Solzhenitzyn Background

Brother's Judd has Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Speech from a few years ago. He turned 87 yesterday. Excerpt:

It has been pointed out by various thinkers many times (and I quote here the
words of the 20th century Russian philosopher Nikolai Lossky): If a personality
is not directed at values higher than the self, corruption and decay inevitably
take hold. Or, if you will permit me to share a personal observation: We can
only experience true spiritual satisfaction not in seizing, but in refusing to
seize. In other words: in self-limitation.

For those that don't know, Solzhenitsyn famously wrote The Gulag Archipelago, detailing life in the Soviet Union's famous gulags. For this work..

...Solzhenitsyn collected excerpts from documents, oral
testimonies, eyewitness reports, and other material, which all was inflammable.
The detailed account of the network of prison and labor camps - scattered like
islands in a sea - in Stalin's Russia angered the Soviet authorities and
Solzhenitsyn was arrested and charged with treason. In 1974 the author was
exiled from the Soviet Union. (in worthwhile article here).

Solzhenitsyn's other works include Cancer Ward, The Red Wheel, First Circle, & One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

The Boston Globe's 1984 interview with him. Another site. Famous quotes here and here. A BBC report on his 1994 return to Moscow. In 1974, he was arrested for penning this essay- that passed around Moscow's dissident community.

MosNews reported on his meeting with Putin last summer.