before the Holocaust” an anti-Semitic move, which DID result in countless dead Jews is not exactly as calling FDR anti-Semite. I don’t know what his motivations were.

I’m glad you got the book. Because after you’re done with it, you’ll agree that Solzhenitsyn was an anti-Semite. At least at the time he was writing that book.

“Anyone who whitewashes KKK would be considered a racist.
Not necessarily.”
Are you too dumb to understand the difference between exonerating the KKK of a particular crime and claiming that KKK’s hate for Blacks is justifiable?

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 7, 2008 2:29 PM

Considering banning “Jewish mass immigration from Europe before the Holocaust” an anti-Semitic move, which DID result in countless dead Jews is not exactly as calling FDR anti-Semite. I don’t know what his motivations were.

When purple marbles said that he knew "'a couple of(as you put it)' American Jews also that call FDR an anti-Semite because he banned Jewish mass immigration from Europe before the Holocaust" and asked, "Should I believe them or qualified historians?", you declined to draw the distinction between anti-semitic actions and being an anti-semite. Your reply, as you may recall, was "And you don’t consider banning “Jewish mass immigration from Europe before the Holocaust” an anti-Semitic move? What would qualify as anti-Semitism in your opinion, then? Killing a Jew for being a Jew? Killing a dozen of them? A million? Was Hitler an anti-Semite, or was he just a German patriot trying to cleanse Germany of some filth?" In other words, by refusing to answer purplemarbles by telling him that no, he should not believe those American Jews who call FDR anti-Semitic, and by going on to liken FDR's actions to Hitler's, you pretty much admit that you think it *is* appropriate to call FDR an anti-Semite (which is what I said you did), whether or not you agree with that assessment yourself.

Are you too dumb to understand the difference between exonerating the KKK of a particular crime and claiming that KKK’s hate for Blacks is justifiable?

Sigh. Are you too dumb to understand that in none of the "smoking guns" you quote does Solzhenitsyn claim that the Union of Russian People's hate for Jews was justifiable, or to understand that they instead exonerate the Union from particular pogroms of which they were accused, or else call the Union a "sham" or say that it "ingloriously melted" after the 1905 revolution, or else say (if I understand your very confusing and translation, which was yanked out of any context that might have made it easier to understand) that the name "Black Hundreds" was one that came to be applied to a "spontaneous, patriotic movement" of the Russian people (perhaps meaning that the term shouldn't be held to apply only the URP)? (It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that calling a movement "patriotic" is not tantamount to approving it, much less to claiming that hatred of its members for any particular ethnic minority was justifiable. If, for example, I call the Second Klan (the one created in 1915 and that was so powerful during the 1920s) a "nativist and patriotic organization," and deny that it had much to do with lynchings of blacks in the South, that's not an endorsement, or even a "whitewash" of the Klan, but is simply a factual assertion, which may or may not be accurate (though I believe it is).)

Posted by: Seamus at August 7, 2008 3:24 PM

"you pretty much admit that you think it *is* appropriate to call FDR an anti-Semite"

No, I don't. May not have been clear about it, but I'm on the fence about FDR's anti-Semitism; I find valid arguments on both side. Solzhenitsyn's anti-Semitism is pretty clear; he is a Russian Pat Buchanan.

“Are you too dumb to understand that in none of the "smoking guns" you quote does Solzhenitsyn claim that the Union of Russian People's hate for Jews was justifiable”

I thought that even someone as disadvantaged as you are could put two and two together. Apparently I was wrong, so let me help you. “Jews were creating an alcoholism problem within Russian population” + “[pogoms] were results of spontaneous explosions of masses [people’s actions].” This means “Fu#$%ng Jews deserved pogroms, because they were corrupting Russian people with alcohol.”

Posted by: Terror-Free Oil at August 7, 2008 11:22 PM

"you pretty much admit that you think it *is* appropriate to call FDR an anti-Semite"

No, I don't. May not have been clear about it, but I'm on the fence about FDR's anti-Semitism; I find valid arguments on both side. Solzhenitsyn's anti-Semitism is pretty clear; he is a Russian Pat Buchanan.

So you *don't* think it appropriate to call FDR an anti-Semite, but believe there "valid arguments on both side[s]," including the side that holds that FDR *was* an anti-semite. That's a neat trick of mental legerdemain.

“Are you too dumb to understand that in none of the "smoking guns" you quote does Solzhenitsyn claim that the Union of Russian People's hate for Jews was justifiable”

I thought that even someone as disadvantaged as you are could put two and two together. Apparently I was wrong, so let me help you. “Jews were creating an alcoholism problem within Russian population” + “[pogoms] were results of spontaneous explosions of masses [people’s actions].” This means “Fu#$%ng Jews deserved pogroms, because they were corrupting Russian people with alcohol.”

"Jews were creating an alcoholism problem within Russian population" was not one of the smoking guns you quoted. It was your characterization of his position (and which leaves unanswered a number of material questions: Was Solzhenitsyn saying that "Jews" in general were creating the problem, or only some of them? Is he claiming that Jews dominated the manufacture or retailing of alcoholic beverages, or were disproportionately represented among businessmen in those fields? Is Solzhenitsyn saying that Jews were to blame for participating in those industries, or simply that they were the subject of blame? Is he saying that Jews in those industries were contributing to the problem of alcoholism in ways that gentiles in those industries were not?)

But even if Solzhenitsyn said those very words, and even if he said that "previous [pogroms] were results of spontaneous explosions of masses [people’s actions]," it does not logically follow that "Fu#$%ng Jews deserved pogroms, because they were corrupting Russian people with alcohol." (Similarly, even if you think that Korean shopkeepers in South Central L.A. cheated or abused black shoppers (or owned a disporporionate number of the liquor stores that were contributing to alcoholism among the black population), and even if you believe that the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which resulted in the looting and burning of many Korean-owned businesses, were a spontaneous explosion of the masses, that doesn't mean that you think the riots were justified, or that the Koreans had it coming to them.)

Posted by: Seamus at August 8, 2008 2:51 PM

Seamus, I read the book. It is anti-Semitic.

Ilshat Alsayef
MASH

Posted by: Muslims Against Sharia at August 9, 2008 2:08 AM

Muslims Against Sharia: First of all, I don't agree with your assessment that Solzhenitsyn was an anti-Semite. He was "merely" ruthless on everyone, including his fellow Russians.

But I felt compelled to ask you how can one be Muslim and be against Sharia? To do so would mean gutting Islam like a fish. So, what's the damn point? Why not just leave Islam completely? Any good in it can be found as well in Judaism, Christianity, Aristotelian ethics, Zoroastrianism, agnosticism with a conscience, etc. Islam is not uniquely enlightened in any way. And there's so much in it which is repulsive. Go ahead and try and prove me wrong. I say you can't. What does Islam have in it which is good and which is not found anywhere else? I say nothing. What do you say?

Posted by: Wellington at August 9, 2008 9:51 PM

Wellington, when you say that you don't agree with my assessment on Solzhenitsyn's anti-Semitism, do you base it on your reading of the book? If you did read the book, don't his claims that the Jews were themselves responsible for pogroms reveal his anti-Semitism?

How can Muslims be against Sharia? How can Muslims be against FGM or honorcide? How can Christians be against the Inquisition? You claim that for Muslims to be against Sharia is the same as to gut Islam like a fish. That shows that your knowledge of Islam is just as superficial as you knowledge of Solzhenitsyn. Hearing a few things here and there about a subject does not make you an expert on the subject.

You're asking why not just leave Islam completely. That leads me to believe that you consider Islam an inferior religion. Anyone who considers another religion inferior is a religious supremacist. You know another common example of religious supremacists? Islamofascists. The only difference between you and them is that you're not running around blowing up infidels. Yet.

Posted by: Muslims Against Sharia at August 10, 2008 11:27 AM

Muslims Against Sharia: I think Seamus said it about as well as anyone could respecting any supposed anti-Semitism by Solzhenitsyn. See his post above.

I didn't attack you but you attacked me personally. That is your right. But what I did attack was Islam and I asked you questions you did not respond to. First, you didn't answer my query about how can Muslims be against Sharia. You went off on a tangent about the Inquisition. There's no comparison. You mixed apples with oranges and besides force used in the name of Christianity always violated Christian tenets but force used in the name of Islam is often fulfilling one of the major principles of Islam, which is that the religion can be spread by the sword, something which is not sanctioned in any way by Christianity.

Second, I asked you what good is found in Islam that isn't found elsewhere and you didn't answer this question either. I say there is nothing in Islam which is good which cannot be found in other religions or philosophies. But there is a hell of a lot of rotten things in Islam. Prove me wrong. Name some good things in Islam which don't exist anywhere else.

Do I consider Islam an inferior religion? You bet I do. I think it the one major faith which is totalitarian in structure and ideology, as Bertrand Russell observed. It was founded by a brutal man who is one of the great frauds of history. The Islamic deity is Orwellian. Images of heaven are child-like and the Koran is the most desultory, repetitive, disturbing religious work I have ever read and I read all 114 suras. I don't like Islam and I wouldn't say that about any other major religion. I lump it together with Marxism and Nazism, except that it is a spiritual totalitraian ideology instead of a secular one. And it is a death cult for a certain percentage of its followers when they don't get their way. Always has been. Is now. Always will be. Islam is a burden to mankind.

Personal attacks do not constitute an argument. Tell me why I'm wrong. Still betting you can't. And just describing someone as a hater isn't an argument either. So, don't go there as well. Prove me wrong.

Posted by: Wellington at August 10, 2008 1:37 PM

Seamus, I read the book. It is anti-Semitic.

Ilshat Alsayef
MASH

Oh, well then, in that case never mind. I really admire the way you cut through the Gordian knot we're trying to untangle through use of logic and through citation and evaluation of evidence, and just appeal to (your) authority.

Posted by: Seamus at August 10, 2008 2:29 PM