Another Step For Russia To Come To Terms With Its Communist Past

Vladimir Putin hands over the State Prize to Solzhenitsyn, at the writer's home, in Moscow, in June last year. Photo from The Daily Mail

Russia Makes Gulag Horrors Book Required Reading -- Yahoo News/AP

MOSCOW – 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.

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My Comment: A disclaimer note. I knew Solzhenitsyn when he lived in Vermont. He always visited our Russian Orthodox Parish in Montreal.

When he was alive, he was the spiritual voice of many Russians. His belief in his Christian faith and what is right reverberates throughout his work, and with time became the focal point for Russia's dissident movement to lay the ground work for change in what was then known as the Soviet Union.

The Gulags. Mas murder. Slavery and suffering .... his works are a historical document of a time that everyone knows about .... but try their best to not think about it.

The turning point (that caught my attention) was when Russian President Putin went to Solzhenitsyn's home in 2007 to reward him with what many regard in Russia as its highest civilian award. The Gulag prisoner was now being visited by the leader of the Russian people .... history had come full circle.

His works are now required reading in Russian High Schools .... a fact that I know will only make him smile if he was alive today.

Bookyards has a section on Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The link is here.