Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Truth Teller Extraordinaire
Friday, June 21, 2024
“Truth seldom is sweet; it is almost invariably bitter.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
For those who may have forgotten his name, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian author and dissident who was an outspoken and relentless critic of Joseph Stalin and Soviet oppression. His first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, was published in 1962 and chronicled the experiences of a prisoner in a Soviet labor camp.
Solzhenitsyn’s best-known work was The Gulag Archipelago, a three-volume series written between 1958 and 1968 and published in 1973. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature."
Few people know that Solzhenitsyn was born into a devout Eastern Orthodox family. However, he abandoned his faith as a young man and became an atheist, embracing Marxism-Leninism instead. As a captain in the Red Army during World War II, Solzhenitsyn wrote a private letter criticizing Stalin and it fell into the wrong hands. As a result, he was sentenced to eight years in a gulag where he returned to his Christian heritage.
When Nikita Khrushchev replaced Stalin, Solzhenitsyn was released and exonerated. In fact, Khrushchev even approved the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. However, after Khrushchev was deposed, Solzhenitsyn fell back into disfavor with the Soviet government and was eventually stripped of his citizenship and sent into exile.
After living in the U.S. for 18 years, Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia in 1994 after the Soviet Union dissolved and his citizenship was restored. He died in Moscow in 2008.
I used Solzhenitsyn’s life story to illustrate his quote above. A truth teller to a fault, Solzhenitsyn paid the consequences under Stalin’s totalitarian regime. Sadly, he also faced opposition in the United States, where he was roundly booed after his commencement address at Harvard in 1978. Solzhenitsyn’s crime? He told the truth… again.
“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself, who is the head.” Ephesians 4:15 (BSB)
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” John 14:6 (BSB)
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32 (NKJV)
“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” John 17:17 (NKJV)
- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President
