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Published: 2024-04-19
No. 2 (186) (2024)

Solzhenitsyn on Ukraine

Grzegorz Władysław Przebinda Logo ORCID
Section: Artykuły
https://doi.org/10.31261/pr.17155

From gulag brotherhood to territorial claims and the “anti-Maidan” of last years of his life

Abstract

This article deals with the fundamental evolution of the views of the great Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) on the “Ukrainian question” – from the Gulag brotherhood, outlined above all in The Gulag Archipelago (1973–1975), to the angry fillips against the so-called “Leninist borders” of the new Ukrainian Republic, promulgated by Solzhenitsyn in an escalating mode after 1991. Solzhenitsyn’s works from 1967 to 2008 are analyzed here from this point of view. This is primarily the Gulag Archipelago, but also political works such as Rebuilding Russia. Reflections and Tentative Proposals (1990), Russia in Collapse (1998), as well as his oral statements made to the Russian press and television between 1992 and 2008. Most paradoxical of all is the fact that Solzhenitsyn, in 2005, saw the Orange Revolution in Kiev – in complete agreement with President Putin, incidentally – as a great threat to Russia too. The writer regarded the events in the Ukrainian capital – without any rational basis for doing so – as a repetition of the Russian March Revolution of 1917, which he in turn depicted in an utterly condemnatory manner in his multi-volume historical epic, The Red Wheel (1971–2005).

Keywords:

Solzhenitsyn on Ukraine, from gulag brotherhood to territorial claims of last years of his life, the “anti-Maidan” of Solzhenitsyn from 2005, Solzhenitsyn and Putin

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Citation rules

Przebinda, G. W. (2024). Solzhenitsyn on Ukraine: From gulag brotherhood to territorial claims and the “anti-Maidan” of last years of his life. Przegląd Rusycystyczny [Russian Studies Review], (2 (186), 7–40. https://doi.org/10.31261/pr.17155

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No. 2 (186) (2024)
Published: 2024-04-22

ISSN: 0137-298X
Ikona DOI 10.31261/pr
Publisher
Polskie Towarzystwo Rusycystyczne oraz Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
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