Alexander Solzhenitsyn—Nobel Prize-winning Russian novelist, historian, and essayist—died today in Moscow at the age of 89. He isn’t my hero because I agree with all he said and wrote about, but because he cared enough about his beliefs he was willing to go the distance. He risked everything for his convictions, pushing against the authoritarianism he felt was abusive and fighting for the freedom to think and write about what he thought was important.
My first introduction to Solzhenitsyn was in 1971 when I saw One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich a fabulous film adapted from his 1962 novel of the same title. I was so intrigued I went back and read the novel. Simple in form, it follows the daily routine of an ordinary guy, a Gulag prisoner during Stalin’s repressive regime. It was revolutionary in that it was the first time a writer had exposed the brutality of those times.
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