Nobel Laureate and Soviet Dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn Dead

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet dissident writer and Nobel literature prize winner, has died aged 89.

From The Telegraph
By Ben Martin

Alexander Solzhenitsyn speaks in the Duma in 1994 after spending 20 years in exile Photo: AP

His son Stepan confirmed the news last night, saying his father had died from heart failure in Moscow.

The author of several works which defined how the Soviet state will be remembered, he was responsible for bringing the horrors of the Gulag labour camps to light in the West.

Born in Kislovodsk, Russia, in 1918, Solzhenitsyn was raised by his widowed mother against the bleak backdrop of the Russian Civil War. Despite the hardship, she encouraged his literary ability and his interest in mathematics and science and he went on to study at Rostov State University and the Moscow Institute of Philosophy Literature and History before World War II intervened.

After fighting as an artillery commander in the Red Army, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and found guilty of anti-Soviet propaganda after a letter he had written to a friend which criticised Joseph Stalin, was uncovered by authorities.

His imprisonment labour camps informed his writing, much of which was done in secret. In 1968's "Cancer Ward", he recounted the disease which nearly killed him and in two of his most famous works, "The First Circle" and "The Gulag Archipelago", he described in harrowing detail life in the gulag.

In 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, though he did not receive it personally, fearing that if he left his homeland he would not be allowed back in. Four years later, he was expelled, and in the shadow of the Cold War, because a cause celebre in the West for his criticisms of the Soviet state.

But, from his new home in Vermont, he turned his pen to modern Western culture, condemning it as spiritually vacant, weak and decadent.

He returned to Russia in 1994, settling in Moscow, where he continued to write. He has been critical of Russia's post-Soviet evolution, calling for a return to traditional moral values. His other writings included topics such as the Vietnam War and Russian-Jewish relations.

In his final years he completed his transformation from being considered one of the Soviet Union's most dangerous dissident voices, to being hailed as one of Russia's national treasures. Last year, then president Vladimir Putin awarded him the State Prize for humanitarian work and personally visited him to present the award.

"Until the end of my life I can hope that the historical material... collected by me and presented to my readers, enters the consciousness and memory of my fellow countrymen," Solzhenitsyn said.

"Our bitter national experience can yet help us in a possible repeat of unstable social conditions, it will warn us and ward us from destructive break-downs."

Dmitry Medvedev, the new president, last night sent his condolences to the writer's family, a Kremlin spokesperson said.

Solzhenitsyn, is survived by his wife Natalya and sons Stepan, Ignat and Yermolai.