RoR: Forum

Rebirth of Reason

Forum : Art : Portrait of Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

Portrait of Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

Portrait of Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
William Sokolenko

Returning from his enforced exile in America after the fall of the Soviet Union, Alexander Solzhenitsyn crossed Russia by train from its eastern Pacific shore to Moscow, stopping on his way in many places, including Krasnoyarsk, the major city in the Central Siberia. William Sokolenko (well known photographer in Krasnoyarsk) organized for Mr... (See the whole comment)

(Added by Maria Feht on 2/15, 3:41pm)

Discuss this Artwork (8 messages)

Monday, February 15, 2010 - 6:43pm

I know nothing of Solzhenisyn. I believe Rand was critical of him as a mystic whose opposition was to Marxist statism, not statism per se. Is there anything particularly admirable in him?

Monday, February 15, 2010 - 7:16pm

>>>Is there anything particularly admirable in him?<<<

Author of The Gulag Archipelago

Otherwise, it is the case when the book is bigger than a man who wrote it. All his other books are full of mysticism, monarchism, antisemitism, you name it.

But still - the person who was risking his life writing The Gulag Archipelago, and publishing it - gets my respect.

Let me remind you, that many people who spent years in labor camps were mentally ill for the rest of their life. I don't consider Solzhenitsyn's last books such a crime, nobody reads them anyway.

Monday, February 15, 2010 - 7:23pm

LOL!

I should have said do you see anything particularly admirable in his work, and you have answered the question I should have asked.

Monday, February 15, 2010 - 7:39pm

I read The Gulag Archipelago at least twice in my twenties. I don't believe you can truly get a sense of how life is like in places like the USSR or Red China without hearing it from the people who lived it. Solzhenitsyn was a good writer.

I found a large extract of Alexander Feht's "How I escaped from the USSR". Compelling story, quite an adventure and I enjoyed reading it. I've known and worked with a few people from Eastern Europe and Russia in the ~three decades working in the SF Bay area in high tech. I see a sense of mockery about Americans, about their naivete about the world. I would like to suggest the opposite view, the deep cynicism, is the abnormal condition. In a truly free environment people for the most part thrive by being honest, trusting, principled. It is impossible to be this way in the master/slave types of countries like the Soviet system or the Red China system. I find it hard to imagine the cultural habits of populations who have endured generations of being ruled by thugs and tyrants and criminals. I fear the United States turning into this kind of state.

Monday, February 15, 2010 - 9:00pm

Oh, by the way, my reaction upon seing the image was, "I really should get around to his War and Peace."

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - 3:34pm

Hi Mike,

You got it exactly right. Best.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - 8:30pm

Hi Hong,

Thank you. Nice to see you!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - 9:10pm

>>>I found a large extract of Alexander Feht's "How I escaped from the USSR". Compelling story, quite an adventure and I enjoyed reading it.<<<

You convinced me to remove (finally) "Friends & Relatives" section from Alex's website. It only confuses people! Especially with new design where Alex's name is prominently displayed on every page.

The story was written by Dimitri Sokolenko (my brother), and Alex only translated it. It was quite an adventure.

>>>>> In a truly free environment people for the most part thrive by being honest, trusting, principled. <<<<

Did you know that even such a simple thing like drop slot in video stores is impossible in Russia? Either customers don't return movies and pretend that they did, or the clerks claim customer never returned them, charge twice and pocket the difference.There are honest people in Russia, but too few to make it work. Just like it's better not to use credit cards in certain parts of New York.

If such a simple thing is not working, how can we expect much more complex concepts of democracy and self-governing to work there?

>>>I fear the United States turning into this kind of state.<<<

I am copying from my other post:

America is changing, and will continue to change from a frontier country to a more mature state where the precious balance and social contracts are treasured far above individual freedoms and desires.

From the biological point of view, it very easy to see: when life is very hard, the amount of parasites living off the working host can only be very limited. Otherwise, both hosts and parasites would perish. The richer the nation becomes, the more people living off the working minority it is able to support; and parasites are getting more and more influence in forming the public opinion. Two biological fundamentals are in play: filling every possible ecological niche, and preservation of energy. If it is easier to pay taxes than to fight them, paying taxes is what the majority of people choose to do. America is rich enough to afford even more bureaucracy than we have now.

Ted:
>>>Oh, by the way, my reaction upon seing the image was, "I really should get around to his War and Peace."

Never could understand the importance of reading War and Peace ;-). Probably the size of it? ...

(Edited by Maria Feht on 2/16, 9:50pm)