When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spoke at Harvard University two decades ago, one of the most unfathomable lines in his widely panned commencement address was his lament about “the forfeited right of people not to know.” This line was buried within his section charging the press with hastiness and superficiality—and the reporters in attendance rushed out to...
Author: Edward E. Ericson (Edward E. Ericson)
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Solzhenitsyn and Democracy
The name of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has fallen on hard times. My many public lectures on this author convince me that his sympathetic admirers are legion, but even these admirers are troubled that the press commentary on him seems to be fairly consistently negative. While almost all of his Western critics allow that Solzhenitsyn is a...