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Article: Traditional prejudices: the anti-Semitism of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.(Columns)
- Article from:
- Reason
- Article date:
- May 1, 2004
- Author:
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CONTROVERSY RAGES AS charges of anti-Semitism dog a beloved cultural icon. No, not Mel Gibson: The man at the center of this debate is the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago, was once a revered symbol of moral resistance to the Soviet state. He probably deserves more credit than any other person for stripping away communism's moral prestige among Western intellectuals.
Exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974, Solzhenitsyn alienated some erstwhile admirers with his Russian nationalism and his antipathy toward Western-style democracy; after his return to Russia 20 years later, the public's reverence soon faded ...