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Old August 13th, 2013 #21
Bardamu
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The delay is Jewish malfeasance of some variety.
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #22
M.N. Dalvez
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Solzhenitsyn was a great writer, but after the Soviet Union fell, he turned his 'guns' (so to speak) on the United States and (more specifically) the criminal gang who run it.

That's the exact moment that he went, in the public eye in the US (and with a lot of help from the American mass-media and the same criminal gang who run it and who largely control public opinion in the US), from a Nobel laureate and a great writer, to a 'horrible crazy anti-Semite'.

If you want the reason why none of his works have been published in the US since the early 90's (maybe even before), exactly that is the reason.

Solzhenitsyn, too, did not understand until it was too late that unlike the USSR, they don't necessarily throw you in jail if they don't like what you say and write; they ignore you, give you the silent treatment, pretend that you don't even exist, throw you into 'the dustbin of history' (ironic considering a Soviet jew, one he knew a very large amount about, Trotsky, invented the phrase!)

And so, in the eyes of many in the US, you don't exist. You become a non-person - not only don't you exist, you never did exist.

It wasn't his fault, but that's true: in America they don't necessarily imprison you, they erase you ... and there's no worse fate that exists for a writer.

If you ask even so-called Solzhenitsyn or Russia experts in American, British, Australian ... academia about what he wrote in his final years, post-USSR, they'd more than likely say something like, 'What? Didn't he stop writing and go back to Russia when Communism there fell? And why would he have kept on writing after the Soviet Union fell?'

And so, 'in the West', Solzhenitsyn the writer died a long time before Solzhenitsyn the person did.

Last edited by M.N. Dalvez; August 13th, 2013 at 07:44 AM.
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #23
Jean West
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Solskeniskyn View Post
Okay, so they did actually get around to translating it in full and printing a limited edition of it? This was the continuation of the same user-based and funded translation-initiative (TOQ initiative initially if I recall correctly) that provided for the chapters above, correct?
If they did, then KM doesn't know about it--only that it's still on hold--which seems doubtful to me.

I tried to post material about Solzhenitsyn's 200 Years Together on a Mensa list, and it was returned, repeatedly for "unacceptable content." Here's one example (I don't know what "whitelisted" means--two other attempts to get Solzhenitsyn items posted were also not allowed through):

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3 minute video-
http://www.comcast.net/data/fan/html...debar&tab=news

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080803/...t_solzhenitsyn

Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89
By Douglas Birch, AP
Aug 3, 2008

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89. Stepan Solzhenitsyn told The Associated Press his father died late Sunday in Moscow, but declined further comment.

Through unflinching accounts of the eight years he spent in the Soviet Gulag, Solzhenitsyn's novels and non-fiction works exposed the secret history of the vast prison system that enslaved millions. The accounts riveted his countrymen and earned him years of bitter exile, but international renown.

(rest of article -- jw)
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #24
Bardamu
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jean West View Post
If they did, then KM doesn't know about it--only that it's still on hold--which seems doubtful to me.

I tried to post material about Solzhenitsyn's 200 Years Together on a Mensa list, and it was returned, repeatedly for "unacceptable content." Here's one example (I don't know what "whitelisted" means--two other attempts to get Solzhenitsyn items posted were also not allowed through):
"Whitelisted" means the same as blacklisted minus the white privilege.
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #25
Jean West
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Solskeniskyn View Post
http://www.vho.org/tr/2004/3/Strauss342-351.html

Review over at vho.org:

The End of the Legends - By Wolfgang Strauss

Alexander Solschenitsyn, "200 Jahre zusammen." Die russisch-jüdische Geschichte 1795-1916 (200 Years Together. The Russian-Jewish History 1795-1916), Herbig, Munich 2002, 560 pp., €34.90; "Zweihundert Jahre zusammen," Die Juden in der Sowjetunion (200 Years Together. The Jews in the Soviet Union), ibidem, 2003, 608 pp., €39.90.

It may be said without hesitation that Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 200 Years Together. The Jews in the Soviet Union is one of the most important books on the Russian Revolution and the early Bolshevik period ever to appear. After publication of this work with its many revelations about the role of the Jews during the Leninist period, the history of the Bolshevik October putsch will have to be rewritten, if not completely, then with substantial additions.

CONTINUED...
I proofed that article for Germar Rudolf's journal, The Revisionist. Of the 30 articles that I proofed for publication, right up to the day before his arrest, this one was my favorite; it's a wonderfully written article that has the highest likelihood of appealing emotionally, as well as educating, more mainstream readers, of any that I've seen.
.
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #26
Solskeniskyn
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M.N. Dalvez View Post
...And so, 'in the West', Solzhenitsyn the writer died a long time before Solzhenitsyn the person did.
Yes, this is true to a great extent, good point. But it is still strange that it is not being picked up by other, smaller publishers and translated in the rest of the world, although the american and english academia are intent on ignoring him.

A stormfront poster says this:

Quote:
There are enough candidates who will translate a work by Solzhenitsyn. The problem is that the Solzhenitsyn family will not commission an English-language translation. Yale University Press was going to have one done, but nothing ever came of it. You are talking about a work that is 1200 pages in length, and could easily be a labor of 2 years time. Without permission to do a job like that, there is hardly a person on this earth who would invest his or time (2 years of one's life, really) in a project like that, without any guarantee of payment in return.
______________________________________________________________

Jean West, yes, and it appears the user snowglobe was mistaking it for the "Gulag archipelago".
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #27
Solskeniskyn
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TOO-commentator "TGD":

Quote:
I have come to the conclusion that 200 Years Together has not been published in a formal English translation because Solzhenitsyn himself and now his estate wanted it that way. The translation that Dr. McD. has used is probably a bootleg and as such could be subject to a copyright law infringement suite. Solzhenitsyn’s trenchant, cogent and essentially unbiased narrative of Jew-Russian interactions if widely disseminated could become an eye-opener for heretofore philosemitic whites. I don’t think that it was Solzhenitsyn’s intention to ignite an antisemitic movement, but rather to enlighten the Russian people on a dismal chapter in their sad history.
Commentator "Andrew" responds:

Quote:
“I have come to the conclusion that 200 Years Together has not been published in a formal English translation because Solzhenitsyn himself and now his estate wanted it that way.”

No doubt your research into the matter is impeccable, but you seem to overlook the attempts that have been made to publish the material in English, and how the large mainly Jewish-run publishing houses havent been very excited about publishing an important work by one of the nobel-prize winning literary giants of our time. I suppose Solzhenitsyn didnt want his work to be published in English because as someone living in America, whose wife and children were citizens, he didnt want to burden Americans with more reading material, as there are already so many books available out there today. Obviously, you have come to the conclusion that authors that spend years and years of their lives writing material usually do not want others to read it, and thus have a strong dislike for it being published, and especially eschew receiving royalties for their work, or their families receiving such. Doubtless, you yourself are a writer, and feel exactly those sentiments.

“The translation that Dr. McD. has used is probably a bootleg and as such could be subject to a copyright law infringement suite.”

You are correct that Solzhenitsyn would be appalled that others greatly value his scholarship, and would spend hundreds of dollars in the attempt to read what he has written. Solzhenitsyn, as someone who lived under the former Soviet Union, had an unshakable respect for laws that would prevent people from reading literature. Our author fully supported the Soviet Union’s banning his books in the past, and thus would fully support their suppression here in the US as well.

Thank you for your conclusions, I look forward to your other important, nay essential, insights into the matter.
"TGD" again:

Quote:
@Sledgehammer and Andrew

Perhaps Andrew can tell us the names of the publishers that rejected 200 Years Together for an English language edition? As to royalty income, I don’t think that Solzhenitsyn was motivated to write for money (after all, he wasn’t Jewish) but by a driving need to expose the beastliness of the Soviet system and those who were responsible for originating and implementing its policies. In his famous Harvard speech of 1978, he chided the USA and the west for its unbridled materialism.

Sledgehammer, neither French nor German are the “lingua Franca” of the world, English is. There are 2 billion+ people who speak English as a 1st or 2nd language or have enough of a grasp to read it. A widely circulated English edition would cause a backlash (orchestrated by you know whom) against Solzhenitsyn’s literary reputation. I don’t think that he wanted that.

His sons are all highly successful and U.S. citizens to boot and either one or all control the copyright. If they wanted to, they could commission a translation and if no publishing house agreed to issue the book, they could send the manuscript to China for printing and binding and then circulate it themselves.
"Andrew":

Quote:
“Perhaps Andrew can tell us the names of the publishers that rejected 200 Years Together for an English language edition?”

This was discussed in a previous blog entry, which should still be available on TOO somewhere. The Solzenitsyn family has publicly announced that “We are actively seeking an English-language publisher”. http://publishingperspectives.com/?p=10523.

“As to royalty income, I don’t think that Solzhenitsyn was motivated to write for money (after all, he wasn’t Jewish)”

Everyone expects or at least hopes to get paid for their work. Plumbers, construction workers, teachers and just about everyone else wish to be get fair compensation for their labors. There is nothing shameful or greedy about that. Dont you expect to be paid for whatever work you do in your occupation? Creative individuals do as well, even the greatest artists like Michaelangelo, creating timeless, priceless works of art, expected compensation. What are authors or other creative people supposed to live on, sawdust?

“but by a driving need to expose the beastliness of the Soviet system and those who were responsible for originating and implementing its policies.”

Okay, so you are telling me that Solzenitsyn had a driving need to expose the Soviet system, but didnt want his work to be published in certain languages? Seems difficult to reconcile that.

“There are 2 billion+ people who speak English as a 1st or 2nd language or have enough of a grasp to read it. A widely circulated English edition would cause a backlash (orchestrated by you know whom) against Solzhenitsyn’s literary reputation. I don’t think that he wanted that.”

So he (and/or his family) was ashamed of his work, embarrassed by what he had spent all those years writing? He was so sensitive of the condemnation of others that he didnt want the truth to come out? Our author, a decorated WW2 veteran, survivor of the camps, willing to pay all of the financial costs and social ostracism of being a dissident during the Soviet era, had grown too timid to truth-tell because some people wouldnt like it, and he wouldnt be as popular?

You also seem to be ignorant of the Jewish ownership stake and influence in the publishing industry. Almost all the major houses are owned by the 5 giant media conglomerates in the US (Viacom, Disney, etc.) which are overwhelmingly managed/owned by people that happen to be ethnically Jewish.

“If they wanted to, they could commission a translation and if no publishing house agreed to issue the book, they could send the manuscript to China for printing and binding and then circulate it themselves.”

Yes, they could. But condemned by the establishment, especially the legion of Jewish critics, there would be no market for it, especially in the intellectual/academic world, where Jews and Jewish influence is so powerful. Is his family supposed to publish his work only to incur a financial loss? Book reviews are a very important factor in the success of any book. You apparently dont recognize that disparaging a work of scholarship as “ANTI-SEMITIC!” is a method of suppression often even more effective than outright banning (banning a book adds interest). Of course, Jewish critics have all kinds of other things to say, that Solzenitsyn is an “anachronism”, his scholarship is shoddy, its poorly-written and boring, and so forth.

The fact remains that most publishing houses would normally jump at the chance to get their hands on an important life work authored by a world-famous, nobel-prize winning individual, especially after he had recently passed away, even if he had just scribbled insane gibberish using a broken crayon on a roll of toilet paper. And 200 Years Together represents Solzenitsyn’s scholarship at its finest.

It is likely that Solzenitsyn’s sons were involved to some degree in his work, and it is unlikely that they are ashamed of their famous father’s scholarship. Solzenitsyn has been attacked for anti-Semitism since the 1970s, and that never stopped him before. I think that his family is immensely and rightly proud of their literary lion father, and wants all of his writings published in all languages. They have no fear of the truth, regardless of who is offended, understand that his work will always be attacked as anti-Semitic, and trust that their father’s reputation will stand on its own merits.

Last edited by Solskeniskyn; August 13th, 2013 at 08:36 AM.
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #28
Solskeniskyn
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Quote:
The “Lost” Books of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

- By Daniel Kalder

When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died at aged 89 in August 2008, his reputation had been in flux for a long time. Even so, while most obituaries acknowledged the power and significance of The Gulag Archipelago and his novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, he was nevertheless dogged to the grave by accusations of anti-Semitism, reactionary nationalism, and even pro-Putinism. And while he may have won the Nobel Prize in 1970, at the time of his death, interest in his later works was low: Indeed, many of these books had not even been translated into English. To many, Solzhenitsyn was an anachronism — a man, a hero even, who had nevertheless outlived his time.


Solzhenitsyn circa 1970

This past October, Harper Perennial tentatively dipped a toe in the water to see if conditions were favorable for a Solzhenitsyn revival by publishing a radically revised version of his great novel In the First Circle. Originally published in English in 1968, In the First Circle is the story of four days in a sharashka, a special prison camp where the scientist-prisoners carry out top secret research on behalf of the Stalinist regime. From this narrow focus, Solzhenitsyn paints a detailed picture of Soviet society in the 1950s. Although the 1968 version was acclaimed as an instant classic, few people at the time knew that they were reading a butchered, politically neutered version of the original text, which had been reduced from 96 chapters to 87. Solzhenitsyn himself had carried out the edit in the hope that he could get his novel past the Soviet censors. He failed, and forever afterward considered the truncated book “ersatz.” Thus in a sense hardly any English speakers have read In the First Circle — even if they think they have.

The restored text has done reasonably well, but it has not set the literary world on fire. And yet what is really strange is how long it took this unexpurgated text to reach an English speaking audience in the first place. Solzhenitsyn set about restoring the novel as soon as he was exiled from the USSR and published it in Russian in 1978. A French edition appeared in the 1980s. But for English speakers? Nothing. Until now, thirty years later, and even so, no British edition of the “real” novel is planned.

Now, the reluctance of British and American publishers to take on certain works in translation is notorious. But even so, Solzhenitsyn is one of the most famous authors of the 20th century, and more than 30 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. In the First Circle is one of his most famous and celebrated works, and even allowing for the perceived Anglo-American reluctance to read translations, this slowness to pick up on the definitive edition of a 20th century classic seems particularly surprising.

Recently, I had an opportunity to speak with the Solzhenitsyn’s son, Ignat, a celebrated concert pianist and conductor and I pursued the mystery of the lost books of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
In the First Circle

D.K.: Why did it take so long for the restored version of In the First Circle to be translated?

I.S.: There’s no satisfactory answer really. English editions have always lagged behind. And you know, some publishers are more intelligent than others…. They say, isn’t this title out already? So perhaps they felt that there was no great rush. But I’m glad that at last the original version of In the First Circle has been translated. Now my friends in the USA, England, and Australia will know what I’m talking about.

D.K.: Are there any alternative, director’s cut versions of Cancer Ward, the Gulag Archipelago or Ivan Denisovich lurking in the shadows?

I.S.: No, this is it.

The Red Wheel

But what of Solzhenitsyn’s later books, yet to be translated into English? Foremost among these is the series he considered the major creative work of his life, The Red Wheel cycle. Solzhenitsyn spent decades writing these four massive volumes, or “knots,” which when taken together constitute a toweringly ambitious reinterpretation of the Russian Revolution. He started writing in the USSR (there are hints about the project-to-come in In the First Circle, written in 1955-58) and continued to labor painstakingly over the project while living in Vermont in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Indeed, according to Ignat Solzhenitsyn it was the need to concentrate on the Red Wheel and not disdain for Yanks or a propensity for reclusiveness that led Solzhenitsyn to disappear into his family home during his years in America.

In truth, The Red Wheel has always had a tortured history, even by the standards of Solzhenitsyn’s books which were variously concealed, banned, burned, microfilmed and smuggled out to the West. This difficult, dense epic was alienating readers even as the first volume August 1914 was circulating in samizdat in the 60s. Solzhenitsyn himself condemned the first English translation, which was carried out by Michael Glenny and a team of graduate students in the early 70s, and received lukewarm reviews in the press. The book reappeared nearly twenty years later in 1989, entirely redone by his favorite translator (H.T. Willetts, who also translated the restored In the First Circle). The second volume, November 1916 followed in 1998. And since then: nothing, in English at least.

I.S.: It remains stuck in limbo.

D.K.: Are there any plans to translate the remaining volumes?

I.S.: (visibly frustrated) No.

The Red Wheel is available in other European languages, such as German, French and Swedish, while Russian speakers can download the while thing for free from the official Solzhenitsyn website which is run by his widow, Natalia. Edward Ericson, a noted Solzhenitsyn scholar who edited the one volume edition of The Gulag Archipelago and co-edited The Solzhenitsyn Reader is pessimistic that The Red Wheel will ever appear in English. “That would take a rich benefactor,” he says. “It’s never going to make a profit. I don’t even think the sales would pay the cost of the translation. And so this great work is lost to us”
The Little Grain Managed to Land Between Two Millstones

Considering the herculean effort it took Solzhenitsyn to write The Red Wheel, there is something a little tragic in the fate of that particular text. On the other hand, the situation with another of Solzhenitsyn’s late works The Little Grain Managed to Land Between Two Millstones is more hopeful.

This memoir of the author’s life in exile was published in Russia in serialized installments between 1998 and 2003. The title is a reference to his status as an irritant (the little grain) to both the USSR as well as the USA (two millstones), where he alienated liberal opinion for good with his notorious 1978 Harvard address in which he railed against Western culture. When this memoir was published in Russia it reignited a feud that had long simmered between Solzhenitsyn and Olga Carlisle, the San Francisco-based granddaughter of the Russian author Leonid Andreyev. In the late 60s Solzhenitsyn had entrusted the manuscript of The Gulag Archipelago to Carlisle, and he blamed her for delays in getting it published in English. After he criticized her in his earlier memoir The Oak and the Calf, Carlisle filed a $2 million lawsuit against Solzhenitsyn for defamation. She lost. When Solzhenitsyn repeated his accusations against her in The Little Grain, she responded by having her own critique of Solzhenitsyn translated and published in Russian.

As usual, the book has been available in German, French etc for years. But English? Nope, even though the memoir covers his years in America. However, according to Ignat Solzhenitsyn, this book is finally going to see print in a two-volume edition to be published at the end of 2010. It will be translated by Judson Rosengrant, who, ironically enough, earlier translated works by Eduard Limonov, a Soviet émigré writer who Solzhenitsyn considered an “insect” and whose books he decried as “pornography.” The publishing house handling the book is the Intercollegial Studies Institute (ISI), a small house specializing in “Conservative Books from Yesterday and Today.”
The Binary Tales

ISI also issued the Solzhenitsyn Reader in 2006, an anthology authorized by the family and which featured translations by Solzhenitsyn’s three sons. Included in that book was one of Solzhenitsyn’s late stories, which are collectively known as “the binary tales.” There are eight of these stories, and all of them were written after Solzhenitsyn returned to his homeland in 1994. Here the news is especially positive:

I.S: A collection of the late stories is forthcoming from a major publisher soon, although I cannot say more now, since the contract is being reviewed as we speak.

200 Years Together

The most controversial of all the “lost Solzhenitsyn” books however is 200 Years Together, a history of relations between Russians and Jews which was published in Russia in two volumes in 2001 and 2002. Editions swiftly followed in every major European language except, as usual, English. Considering that Solzhenitsyn had been dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism since the 1970s (which he dismissed as a slanderous “whispering campaign” whipped up by his enemies among fellow dissidents) he was surely playing with fire by choosing this topic.

Reviewing the Russian edition in the New Republic, the historian Richard Pipes (himself no fan of Solzhenitsyn) absolved the author of all charges of anti-Semitism. Natan Shratansky, a fellow dissident and ex-political prisoner didn’t consider Solzhenitsyn anti-Semitic either, although he was no fan of 200 Years Together which “…will be forgotten. For anti-Semites, his critique lacks bite. For Jews, his arguments are nonsense. For the rest, it is simply boring.” Even so, should 200 Years Together ever appear in English it seems likely that the old accusations will once more rear their head. Even in death, Solzhenitsyn courts controversy.

An American agent connected with the Solzhenitsyn family confirmed for me: “We are actively seeking an English-language publisher. However, we are being selective about this, as all parties are agreed that the work must be brought out by the right house.”

Ignat Solzhenitsyn adds that the book is nevertheless far from publication “as it is a very big translating job.”


Thus it seems that the lost books of Aleksandr Solzhenitysn’s are becoming just a little less lost (although in truth they have only ever been lost to the English speaking audience). If his reputation is not yet enjoying a full renaissance, then there is at least more interest in his late work than there was while he was still alive. But with The Red Wheel trapped in limbo, it seems that literary judgment will always rest primarily on the works from the first part of his career, and in particular Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago. Then again, how many authors can claim to have written books of even a fraction of that magnitude?

Daniel Kalder’s most recent book is Strange Telescopes. Visit him online at www.danielkalder.com
http://publishingperspectives.com/20...-solzhenitsyn/
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #29
M.N. Dalvez
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Quote:
Yes, this is true to a great extent, good point.
Thanks, young man!

Quote:
But it is still strange that it is not being picked up by other, smaller publishers and translated in the rest of the world, although the american and english academia are intent on ignoring him.
The biggest international market for literature and other written material is in the English language - it is, for all intents and purposes, the international language (even though I know there's more native speakers of Mandarin, and I think also Spanish).

And the biggest and most prestigious 'presses' of the English language are in, surprise surprise, the UK and the US. Guess where the rest of the English-reading world gets most of its cues from? Again - the UK and the US.

SF is full of people who talk a good game, but don't really know what they are talking about on a lot of things.

Where did that poster get that claim about the YUP?

I wouldn't trust much that I read there (or anywhere for that matter) until you had some confirmation from other, independent, sources.

Quote:
Without permission to do a job like that, there is hardly a person on this earth who would invest his or time (2 years of one's life, really) in a project like that, without any guarantee of payment in return.
I want to take exception to this as well!

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, that is precisely what happened - people copied down, transcribed, and translated literature without any guarantee of payment in return - and worse, guaranteed imprisonment and lack of livelihood (at best!) if the authorities caught up with them.

It was called samizdat (although you already know that, Solskeniskyn, this is for the benefit of others who might read this), and that is exactly how Solzhenitsyn, and many other Soviet writers, became influential and important to the rest of the world.

No offence to you at all, but most of the stuff you posted completely missed the essential point. It's not for reasons of time spent on/difficulty of translating his books that he became a sideline in his later years, it's for ideological reasons; when he was no longer writing books which were ideologically useful to the 'West', and indeed were sharply critical of it and the criminals who ran it (and still do!)

That's the quality of the discourse of TOO readers??? So much for their claim that they represent some sort of WN intellectual elite ... Although Andrew seems to have his head screwed on the right way - if the rest of them have their heads screwed on at all, they are screwed on against the thread.

Showing off your vocabulary doesn't make you an 'intellectual elite' - it's the quality, the acuity, of your thoughts, and what you can do with them, that does that.

Last edited by M.N. Dalvez; August 13th, 2013 at 09:04 AM.
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #30
Jean West
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Solskeniskyn View Post
TOO-commentator "TGD":
Commentator "Andrew" responds:
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Old August 13th, 2013 #31
Solskeniskyn
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Originally Posted by M.N. Dalvez View Post
SF is full of people who talk a good game, but don't really know what they are talking about on a lot of things.

Where did that poster get that claim about the YUP?

I wouldn't trust much that I read there (or anywhere for that matter) until you had some confirmation from other, independent, sources.
No, I agree, I just threw it in there as another post and take in the speculative discussion.

Quote:
I want to take exception to this as well!

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, that is precisely what happened - people copied down, transcribed, and translated literature without any guarantee of payment in return - and worse, guaranteed imprisonment and lack of livelihood (at best!) if the authorities caught up with them.

It was called samizdat (although you already know that, Solskeniskyn, this is for the benefit of others who might read this), and that is exactly how Solzhenitsyn, and many other Soviet writers, became influential and important to the rest of the world.

No offence to you at all, but most of the stuff you posted completely missed the essential point. It's not for reasons of time spent on/difficulty of translating his books that he became a sideline in his later years, it's for ideological reasons; when he was no longer writing books which were ideologically useful to the 'West', and indeed were sharply critical of it and the criminals who ran it (and still do!)
None taken, and we are really mostly in agreement as to why and how he was ignored and how his name came to sunk into academic oblivion in the last decades of his life.
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #32
Solskeniskyn
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Where are these comments coming from?
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http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net...ears-together/
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #33
Paul Smith
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It was said that "The book is notorious for its failure to find an English publisher. The American Jewish community has invested many hours in preventing 200 Years Together from finding a wider audience. That is a positive indicator that it is worth reading."

I find it hard to believe book would still not be published without jewish influence in this sphere..

I would speculate condition set by various publishers are for that reason not adequate of this work, hence the looking for the "right house" issue.

Other question is how honest would be translation under the control of jewish publisher.

Didnt KMac try to get funds (donations) for its 'samizdat' translation by an independent translator?

By the way, could you list all the languages it was translated to?

I am only aware of French, German and Czech, any Scandinavian language perhaps?
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #34
Jimmy Marr
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I tried to post material about Solzhenitsyn's 200 Years Together on a Mensa list, and it was returned, repeatedly for "unacceptable content."
Mensa learned a valuable lesson from Birdman Bryant back in 2000: Don't let anyone get his foot in the door on the J.Q..

http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Jews...MensaFlap.html
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #35
Solskeniskyn
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Interview with Solzhentisyn about "200 Years Together"
Lydia Chukovskaya


Moscow News
January 1-7, 2003

With his Dvesti let vmeste, or 200 Years Together, a historical study of the relationship between Russians and Jews in Russia, Alexander Solzhenitsyn calls for a better understanding and mutual empathy between the two nationalities. The second volume of the book, spanning the period from the 1917 Revolution to the mid-1970s, is about to hit the bookstalls. Ahead of the publication the author was interviewed by Moskovskiye Novosti editor Viktor Loshak in his house at Troitse-Lykovo

Chukovskay: We had a meeting shortly before Book 1 came out, and it was clear that Book 2 was on the way and could have been brought out literally within weeks. Nonetheless, 18 months have passed since.

Why was the publication delayed for so long?


Solzhenitsyn: It was certainly going to take not weeks, but much longer. Also, Natalya Dmitrievna [the author's wife and the book's editor. - V.L.] decided to double-check all footnotes once again - in a broad context. It required the patience of Job because all source materials had to be checked out and many pages around each quotation read through carefully. That was how she worked. In all, there are 1,500 footnotes. A very large volume. Also, it was not our only work in the past year.

Chukovskay: You have been working on the book for 12 years in all?

Solzhenitsyn: I began in 1990. But there were long breaks. In the 1990s I wrote and published many other things.

Chukovskay: Before passing over to Book 2, I would like to say that our first interview (Burning Question, MN No.25 of June 26, 2001) triggered an extensive response. One typical comment in letters to the editor was this: The appearance of a book on the relationship between Russians and Jews merely fosters anti-Semitism.

Solzhenitsyn: I should say that, indeed, there was plenty of bitterness in early reviews- moreover, judging by the rate of their appearance, you might think that this bitterness was provoked, even before the book was read to the end, by the mere fact that I had taken up the issue at all.

Now, however, looking at the reviews in their entirety, including the latest commentaries, I have good reason to say that many of my readers consider the book useful and interesting. I have received words of gratitude from ordinary Jewish readers: "Thank you for your interesting book - we have learned so much from it." The latest reviews are more reasonable and balanced. Recently, I was happy to read a very profound article by Alexander Eterman, in Vremya iskat, a journal published in Israel.

It is in fact what I was dreaming about - that is to say, my call for mutual understanding was heeded and appreciated. A hand was held out. It isan extremely valuable article, a direct follow-up on my book.

Now, I rule out completely that my book could in any way have incited tension. Quite the contrary, tension has been left behind, and now it is time we calmly discussed the issue.

Chukovskay: In your book, you quote from Dostoevsky's diaries - "the final word on this great tribe has yet to be said." After you finished it, did you get an impression that you had now said this word?

Solzhenitsyn: No, that would be too presumptuous. I do not have this impression. I have said what I could, but the final word, if at all possible, has probably still to be said, not in our lifetime.

Chukovskay: Am I right to understand that in the first chapters of Book 2, devoted to the Revolution, you disclose the Russian noms de guerre of Jewish revolutionaries and count their number in the supreme Revolutionary bodies so as to show in the closing chapters, when talking about the need for nationwide repentance, that Jews have cause not only to resent Soviet power, but also to repent?

Solzhenitsyn: That's right, both.

Chukovskay: You use a specific word characterizing the revolutionary atmosphere at the time; you write that it is not only about the national factor - referring to the Bolsheviks of various nationalities and ethnic groups - but mainly about the non-national. What exactly does this word mean?

Solzhenitsyn: A lack of any national awareness. An international, cosmopolitan worldview.That was the rationale behind Bolshevism for a very long time. It is in fact the absence of any national sentiment. There is just none.

Chukovskay: You have addressed a subject wherein you yourself often invoke such concepts as "spirit," "consciousness," and "historical fate." Were these nebulous notions not an impediment to your well-researched work, based on solid facts?

Solzhenitsyn: Far from being an impediment, they were, to a very large extent, a part of my underlying concept. My book aims to go deep into Jewish thoughts, feelings, ideas, and mentality - that is to say, the realm of the spiritual. In this sense the objective of my book is not, in fact, scientific, but artistic. It is basically an artistic work. Except that there are not two or three characters, but a great many characters, with various, most diverse feelings and ideas. Facts alone are not enough to understand them. Generally speaking, I regard the spirit and consciousness the most substantial elements of history.

Chukovskay: I noticed that in Book 2, an impartial researcher at times gives way to a passionate writer. Say, you write about the Bolsheviks, Stalin, and you bring in plenty of color and hues.

Solzhenitsyn:Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I had to restrain a writer's passion all the time because otherwise I would have broken the rule of using a great number of quotations. My commentaries could not be colored patches: They had to be level, restrained. Language-wise, the book was not entirely free and easy for me, but then I reaped a bountiful psychological harvest.

Chukovskay: It seemed to me that you found the work on Part 2 more exciting.

Solzhenitsyn: More exciting, I agree. It was simply a sense of involvement: After all,this is my era. Book 1 is distant history to which I was not a party. But here I am a party.

Chukovskay: Your book comprises an extensive essay about Alexander Galich, with abundant quotations. Why does he touch you so: After all, Galich as a historical figure is out of proportion to the prominence that you gave him. The impression is that you had some personal dispute with Galich?

Solzhenitsyn: I took Galich as a typical proponent of a whole public trend. Again, this is easier to do not through a general description but through a specific person, a specific poet, with passages from him works. He was included in the book not as a specially selected personage, but as a representative, symbol, and mouthpiece of public sentiments. But of course once I touched on him, I could not but touch on his personal feelings, in particular repentance. As for a personal relationship, we had none.

Chukovskay: Your book left me wondering - in fact, it is the same question that you put to yourself: Can a people be judged as a whole? If a person was born Russian, Jewish, or Kazakh, is he obligated to answer for an entire nation for the rest of his life?

Solzhenitsyn: Although people do judge of nations on the practical level, there is not a sufficient base for this. Such judgment is wrong on a responsible, spiritual level. Nonetheless, people conveniently pass judgment on any categories: "Say, women are so and so." But how can you possibly judge of all women at once? Or: "Old people do this and that," or: "Britons are like that." People just make such judgments pragmatically, but they do not standup to strict, spiritual judgment.

Chukovskay: Book 2, however, left me with the impression that sometimes you are inclined to talk about a nation as a whole.

Solzhenitsyn: No, I do not pass judgment on a nation as a whole. I always distinguish between different social strata of Jews. You can observe this throughout Book 2. There are those who rushed headlong into the Revolution; others, quite the contrary, tried to hold back themselves and their young, and uphold the tradition. Still others were the work-horses of the enormous Soviet military-industrial complex - the plodders. I do not think that I pass judgment on a nation as a whole. I believe that it is not up to humans to make such judgments on a high spiritual level.

Chukovskay: And another thing. I have never before come across any information about a letter criticizing "Jewish bourgeois nationalists" that Stalin's Agitprop was forcing Jews prominent in science and culture to sign as soon as the"doctors' case" was opened. Furthermore, dozens of signatures, as you write, had already been gathered. These included Landau, Dunaevsky, Gilels, Oistrakh, and Marshak. But the leter was never published.

Solzhenitsyn: The letter to Pravda was never published because the doctors' case was going nowhere, and Beria sought to have his own way. It was not published until 1997 - in Istochnik, a bulletin of the RF Presidential Archive.

Chukovskay: You write with great warmth and respect about the seven people who went on Red Square in protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. They got straight into the clutches of the KGB. Four of them were Jewish. Do you believe it was a coincidence, or perhaps those were the most humiliated people? On the other hand, you talk about a special Jewish sensitivity to problems.

Solzhenitsyn: Not a personal grudge, of course. Sensitivity to problems. Jews accounted for a substantial share of the dissident movement. The demonstration by those seven people was organized: They knew each other, and they planned their action in advance. Sensitivity to general problems and the specific situation within the dissident movement, where the demonstration was born, were factors here.

Chukovskay: Two hundred years together. The main premise of your wide-ranging work is this: The truth about the Russians' relationship with the Jews is morally vital. To whom? To history? To both nationalities?

Solzhenitsyn: Any truth is morally vital to a person. Any truth in principle. The Jewish issue had for a long time been off-limits here. Zhabotinsky ridiculed the attitude in a commentary on an article by Osorgin: It is commonly believed that the best service that our Russian friends can render us is not to talk about us at all. Soviet Jews had that feeling for a long time. But after restrictions on Jewish immigration in the Soviet Union or Russia were lifted and an exodus began, now is just the time when the issue can be discussed openly. I for one felt entirely free, unrestrained, and confident that I was not causing Jews any harm socially. So I was stunned by such a large number of harsh, bitter reviews at first.

Chukovskay: What I find amazing is that you read the reviews at all, and follow the general trend.

Solzhenitsyn: I remember the general drift, but not each review in particular, of course.

Chukovskay: A personal question if I may. What was your reaction when all sorts of KGB scum went around calling you "Solzhenitser," ascribing Jewishness to you,among other lies?

Solzhenitsyn: I never lost my cool whatever state police were doing, whatever side of the ideological divide they sought to bring up against me - be it "Solzhenitser" or, quite the contrary, anti-Semitism. I saw that they were simply seething with rage and just did not know what stone to grab to hurl at me.

Chukovskay: You have a formula: a "ring of resentment." Does it refer to a ring of mutual resentment that impedes an objective view of a situation?

Solzhenitsyn: A ring is where it is difficult to find the beginning and the end. A ring, in the sense that it is a closed-circuit line, making research difficult, obscuring the origin of a dispute and its subsequent course.

Chukovskay: After you drew a line at a certain year, the Internet began to spread like wildfire, also leading to a measure of assimilation and dissolution of national identity. New relationships are rapidly evolving in the world. You do not take it upon yourself to appraise them. But what are the main elements of new relationships? How do you see them?

Solzhenitsyn: It was not by accident that I stopped at the exodus through Jewish emigration. I write in concluding remarks that I did not immediately hit on that cut-off line: At first I was planning for my book to span a period from the second integration of Jews in Russia, in 1795, until the mid-1990s. But, first of all, the exodus convinced me that the 200 years had already come to pass, almost to the year: In 1772, the first 100,000 Jews were allowed to integrate into Russia, while the 1970s marked a breakthrough in Jewish emigration. I simply cannot take it up to the mid-1990s, above all, because it is impossible to be a historian of the modern area. Very many processes are occurring behind the scenes: Little or nothing is known about them in the public domain while details about them may not be released until 20 or maybe even 50 years from now. This makes writing seriously and responsibly altogether impossible.

Chukovskay: Impossible for you, or do you believe that it is in principle impossible to be a historian today?

Solzhenitsyn: It is impossible to be a historian of the present day. Also, it is impossible for me: I am nearing the end of my lifetime. Concerning the Internet, I will say frankly that I do not follow it: It is a global phenomenon that will have its consequences. As for assimilation, it is a cultural process. There is no way you can assimilate just by picking up an idea or developing it on the Internet. Assimilation has to be absorbed on the inner level - it is a very complex process. My impression is that thus far it is proceeding haltingly in the world. Nations are still important, have some weight in the world - and they have their own identity, distinct from each other. But internationalization is certainly an ongoing process.How it will evolve, I can no longer tell.

Chukovskay: There is an expectation that the world could become a melting pot, where all nations will assimilate, or else the opposite, the economic divide will lead to even greater isolation.

Solzhenitsyn: I do not think it will become a melting pot. There will be greater isolation, I agree, if only due to the inevitable, and now obvious, glaring gap between the rich and the poor. It so happens that there are two biological species living on Earth. As for nations resisting a fade-out, this is just as well. Mankind should be many-colored - not in the sense of skin color but in the sense of the color spectrum of perception, variegation of cultures. Otherwise it would be boring. If the melting potidea worked, life would become impossibly dull and boring.

Chukovskay: How do you view the intensity of interethnic problems in Russia?

Solzhenitsyn: You see, numerous bloody conflicts were all but preordained by the breakup of a centuries-old empire, especially after decades of ruthless Communist rule. Remember, in the early 1990s the fear of a "Yugoslav scenario" was overriding. With God's grace, it bypassed us. And now it has conveniently been forgotten what an inferno it could have meant. Yes, the Chechendisaster caught up with us, but its root causes lie not in interethnic strife - at any rate, not on the part of the Russians. Altogether different factors and driving forces were at work there. But any interethnic tension,wherever it exists, is of course very dangerous, and everything must bedone to avoid or lessen it.

Chukovskay: Much in your book centers around Israel. Yet you admit that it will never become a motherland for all Jews, neither will the majority of them ever live there. What is it - a tragedy of Israel or a tragedy of the nation?

Solzhenitsyn: In studying Jewish sentiments and views, I naturally also studied Russian Jews who had absorbed Russian culture but left for Israel. I followed them, I cited them, and their life in Israel interests me as a continuation of these Russian-Jewish relations. At the very beginning of the book I specified, though, that I was studying the issue only within the bounds of Russia. As for speculation on what choice the Jews will ultimately make, I believe that it has already been made: There are still Jews in all countries of the world; there are Jews in Russia, although they are not being forcibly held here; there are Jews in the United States, in especially large numbers, and of course there are and there will be Jews in Israel. The Jewish people has a difficult fate. It will never be easy.

Chukovskay: You have finished the book. What are you doing or going to do now that the last word has been written?

Solzhenitsyn: I have some loose ends that need tying up. There is plenty of work to bedone yet. There is something to publish. Some of the publications will, I think, be made after I am gone. I am not embarking on any new projects. I have an ongoing project called Literary Collection. Some of it has been published, and more is forthcoming. I can take it up or leave off at any moment. It does not have a final, definitive form: These are simply comments on particular authors or even particular books. It is just my personal opinion as a writer.

True, at this point Natalya Dmitrievna added that the work was unique inthat it was not just a writer's opinion, nor a critic's opinion, but the opinion of a reader who happens to be a writer. And it is a very frankopinion.

Chukovskay: So, you took a long time to work on the book, and now you have finished it. Do you feel relieved?

Solzhenitsyn: I do. Because it is such a great responsibility. There is responsibility in every page, every footnote, every passage. The thoughts and feelings of Jews, especially of those with Russian culture, especially of high-minded people - I went to them and felt an affinity with them, as one does with characters in a work of fiction. But had I known how much effort this would require, I would never have started it. I had no idea how much hard work it would involve.

Afterword

Possibly no other book by Alexander Solzhenitsyn has provoked such scathing criticism as has his 200 Years Together. Avowed anti-Semites read Book 1 as being sympathetic to the Jews. Liberal critics lambasted the book as nationalistic and stirring jingoist passions.

Considering how high passions were running over Book 1, which chronologically ended with the 1917 Revolution, now that the writer has taken his historical study up to the mid-1970s, it is bound to come underfire from weapons of all calibers.

After two meetings, following publication of each book, with Alexander Isaevich and his wife, Natalya Dmitrievna, who greatly facilitates the author's historical quests, I would like to suggest that Solzhenitsyn's latest work should not be seen as a dry piece of deadwood thrown into the fire of the perennial Russian debate as to who is to blame for every trouble under the sun.

Solzhenitsyn's is a different, above-the-fray vantage point. His is a different objective, totally devoid of writer's vanity: Not really needing our approval, Solzhenitsyn seeks to act as a kind of referee in a protracted historical debate. He does not seem to care even whether thereis still anyone left in the ring or whether Russian Jews, having acquired the Russian language and culture, have fully assimilated. Meanwhile, anti-Semites, for want of something better to do with their narrow minds, will keep harping on their tune, even if not a single Jew, so hateful to them, remains on the planet.

With his book, comprising evaluations of tsars, Khrushchev, Beria, Galich,and Zhabotinsky, and quotations from Lenin to Stalin to Grigory Pomerantsto Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya, Solzhenitsyn stepped into the minefield of the Jewish issue. And he walked across it confidently - maybe because therei s no longer a mine that could blow up his authority.

"Russian Jew. Jew. Russian. How much blood has been spilled, how many tears shed over this; what untold suffering there has been, and at the same time how much joy in spiritual and cultural growth. There were, and there still are, many Jews who bore this brunt - being a Russian Jew and Russian at the same time. Two loves, two passions, two struggles - isn't this too much for one heart?"

Lydia Chukovskaya

Copyright 2003 Moscow News. Reprinted with permission. Read this article on the Moscow News website.
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articl...lzhenitsyn.php

Last edited by Solskeniskyn; August 13th, 2013 at 11:37 AM.
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #36
Jean West
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Marr View Post
Mensa learned a valuable lesson from Birdman Bryant back in 2000: Don't let anyone get his foot in the door on the J.Q..

http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Jews...MensaFlap.html
Yes, that's it. I knew about the Birdman flap but didn't make that connection. I also submitted an article that I wrote for their Bulletin -- not inflammatory -- and it wasn't accepted. A few years ago I didn't renew my membership. We have very special interests; we're literally in a different world than those not on our wavelength, and those others, be they high IQ or low, are remarkably dull.
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