‘Gulag Archipelago' now required reading in Russia

Omaha.com - AP ^ | 90/10/09

[Borges]

Russia has made a once-banned book recounting the brutality and despair of the Soviet Gulag required reading in the country’s schools.

The Education Ministry said excerpts of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 1973 epic “The Gulag Archipelago” have been added to the curriculum for high school students.

The three-volume book was banned by Soviet censors, sparking Solzhenitsyn’s retreat into exile.

The decision announced Wednesday was taken because of “the vital historical and cultural heritage on the course of 20th-century domestic history” contained in Solzhenitsyn’s work, the ministry said.

[Nachum]

I was just looking over it a couple of weeks ago.

[colorado tanker]

I smell hypocrisy. I suspect this is being done to try to convince Russians as well as Westerners this regime is something other than the KGB thugocracy it really is.

[SeanOGuano]

Too bad it’s not required reading here.

[Cicero]

Surprising, since they’ve just been spending the past week glorifying Stalin and bashing the Poles.

I found “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” easier to read, and perhaps more effective for that reason. But for those with the guts to read it, “The Gulag Archipelago” is certainly a grim lesson in history.

[cardinal4]

How things change. He was exiled internally for his works..

[Monterrosa-24]

Our schools should use it too. But our schools are really “Racism Awareness Centers”.

Solzhenitsyn’s CANCER WARD is my favorite novel.

[Seruzawa]

Good for Russia.

Now, how about having Hayek’s, “The Road To Serfdom” required in western schools?

[Monterrosa-24]

“...He was exiled internally for his works.”

Yes, he served a period of internal exile in Kazackhstan but much later it was external exile in the U.S.

[marron]

I’m impressed.

[Iron Munro]

How many kids here could get through it?
And how many that did would understand the significance of what they had read?

[mrmeyer]

I happen to be reading that book right now as a matter of fact. Great book.

[Monterrosa-24]

One of the greatest men of our times. RIP.

[donna]

The three-volume book was banned by Soviet censors, sparking Solzhenitsyn’s retreat into exile.

"Retreat into exile" - somehow that doesn't reveal the persecution and suffering under Communism does it?

[Ditto]

“The Gulag Archipelago” is certainly a grim lesson in history.

That it was indeed. A testament to the cruelty and inhumanity of the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat" that the Obama drones would impose on this country.

[Cheburashka]

How many kids here could get through it?

---

Probably a lot more than the products of our public schools, who couldn't pronounce “archipelago” correctly with a gun pointed at their forehead.

On the other hand our kids would win the “self-esteem” derby hands down.

[RoadTest]

It occurred to me that “exerpts” can be selectively edited a la Michael Moor or Irving Stone.

[Cheburashka]

...sparking Solzhenitsyn’s retreat into exile.

---

Interesting way to describe arresting him and the next day forcing him onto a plane leaving the country.

And let's not forget Elizaveta Voronyanskaya, Solzhenitsyn's typist. They tortured her until she gave up the hiding place of a copy of the manuscript, allowing the KGB to confiscate it. She hung herself days after her release.

And remember the days of samizdat(self-publishing). If you were given a copy of The Gulag Archipelago you were expected to keep it for only 24 hours and the pass it on to the next reader for security reasons and because there were so few copies available. With a manuscript that size you had to spend the whole 24 hours reading to have any prayer of completing it.

[donna]

And let's not forget Elizaveta Voronyanskaya, Solzhenitsyn's typist. They tortured her until she gave up the hiding place of a copy of the manuscript, allowing the KGB to confiscate it. She hung herself days after her release.

Heavens! I didn't know that.

[OriginalChristian]

I started to read this a dozen times when I was in HS back in the late 70’s and could never get any traction in the text. I may have to pick up a copy and read it now in light of the current situation.