Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Dies at 89

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Dies at 89 The news of the Nobel prize winner's death quickly spread throughout the world, especially ex-communist countries. Interfax, Russian news agency, have reported that Solzhenitsyn died on Sunday, August 2nd, in Moscow. According to his son the cause of death was a heart weakness.

Solzhenitsyn was one of the most influential people of the 20th century, having written several books dealing with the dark side of the regime Russia was subjected to. In 1962 his book "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" made him known all over Europe. The book described sufferings of a gulag prisoner, hardships Solzhenitsyn himself had been subjected to as a prisoner of the regime.

His first novel was published in USSR, but the rest were forbidden, Solzhenitsyn was labeled a traitor and was exiled out of the communist Russia on account of "The Gulag Archipelago" (1973). The peak of the accreditation he was quickly receiving was the winning of the Nobel prize in 1970. However, he was unable to collect it until 1974, when the Soviet government decided to get rid of him by forcing him to leave the country. He returned in 1994 and embraced the new system. Some judged him for not leaning towards modern liberalism, but that did not lessen his role nor influence in the history of the 20th century Europe.

Solzhenitsyn remains recognized as a great author mostly for pointing out the obvious defects of the regime. For that he became widely known as a communist dissident. He never tried to cover up the brutalities. Rather, he unmasked the Gulag, Soviet forced labour camp system, by writing about what he had seen and experienced. Unlike some others, he depicted the raw side of it, the torture and the killings of so-called enemies, unjustified imprisonment on which the system was based. He wasn't afraid to speak out against the communist government, despite the fact that it was omnipresent at the time. His literary fight against the "ideals" the Soviets worked to enforce will never be forgotten.

His works, raw and true to life, remain as a reminder of the vicious side of humanity that ruled the 20th century.

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