Putin Unveils Huge Solzhenitsyn Statue, Urges Young to Read Him, by Lew Rockwell.

Putin is a huge Solzhenitsyn fan, and made this very clear while the writer was alive by publicly meeting him and praising him, (pictures below), and attending his funeral.

Significantly in his speech, Putin criticized the “totalitarian system which brought suffering and severe trials to millions of people”, and praised Solzhenitsyn for criticizing it and for calling for morality.

Solzhenitsyn was a staunch Christian in his later years and urged his countrymen to look to their traditional religion for moral strength.

Putin:

I remember well all the meetings with Alexander Solzhenitsyn – his wisdom, his prudence and a deep understanding of history.

His heart and soul, his thoughts were filled in equal measure with pain for the Fatherland and unlimited love for it. These feelings fueled all his work. He clearly delineated the true, genuine, people’s Russia and the totalitarian system, which brought suffering and severe trials to millions of people. But even being in exile, Solzhenitsyn would not tolerate anyone to speak evil or scornfully of his homeland, and opposed any manifestations of Russophobia.

A man of integrity, an exceptionally principled person, Solzhenitsyn never wanted to be comfortable. In his writings, in his literary, journalistic and social activity, he openly and consistently defended his views and convictions, and argued the unconditional value of the morals that provide for a healthy society.

Without understanding the country’s past there can be no meaningful movement into the future, Solzhenitsyn believed. Therefore, he directed his efforts toward finding and designating ways to improve Russia, so that the hardest and most dramatic trials that befell our country would never happen again, so that our multiethnic people would live in dignity and justice.

hat-tip Stephen Neil