Works, including One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) and The Gulag Archipelago (1973-1975), of Soviet writer and dissident Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, exposed the brutality of the labor camp system.
This known Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian best helped to make the world aware of the forced Gulag.
Exiled in 1974, he returned to Russia in 1994. Solzhenitsyn fathered of Ignat Solzhenitsyn, a conductor and pianist.
An important essay written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn shortly before his exile from the Soviet Union (Solzhenitsyn escaped being executed only because of his international reputation). This essay is especially appropriate given the fact that the United States appears to be only be a few weeks away from Communists taking power after “winning” a election through voting fraud so brazen that a Third World tinpot dictator would have hesitated to even try.
Solzhenitsyn reminds his readers that they are not powerless in the face of totalitarian evil, but can choose to do the right thing and accept the consequences.
سولژنیتسن بر این اعتقاد است که دروغ عامل اصلی نابهنجاری اجتماعی- سیاسی است. فردی که به خاطر مشارکت در دروغ فاسد شده، جامعه را نیز به سمت فساد و تباهی می کشاند. دروغ بهترین یاور و توجیه کننده ی خشونت است. خشونت بدون دروغ دوام نمی آورد و دروغ نیز با کمک خشونت گسترش می یابد. سولژنیتسن همچون مشاهده گری منفصل از واقعیت ابراز عقیده نمی کند؛ وی سال ها در اردوگاه های کار اجباری استالین دوران محکومیت خود را گذراند و شاهد آنچه رخ می داد بود. تأملات وی در سال های زندان و تبعید او را به این نتیجه رساند که دروغ و تزویر به تباهی فرد و اجتماع می انجامد. وی در این مقاله مردم شوروی را به پرهیز از دروغ و خودفریبی فرا می خواند.
با خواندن ترجمه انگلیسی این مقاله و مقایسه ی آن با ترجمه فارسی، متوجه شدم حدود یک صفحه ی آخر آن به فارسی برگردانیده نشده است. اما در کل ترجمه ی فارسی خوب و روان است.
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn sure knows how to write with gravitas:
"We have been so hopelessly dehumanized that for today's modest ration of food we are willing to abandon all our principles, our souls, and all the efforts of our predecessors and all opportunities for our descendants—but just don't disturb our fragile existence. We lack staunchness, pride and enthusiasm. We don't even fear universal nuclear death, and we don't fear a third world war. We have already taken refuge in the crevices. We just fear acts of civil courage."
In the few things I've actually read of his massive body of work, he always has a powerful message about Russian culture, politics and society, and it always leaves me feeling so much more in awe of his ability to analyze and comment on the tragedy that was often was the Soviet Union.
In this essay, Solzhenitsyn calls out Soviet citizens for deluding themselves, even in the glaring face of evidence, that nothing can be done about the state of the Soviet Union. The society is so bogged down that no one thinks they can change it — and that's why nothing has changed, he says.
Even for people like me who have never, and will never, known the oppression and suffering of the Soviet Union, it's a reminder that nothing changes until you do; nothing can be accomplished unless someone sets out to accomplish it. And often, in the realm of Soviet politics, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was that someone.
مقاله ای است کوتاه در باب اهمیت دروغ نگفتن به عنوان مبارزه ای سیاسی. سولژنیتسین، که این مقاله را شب قبل از دستگیری و آغاز تبعید بیست ساله اش نوشت، معتقد بود که عدم همکاری با نظام فاسد قدرت فراوانی برای از هم پاشیدن آن دارد. همینکه نوشته، بیانه و ... را که موافقش نیتسیم امضا نکنیم یا تأیید نکنیم خود تإثیری بسیار قاطع در افشاگری فساد و زورگویی حکومت ها خواهد داشت. اهمیت این نوشتار نه به دلیل تحلیل عقلانی بلکه به دلیل فراخوان اخلاقی است که بدون حواشی آن را به خواننده انتقال می دهد
Asks the bare minimum of his fellow citizens living under communism. Even if you don’t wish to stick your head too far above the parapet, at least refrain from reinforcing the propaganda.
“Now that the axes have done their work and everything that was sown has sprouted, we can see that the young and presumptuous people who thought they would make our country just and happy through terror, bloody rebellion and civil war were themselves misled. No thanks, fathers of enlightenment! Now we know that infamous methods breed infamous results . . . Let our hands be clean!
“When violence intrudes into peaceful life, its face glows with self-confidence, as if it were carrying a banner and shouting: 'I am violence. Run away, make way for me — I will crush you.' But violence quickly grows old. After only a few years i t loses confidence in itself, and in order to maintain a respectable face i t summons falsehood as its ally — since violence can conceal itself with nothing except lies, and the lies can be maintained only by violence. Violence does not lay its paw on every shoulder every day: i t demands from us only obedience to lies and daily participation in lies
“But let us refuse to say what we do not think. This is our path, the easiest and the most accessible one, which allows for our inherent, well-rooted cowardice
“So in our timidity, let us each make a choice: whether to remain consciously a servant offalsehood (of course, it is notoutofinclination but to feed one's family that one raises one's children in the spirit oflies), or to shrug off the lies and become an honest man worthy ofrespect from one's children and contemporaries:
And from that day onward he: will not sign, write orprint in any way a single phrase which in his opinion distorts the truth will utter such a phrase neither in private conversation nor in public, neither on his own behalf nor at the prompting ofsomeone else, neither in the role ofagitator, teacher, educator, nor as an actor will notdepict, foster orbroadcast asingle idea inwhich hecan see a distortion o f the truth, whether it b e in painting, sculpture, photography, technical science o r music willnotciteoutofcontext,eitherorallyorinwriting,asingle quotation to please someone, to feather his own nest, to achieve success in his work, ifhe does notcompletely share the idea which is quoted, or ifit does notaccurately reflect the matter atissue will not allow himself to b e compelled t o attend demonstrations and meetings ifthey are contrary to hisdesire will immediately walk out o f a meeting, session, lecture, performance or film if he hears a speaker tell lies, o r purvey ideological nonsense or shameless propaganda will notsubscribe to orbuy a newspaper ormagazine in which information is distorted and primary facts are concealed.
“And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul - don't let him be proud of his 'progressive' views, and don't let him boast that heis an academician or a people's artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It's all the same to me as long as I'm fed and kept warm. “
مرگ معنوی جهانشمولی بر جانهایمان نشسته است، و مرگ جسمانی هم بزودی شعلهور خواهد شد و خود و فرزندانمان را خواهد بلعید.....ما آنقدر نومیدانه از انسانیت دور شدهایم که برای سهم کوچکمان از خوراک، تمام اصول را زیر پا میگذاریم، و البته تمام دستاوردهای پیشینیان و فرصتهای آیندگان را......ما برای اینکه از گله عقب بیفتیم و تنها قدم برداریم میترسیم؛ مبادا که نان گندم و گرما و اجازه اقامت در مسکو را از دست بدهیم. همانطور که مرام سیاسیمان را اشباع کردند، درست همانطور هم به ما یاد دادند که به خود تلقین کنیم که زندگی راحت، کمال زندگی است .... پس سادهترین و دستیافتنیترین شاهکلید دستیابی به آزادیِ اهمالشدهمان همین است: خودداری فرد از دروغ. دروغ همهچیز را میپوشاند، دروغ همهچیز را در برمیگیرد
Written by Socialism/Communism's best-known critic, a survivor of Soviet life (equally shared misery) was sentenced to hard labour in the Gulag whilst serving in the artillery, after critiquing the Red Army performance in a letter to a friend.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a long-term political prisoner developed a keen sense of observation as he endured hard labour, learning the depths of human depravity exercised by the regime and the abandonment of civility by his fellow prisoners. After release, Aleksandr wrote his memoirs, and eventually escaped the USSR to America.
This essay encapsulates socialism's resulting dystopian environment and is an antidote to fighting back against it's lies.
did not feel genuine to me, it actually felt more like bait, to have people try to rise against the regime, only to get them caught. otherwise, it wasn't really that coherent, and the point made kept being off. let's be honest, do you go an oppose a totalitarian regime out in the open to expect success? no, you forge a plan in secret, you stick with the "lies", doubling the lying on your side, until you can strike "them" down, because you got an opening. that would have been good advice. this speach was terrible! and overall felt like a lie itself.
"And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul: Let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or general. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill."