Alexander Solzhenitsyn has been a fan of Putin's. Until recently? Nonetheless, the following is quite a phenomenal statement.
(By Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press Writer, 27 February 2007)
Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn warns in the preface to a newly republished article that Russia is still struggling with challenges similar to those of the revolutionary turmoil of 1917 that led to the demise of the czarist empire.
The article - which will appear tomorrow in the influential government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta - analyzes the roots of the February revolution 90 years ago that forced the abdication of the last czar, Nicholas II, and helped pave the way for the Bolsheviks.
"It's all the more bitter that a quarter of a century later, some of these conclusions are still applicable to the alarming disorder of today," Solzhenitsyn wrote in a preface to the article first written in the early 1980s.
Solzhenitsyn's wife, Natalya, said it should serve as a reminder to Russia's political class about the dangers stemming from the huge gap between the rich and the poor, and the stark contrast in lifestyle and moral attitudes in the glitzy Russian capital compared to the far less prosperous provinces.
"Alexander Isayevich is deeply worried by this gap," Natalya Solzhenitsyn told a news conference Monday. "It's necessary to pay attention to that. If the government fails to do that, consequences would be grave."
In addition to being printed in the widely read, half-million-circulation newspaper, the article - first published in Russian in a magazine in 1993 - will be also republished as a separate pamphlet under the title "Thoughts On The February Revolution" and sent to officials across Russia, Rossiyskaya Gazeta's editor Vladislav Fronin said.
"People from the (Ear Eastern) Chukotka region to the Kremlin would be able to read it," he said.
... Read the whole story here.
(© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited)
No comments:
Post a Comment