174-627: Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian author and Soviet dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union , especially the Gulag prison system. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature". His non-fiction work The Gulag Archipelago "amounted to
348-472: A ceremony and the ensuing media coverage might upset the Soviet Union and damage Swedish-Soviet relations. Instead, Solzhenitsyn received his prize at the 1974 ceremony after he had been expelled from the Soviet Union. In 1973, another manuscript written by Solzhenitsyn was confiscated by the KGB after his friend Elizaveta Voronyanskaya was questioned non-stop for five days until she revealed its location, according to
522-463: A common practice. That technique could be called the "medicalization" of dissidence or psychiatric terror, the now familiar form of repression applied in the Soviet Union to Leonid Plyushch , Pyotr Grigorenko , and many others. Finally, many persons at that time tended to believe that dissidents were abnormal people whose commitment to mental hospitals was quite justified. In the opinion of
696-480: A concern for legality, the rejection of any 'underground' and violent struggle. Throughout the 1960s-1980s, those active in the civil and human rights movement engaged in a variety of activities: The documentation of political repression and rights violations in samizdat (unsanctioned press); individual and collective protest letters and petitions; unsanctioned demonstrations; mutual aid for prisoners of conscience; and, most prominently, civic watch groups appealing to
870-418: A contested issue. Following the death of Patriarch Adrian in 1700, Peter I of Russia ( r. 1682–1725 ) decided against an election of a new patriarch, and drawing on the clergy that came from Ukraine, he appointed Stefan Yavorsky as locum tenens . Peter believed that Russia's resources, including the church, could be used to establish a modern European state and he sought to strengthen
1044-662: A critic of the Moscow Patriarchate who was one of those who briefly gained access to the KGB 's archives in the early 1990s, argued that the Moscow Patriarchate was "practically a subsidiary, a sister company of the KGB". Critics charge that the archives showed the extent of active participation of the top ROC hierarchs in the KGB efforts overseas. George Trofimoff , the highest-ranking US military officer ever indicted for, and convicted of, espionage by
1218-591: A delegation to the king of Poland warning him not to accept Gregory; Jonah also attempted to persuade feudal princes and nobles who resided in Lithuania to continue to side with Orthodoxy, but this attempt failed. The fall of Constantinople and the beginning of autocephaly of the Russian Church contributed to political consolidation in Russia and the development of a new identity based on awareness that Moscow
1392-573: A discussion of its options in dealing with Solzhenitsyn, the members of the Politburo considered his arrest and imprisonment and his expulsion to a capitalist country willing to take him. Guided by KGB chief Yuri Andropov , and following a statement from West German Chancellor Willy Brandt that Solzhenitsyn could live and work freely in West Germany , it was decided to deport the writer directly to that country. On 12 February 1974, Solzhenitsyn
1566-724: A head-on challenge to the Soviet state" and sold tens of millions of copies. Solzhenitsyn was born into a family that defied the Soviet anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and remained devout members of the Russian Orthodox Church . However, he initially lost his faith in Christianity, became an atheist , and embraced Marxism–Leninism . While serving as a captain in the Red Army during World War II , Solzhenitsyn
1740-458: A letter expressing his support for the latter's stance on human rights. In the wake of Carter's letter to Sakharov, the USSR cautioned against attempts "to interfere' in its affairs under "a thought-up pretext of 'defending human rights.'" Because of Carter's open show of support for Soviet dissidents, the KGB was able to link dissent with American imperialism through suggesting that such protest
1914-444: A man who had been to Siberia for "libelous speech" about the leaders, and yet its publication had been officially permitted. In this sense, the publication of Solzhenitsyn's story was an almost unheard of instance of free, unrestrained discussion of politics through literature. However, after Khrushchev had been ousted from power in 1964, the time for such raw, exposing works came to an end. Every time when we speak about Solzhenitsyn as
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#17327800168092088-467: A miner, bricklayer, and foundry foreman. His experiences at Ekibastuz formed the basis for the book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich . One of his fellow political prisoners, Ion Moraru , remembers that Solzhenitsyn spent some of his time at Ekibastuz writing. While there, Solzhenitsyn had a tumor removed. His cancer was not diagnosed at the time. In March 1953, after his sentence ended, Solzhenitsyn
2262-535: A move that caused division among clergy and faithful that persisted until 1946. Between 1917 and 1935, 130,000 Eastern Orthodox priests were arrested. Of these, 95,000 were put to death. Many thousands of victims of persecution became recognized in a special canon of saints known as the " new martyrs and confessors of Russia". When Patriarch Tikhon died in 1925, the Soviet authorities forbade patriarchal election. Patriarchal locum tenens (acting Patriarch) Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky, 1887–1944), going against
2436-647: A multi-candidate election, the Church again attempted to run its own religious candidates in the 1937 elections . However the support of multicandidate elections was retracted several months before the elections were held and in neither 1929 nor 1937 were any candidates of the Orthodox Church elected. After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for
2610-399: A number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.' Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward
2784-531: A poet and the chief editor of the Novy Mir magazine, with the manuscript of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich . It was published in edited form in 1962, with the explicit approval of Nikita Khrushchev , who defended it at the presidium of the Politburo hearing on whether to allow its publication, and added: "There's a Stalinist in each of you; there's even a Stalinist in me. We must root out this evil." The book quickly sold out and became an instant hit. In
2958-488: A psychiatric hospital. According to Soviet dissidents and Western critics, the KGB had routinely sent dissenters to psychiatrists for diagnosing to avoid embarrassing public trials and to discredit dissidence as the product of ill minds. On the grounds that political dissenters in the Soviet Union were psychotic and deluded, they were locked away in psychiatric hospitals and treated with neuroleptics . Confinement of political dissenters in psychiatric institutions had become
3132-661: A series of reforms led to a schism in the Russian Church , as the Old Believers opposed the changes. The ROC currently claims exclusive jurisdiction over the Eastern Orthodox Christians, irrespective of their ethnic background, who reside in the former member republics of the Soviet Union , excluding Georgia . The ROC also created the autonomous Church of Japan and Chinese Orthodox Church . The ROC eparchies in Belarus and Latvia , since
3306-437: A significant role in providing a common language for Soviet dissidents with varying concerns, and became a common cause for social groups in the dissident milieu ranging from activists in the youth subculture to academics such as Andrei Sakharov . Due to the contacts with Western journalists as well as the political focus during détente ( Helsinki Accords ), those active in the human rights movement were among those most visible in
3480-776: A single candidate for the office of bishop or any other high-ranking office, much less a member of the Holy Synod, went through without confirmation by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the KGB ". Professor Nathaniel Davis points out: "If the bishops wished to defend their people and survive in office, they had to collaborate to some degree with the KGB, with the commissioners of the Council for Religious Affairs, and with other party and governmental authorities". Patriarch Alexy II, acknowledged that compromises were made with
3654-462: A statement by Solzhenitsyn to Western reporters on September 6, 1973. According to Solzhenitsyn, "When she returned home, she hanged herself." The Gulag Archipelago was composed from 1958 to 1967, and has sold over thirty million copies in thirty-five languages. It was a three-volume, seven-part work on the Soviet prison camp system, which drew from Solzhenitsyn's experiences and the testimony of 256 former prisoners and Solzhenitsyn's own research into
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#17327800168093828-586: A symptom (e.g. "delusion of reformism"), and a diagnosis (e.g. " sluggish schizophrenia "). In the 1950s, Soviet dissidents started leaking criticism to the West by sending documents and statements to foreign diplomatic missions in Moscow . In the 1960s, Soviet dissidents frequently declared that the rights the government of the Soviet Union denied them were universal rights, possessed by everyone regardless of race, religion and nationality. In August 1969, for instance,
4002-493: A television talk show program. Its eventual format was Solzhenitsyn delivering a 15-minute monologue twice a month; it was discontinued in 1995. Solzhenitsyn became a supporter of Vladimir Putin , who said he shared Solzhenitsyn's critical view towards the Russian Revolution . All of Solzhenitsyn's sons became U.S. citizens. One, Ignat , is a pianist and conductor. Another Solzhenitsyn son, Yermolai, works for
4176-698: A total of 95,259 monks and nuns in Russia. The year 1917 was a major turning point in Russian history, and also the Russian Orthodox Church. In early March 1917 (O.S.), the Tsar was forced to abdicate , the Russian empire began to implode, and the government's direct control of the Church was all but over by August 1917. On 15 August (O.S.), in the Moscow Dormition Cathedral in the Kremlin,
4350-539: A young officer in the Imperial Russian Army of Cossack origin and fellow native of the Caucasus region. The family background of his parents is vividly brought to life in the opening chapters of August 1914 , and in the later Red Wheel novels. In 1918, Taisiya became pregnant with Aleksandr. On 15 June, shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed, Isaakiy was killed in a hunting accident. Aleksandr
4524-566: Is "completely eliminated." Whether talking to about one hundred dissidents in a broadcast to the Soviet people or at the U.S. Embassy, Reagan's agenda was one of freedom to travel, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Andrei Sakharov said, "Everyone wants to have a job, be married, have children, be happy, but dissidents must be prepared to see their lives destroyed and those dear to them hurt. When I look at my situation and my family's situation and that of my country, I realize that things are getting steadily worse." Fellow dissident and one of
4698-759: Is a cover for American espionage in the Soviet Union . The KGB head Yuri Andropov determined, "The need has thus emerged to terminate the actions of Orlov , fellow Helsinki monitor Ginzburg and others once and for all, on the basis of existing law." According to Dmitri Volkogonov and Harold Shukman , it was Andropov who approved the numerous trials of human rights activists such as Andrei Amalrik , Vladimir Bukovsky , Vyacheslav Chornovil , Zviad Gamsakhurdia , Alexander Ginzburg , Natalya Gorbanevskaya , Pyotr Grigorenko , Anatoly Shcharansky , and others: If we accept human rights violations as just "their way" of doing things, then we are all guilty. ( Andrei Sakharov ) Voluntary and involuntary emigration allowed
4872-445: Is described at some length in the fourth part of The Gulag Archipelago ("The Soul and Barbed Wire"). The narrative poem The Trail (written without benefit of pen or paper in prison and camps between 1947 and 1952) and the 28 poems composed in prison, forced-labour camp, and exile also provide crucial material for understanding Solzhenitsyn's intellectual and spiritual odyssey during this period. These "early" works, largely unknown in
5046-644: Is disputed which church has been the legitimate successor to the Russian Orthodox Church that had existed before 1925. In 1927, Metropolitan Eulogius (Georgiyevsky) of Paris broke with the ROCOR (along with Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvensky) of New York, leader of the Russian Metropolia in America). In 1930, after taking part in a prayer service in London in supplication for Christians suffering under
5220-414: Is imbued with a hankering after an idealized Tsarist era when, seemingly, everything was rosy. He sought refuge in a dreamy past, where, he believed, a united Slavic state (the Russian empire) built on Orthodox foundations had provided an ideological alternative to western individualistic liberalism." Solzhenitsyn also repeatedly denounced Tsar Alexis of Russia and Patriarch Nikon of Moscow for causing
5394-538: Is little information about Christianity in sources in the period between 969 and 988. Ten years after seizing power, Grand Prince Vladimir was baptized in 988 and began Christianizing his people upon his return. That year was decreed by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1988 as the date of the Christianization of the country. According to the Chronicle , Vladimir had previously sent envoys to investigate
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5568-501: Is methodically unacceptable in other fields of history", which gives priority to vague hearsay and leads towards selective bias. According to journalist Anne Applebaum , who has made extensive research on the Gulag, The Gulag Archipelago' s rich and varied authorial voice, its unique weaving together of personal testimony, philosophical analysis, and historical investigation, and its unrelenting indictment of Communist ideology made it one of
5742-600: Is nothing that so assists the awakening of omniscience within us as insistent thoughts about one's own transgressions, errors, mistakes. After the difficult cycles of such ponderings over many years, whenever I mentioned the heartlessness of our highest-ranking bureaucrats, the cruelty of our executioners, I remember myself in my Captain's shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: 'So were we any better?'" In February 1945, while serving in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn
5916-523: The 1945 Local Council from the representatives of the clergy and the laity. NKVD demanded "to outline persons who have religious authority among the clergy and believers, and at the same time checked for civic or patriotic work". In the letter sent in September 1944, it was emphasized: "It is important to ensure that the number of nominated candidates is dominated by the agents of the NKBD, capable of holding
6090-675: The Apostle Andrew visited Scythia and Greek colonies along the northern coast of the Black Sea before making his way to Chersonesus in Crimea . According to the legend, Andrew reached the future location of Kiev and foretold the foundation of a great Christian city with many churches. Then, "he came to the [land of the] Slovenians where Novgorod now [stands]" and observed the locals, before eventually arriving in Rome . Despite
6264-691: The Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox churches in Western Europe . Moreover, in the 1929 elections , the Orthodox Church attempted to formulate itself as a full-scale opposition group to the Communist Party, and attempted to run candidates of its own against the Communist candidates. Article 124 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution officially allowed for freedom of religion within the Soviet Union, and along with initial statements of it being
6438-533: The Baltic states prior to their annexation in 1940 and descendants of the eighteenth-century Volga German settlers also formed a movement to leave the Soviet Union. In 1972, the West German government entered an agreement with the Soviet authorities which permitted between 6,000 and 8,000 people to emigrate to West Germany every year for the rest of the decade. As a result, almost 70,000 ethnic Germans had left
6612-684: The Communist bloc that restrict freedom of emigration and other human rights . The eight member countries of the Warsaw Pact signed the Helsinki Final Act in August 1975. The "third basket" of the Act included extensive human rights clauses. When Jimmy Carter entered office in 1976, he broadened his advisory circle to include critics of US–Soviet détente . He voiced support for
6786-602: The Council of Florence , the only Russian prelate present at the council signed the union, which, according to his companion, was only under duress. Metropolitan Isidore left Florence on 6 September 1439 and returned to Moscow on 19 March 1441. The chronicles say that three days after arriving in Moscow, Grand Prince Vasily II arrested Isidore and placed him under supervision in the Chudov Monastery . According to
6960-680: The Crimean Tatars aimed to return to Crimea , the Meskhetian Turks to South Georgia and ethnic Germans aimed to resettle along the Volga River near Saratov . The Crimean Tatar movement takes a prominent place among the movement of deported nations. The Tatars had been refused the right to return to the Crimea, even though the laws justifying their deportation had been overturned. Their first collective letter calling for
7134-616: The Ford Foundation . Founded after the example of the Moscow Helsinki Group and similar watch groups in the Soviet bloc, it also aimed to monitor compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Accords and to provide moral support for those struggling for that objective inside the Soviet bloc. It acted as a conduit for information on repression in the Soviet Union, and lobbied policy-makers in
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7308-602: The Great Schism of 1666 , which Solzhenitsyn said both divided and weakened the Russian Orthodox Church at a time when unity was desperately needed. Solzhenitsyn also attacked both the Tsar and the Patriarch for using excommunication , Siberian exile, imprisonment, torture, and even burning at the stake against the Old Believers , who rejected the liturgical changes which caused the Schism. Solzhenitsyn also argued that
7482-577: The Initiating Group for Defense of Civil Rights in the USSR appealed to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights to defend the human rights being trampled on by Soviet authorities in a number of trials. Some of the major milestones of the dissident movement of the 1960s included: Our history shows that most of the people can be fooled for a very long time. But now all this idiocy is coming into clear contradiction with
7656-715: The Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR (1969) and the Committee on Human Rights in the USSR (1970). The signing of the Helsinki Accords (1975) containing human rights clauses provided rights campaigners with a new hope to use international instruments. This led to the creation of dedicated Helsinki Watch Groups in Moscow ( Moscow Helsinki Group ), Kiev ( Ukrainian Helsinki Group ), Vilnius ( Lithuanian Helsinki Group ), Tbilisi, and Erevan (1976–77). The civil and human rights initiatives played
7830-709: The Local ( Pomestniy ) Council of the ROC, the first such convention since the late 17th century, opened. The council continued its sessions until September 1918 and adopted a number of important reforms, including the restoration of Patriarchate , a decision taken 3 days after the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government in Petrograd on 25 October (O.S.). On 5 November, Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow
8004-492: The Mongol invasions , Metropolitan Maximus moved his seat to Vladimir in 1299, "being unable to tolerate Tatar violence", according to a later chronicle. His successor, Peter , found himself caught in the conflict between the principalities of Tver and Moscow for supremacy in northwest Russia . Peter moved his residence to Moscow in 1325 and became a strong ally of the prince of Moscow. During Peter's tenure in Moscow,
8178-727: The Moscow Helsinki Group chairwoman Lyudmila Alexeyeva , the attribution of a mental illness to a prominent figure who came out with a political declaration or action is the most significant factor in the assessment of psychiatry during the 1960–1980s. At that time Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky wrote A New Mental Illness in the USSR: The Opposition published in French, German, Italian, Spanish and (coauthored with Semyon Gluzman ) A Manual on Psychiatry for Dissidents published in Russian, English, French, Italian, German, Danish. In 1977–1979 and again in 1980–1982,
8352-476: The Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History [ hy ; pl ; ru ; uk ] , which by this time were heavily ideological in scope. As he himself makes clear, he did not question the state ideology or the superiority of the Soviet Union until he was sentenced to time in the camps. During the war, Solzhenitsyn served as the commander of a sound-ranging battery in the Red Army ,
8526-464: The Moscow Patriarchate ( Russian : Московский патриархат , romanized : Moskovskiy patriarkhat ), is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The primate of the ROC is the patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' . The Christianization of Kievan Rus' commenced in 988 with the baptism of Vladimir the Great and his subjects by the clergy of
8700-508: The Russian Orthodox faith; she died in 1944 having never remarried. As early as 1936, Solzhenitsyn began developing the characters and concepts for planned epic work on World War I and the Russian Revolution . This eventually led to the novel August 1914 ; some of the chapters he wrote then still survive. Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics and physics at Rostov State University . At the same time, he took correspondence courses from
8874-462: The Russian SFSR , between 40% and 50% of newborn babies (depending on the region) were baptized. Over 60% of all deceased received Christian funeral services. Beginning in the late 1980s, under Mikhail Gorbachev, the new political and social freedoms resulted in the return of many church buildings to the church, so they could be restored by local parishioners. A pivotal point in the history of
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#17327800168099048-435: The Soviet Union , which had refused to recognise the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate that was de facto headed by Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky . The two churches reconciled on 17 May 2007 ; the ROCOR is now a self-governing part of the Russian Orthodox Church. One of the foundational narratives associated with the history of Orthodoxy in Russia is found in the 12th-century Primary Chronicle , which says that
9222-716: The United States and sentenced to life imprisonment on 27 September 2001, had been "recruited into the service of the KGB" by Igor Susemihl (a.k.a. Zuzemihl), a bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church (subsequently, a high-ranking hierarch—the ROC Metropolitan Iriney of Vienna , who died in July 1999). Konstanin Kharchev, former chairman of the Soviet Council on Religious Affairs, explained: "Not
9396-404: The University of Notre Dame as part of the Kennan Institute 's Solzhenitsyn Initiative. The first, Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches of Exile (1974–1978) , was translated by Peter Constantine and published in October 2018, the second, Book 2: Exile in America (1978–1994) translated by Clare Kitson and Melanie Moore and published in October 2020. Once back in Russia, Solzhenitsyn hosted
9570-432: The Volga Germans to emigrate to West Germany. Soviet Jews were routinely denied permission to emigrate by the authorities of the former Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern bloc . A movement for the right to emigrate formed in the 1960s, which also gave rise to a revival of interest in Jewish culture. The refusenik cause gathered considerable attention in the West. Citizens of German origin who lived in
9744-542: The anthropocentrism of Western culture. Solzhenitsyn also received an honorary degree from the College of the Holy Cross in 1984. On 19 September 1974, Yuri Andropov approved a large-scale operation to discredit Solzhenitsyn and his family and cut his communications with Soviet dissidents . The plan was jointly approved by Vladimir Kryuchkov , Philipp Bobkov , and Grigorenko (heads of First, Second and Fifth KGB Directorates). The residencies in Geneva , London , Paris , Rome and other European cities participated in
9918-415: The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople , which traditionally marks the beginning of the history of Russian Christianity. Starting in the 14th century, Moscow served as the primary residence of the metropolitan , and in 1448, the ROC declared autocephaly . Later, in 1589, the metropolitan of Moscow was elevated to the position of patriarch with the consent of Constantinople. In the mid-17th century,
10092-449: The forced labor camp , he memorized a poem titled " Prussian Nights " about a woman raped to death in East Prussia . In this poem, which describes the gang-rape of a Polish woman whom the Red Army soldiers mistakenly thought to be a German, the first-person narrator comments on the events with sarcasm and refers to the responsibility of official Soviet writers like Ilya Ehrenburg . In The Gulag Archipelago , Solzhenitsyn wrote, "There
10266-452: The non-possessors , who opposed monastic landholding except for the purposes of charity in addition to strong involvement of the church in the affairs of the state, while Joseph of Volotsk (1439–1515) led a movement that supported strong church involvement in the state's affairs. By 1551, the Stoglav Synod addressed the lack of uniformity in existing ecclesial practices. Metropolitan Macarius also collected "all holy books... available in
10440-437: The "Second Culture". Other groups included the Socialists, the movements for socioeconomic rights (especially the independent unions), as well as women's, environmental, and peace movements. Responding to the issue of refuseniks in the Soviet Union, the United States Congress passed the Jackson–Vanik amendment in 1974. The provision in United States federal law intended to affect U.S. trade relations with countries of
10614-404: The "weakness" of the West, Solzhenitsyn always made clear that he admired the political liberty which was one of the enduring strengths of Western democratic societies. In a major speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein on 14 September 1993, Solzhenitsyn implored the West not to "lose sight of its own values, its historically unique stability of civic life under
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#173278001680910788-501: The 1960s was the Ukrainian movement. Its aspiration was to resist the Russification of Ukraine and to insist on equal rights and democratization for the republic. In Lithuania, the national movement of the 1970s was closely linked to the Catholic movement. Several landmark examples of dissenting writers played a significant role for the wider dissident movement. These include the persecutions of Osip Mandelshtam , Boris Pasternak , Mikhail Bulgakov , and Joseph Brodsky , as well as
10962-421: The 1960s, the early years of the Brezhnev stagnation , dissidents in the Soviet Union increasingly turned their attention towards civil and eventually human rights concerns. The fight for civil and human rights focused on issues of freedom of expression , freedom of conscience , freedom to emigrate , punitive psychiatry , and the plight of political prisoners . It was characterized by a new openness of dissent,
11136-411: The 1960s, while Solzhenitsyn was publicly known to be writing Cancer Ward , he was simultaneously writing The Gulag Archipelago . During Khrushchev's tenure, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was studied in schools in the Soviet Union, as were three more short works of Solzhenitsyn's, including his short story " Matryona's Home ", published in 1963. These would be the last of his works published in
11310-421: The Bolsheviks trying to take control of the monastery's premises and the believers, Patriarch Tikhon issued a proclamation that anathematised the perpetrators of such acts. The church was caught in the crossfire of the Russian Civil War that began later in 1918, and church leadership, despite their attempts to be politically neutral (from the autumn of 1918), as well as the clergy generally were perceived by
11484-586: The Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated materialism and atheism in schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed. Orthodox clergy and active believers were treated by the Soviet law-enforcement apparatus as anti-revolutionary elements and were habitually subjected to formal prosecutions on political charges, arrests, exiles, imprisonment in camps , and later could also be incarcerated in mental hospitals . However,
11658-559: The Crimea", thus legitimizing our banishment from our home country and liquidating us as a nation. Since 1959 more than two hundred of the most active and courageous representatives have been sentenced to terms of up to seven years although they had always acted within the limits of the Soviet Constitution. – Appeal by Crimean Tatars to World Public Opinion, Chronicle of Current Events Issue No 2 (30 June 1968) Several national or ethnic groups who had been deported under Stalin formed movements to return to their homelands. In particular,
11832-405: The Czech dissident movement known as Charter 77 , and publicly expressed concern about the Soviet treatment of dissidents Aleksandr Ginzburg and Andrei Sakharov . In 1977, Carter received prominent dissident Vladimir Bukovsky in the White House, asserting that he did not intend "to be timid" in his support of human rights. In 1979, the US Helsinki Watch Committee was established, funded by
12006-418: The Dechristianization of Russian culture, which he considered most responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution , began in 1666, became much worse during the Reign of Tsar Peter the Great , and accelerated into an epidemic during The Enlightenment , the Romantic era , and the Silver Age . Expanding upon this theme, Solzhenitsyn once declared, "Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing
12180-433: The First Circle in 1968, August 1914 in 1971 and The Gulag Archipelago —which outraged the Soviet authorities—in 1973. In 1974, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and flown to West Germany . He moved to the United States with his family in 1976 and continued to write there. His Soviet citizenship was restored in 1990. He returned to Russia four years later and remained there until his death in 2008. Solzhenitsyn
12354-407: The Helsinki Agreement with the same zeal and in the same way as formerly the outspoken legalists expected the Soviet authorities to adhere strictly to the letter of their constitution. Dissident Russian and East European intellectuals who urged compliance with the Helsinki accords have been subjected to official repression. According to Soviet dissident Leonid Plyushch , Moscow has taken advantage of
12528-653: The Helsinki security pact to improve its economy while increasing the suppression of political dissenters. 50 members of Soviet Helsinki Groups were imprisoned. Cases of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union were divulged by Amnesty International in 1975 and by The Committee for the Defense of Soviet Political Prisoners in 1975 and 1976. US President Jimmy Carter in his inaugural address on 20 January 1977 announced that human rights would be central to foreign policy during his administration. In February, Carter sent Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov
12702-463: The Jewish and German dissident movements, many in the independent Pentecostal movement pursued emigration. The national movements included the Russian national dissidents as well as dissident movements from Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, and Armenia. Among the nations that lived in their own territories with the status of republics within the Soviet Union, the first movement to emerge in
12876-575: The KGB reacted to the Helsinki Watch Groups in Moscow, Kiev, Vilnius, Tbilisi, and Erevan by launching large-scale arrests and sentencing its members to in prison, labor camp, internal exile and psychiatric imprisonment. From the members of the Moscow Helsinki Group , 1978 saw its members Yuri Orlov , Vladimir Slepak and Anatoly Shcharansky sentenced to lengthy labor camp terms and internal exile for " anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" and treason. Another wave of arrests followed in
13050-474: The Moscow office of McKinsey & Company , a management consultancy firm, where he is a senior partner. Solzhenitsyn died of heart failure near Moscow on 3 August 2008, at the age of 89. A burial service was held at Donskoy Monastery , Moscow, on 6 August 2008. He was buried the same day in the monastery, in a spot he had chosen. Russian and world leaders paid tribute to Solzhenitsyn following his death. Defunct According to William Harrison, Solzhenitsyn
13224-489: The Russian Church. Jonah's policy as metropolitan was to recover the areas lost to the Uniate church. He was able to include Lithuania and Kiev to his title, but not Galicia . Lithuania was separated from his jurisdiction in 1458, and the influence of Catholicism increased in those regions. As soon as Vasily II heard about the ordination of Gregory as metropolitan of the newly established metropolis of Kiev , he sent
13398-566: The Russian Orthodox Church came in 1988, the millennial anniversary of the Christianization of Kievan Rus' . Throughout the summer of that year, major government-supported celebrations took place in Moscow and other cities; many older churches and some monasteries were reopened. An implicit ban on religious propaganda on state TV was finally lifted. For the first time in the history of the Soviet Union , people could watch live transmissions of church services on television. Gleb Yakunin ,
13572-468: The Russian land" and completed the Grand Menaion , which was influential in shaping the narrative tradition of Russian Orthodoxy. In 1589, during the reign of Feodor I and under the direction of Boris Godunov , the metropolitan of Moscow, Job , was consecrated as the first Russian patriarch with the blessing of Jeremias II of Constantinople . In the decree establishing the patriarchate ,
13746-497: The Soviet Criminal Code and the choice between exile abroad (with revocation of their Soviet citizenship), the mental hospital , or the labor camp . Anti-Soviet political behavior, in particular, being outspoken in opposition to the authorities, demonstrating for reform, writing books critical of the USSR were defined in some persons as being simultaneously a criminal act (e.g. violation of Articles 70 or 190-1),
13920-547: The Soviet Union and his experiences. In 1962, he published his first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich —an account of Stalinist repressions—with approval from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev . His last work to be published in the Soviet Union was Matryona's Place in 1963. Following the removal of Khrushchev from power, the Soviet authorities attempted to discourage Solzhenitsyn from continuing to write. He continued to work on further novels and their publication in other countries including Cancer Ward in 1966, In
14094-491: The Soviet Union by the mid-1980s. Similarly, Armenians achieved a small emigration. By the mid-1980s, over 15,000 Armenians had emigrated. Russia has changed in the recent years largely in the social, economic, and political spheres. Migrations from Russian have become less forceful and primarily a result of free will that is expressed by the individual. The religious movements in the USSR included Russian Orthodox , Catholic , and Protestant movements. They focused on
14268-474: The Soviet Union until 1990. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich brought the Soviet system of prison labour to the attention of the West. It caused as much of a sensation in the Soviet Union as it did in the West—not only by its striking realism and candour, but also because it was the first major piece of Soviet literature since the 1920s on a politically charged theme, written by a non-party member, indeed
14442-533: The Soviet authorities as a "counter-revolutionary" force and thus subject to suppression and eventual liquidation. In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed. The Soviet Union, formally created in December 1922, was the first state to have elimination of religion as an ideological objective espoused by the country's ruling political party. Toward that end,
14616-433: The Soviet policy vis-a-vis organised religion vacillated over time between, on the one hand, a utopian determination to substitute secular rationalism for what they considered to be an outmoded "superstitious" worldview and, on the other, pragmatic acceptance of the tenaciousness of religious faith and institutions. In any case, religious beliefs and practices did persist, not only in the domestic and private spheres but also in
14790-542: The Soviets, Evlogy was removed from office by Sergius and replaced. Most of Evlogy's parishes in Western Europe remained loyal to him; Evlogy then petitioned Ecumenical Patriarch Photius II to be received under his canonical care and was received in 1931, making a number of parishes of Russian Orthodox Christians outside Russia, especially in Western Europe an Exarchate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as
14964-673: The Ukrainian Helsinki Group had 37 members, of whom 22 were in prison camps, 5 were in exile, 6 emigrated to the West, 3 were released and were living in Ukraine, 1 ( Mykhailo Melnyk ) committed suicide. The Lithuanian Helsinki Group saw its members subjected to two waves of imprisonment for anti-Soviet activities and "organization of religious processions": Viktoras Petkus was sentenced in 1978; others followed in 1980–1981: Algirdas Statkevičius, Vytautas Skuodys, Mečislovas Jurevičius, and Vytautas Vaičiūnas. Starting in
15138-612: The United States to "facilitate your work, and to accommodate you and your family". He stayed at the Hoover Tower , part of the Hoover Institution , before moving to Cavendish , Vermont, in 1976. He was given an honorary literary degree from Harvard University in 1978 and on 8 June 1978 he gave a commencement address, condemning, among other things, the press, the lack of spirituality and traditional values, and
15312-459: The United States to continue to press the issue with Soviet leaders. US President Ronald Reagan attributed to the view that the "brutal treatment of Soviet dissidents was due to bureaucratic inertia." On 14 November 1988, he held a meeting with Andrei Sakharov at the White House and said that Soviet human rights abuses are impeding progress and would continue to do so until the problem
15486-535: The West (next to refuseniks ). In 1944 THE WHOLE OF OUR PEOPLE was slanderously accused of betraying the Soviet Мotherland and was forcibly deported from the Crimea. [...] [O]n 5 September 1967, there appeared a Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet which cleared us of the charge of treason but described us not as Crimean Tatars but as "citizens of Tatar nationality formerly resident in
15660-596: The West diminished as he became increasingly isolated and critical of Western individualism. KGB and CPSU experts finally concluded that he alienated American listeners by his "reactionary views and intransigent criticism of the US way of life", so no further active measures would be required. Over the next 17 years, Solzhenitsyn worked on his dramatized history of the Russian Revolution of 1917 , The Red Wheel . By 1992, four sections had been completed and he had also written several shorter works. Solzhenitsyn's warnings about
15834-478: The West, were published for the first time in Russian in 1999 and excerpted in English in 2006. On 7 April 1940, while at the university, Solzhenitsyn married Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaya. They had just over a year of married life before he went into the army, then to the Gulag. They divorced in 1952, a year before his release because the wives of Gulag prisoners faced the loss of work or residence permits. After
16008-754: The XXXIV Apostolic canon , which led to a split with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia abroad and the Russian True Orthodox Church (Russian Catacomb Church) within the Soviet Union, as they allegedly remained faithful to the Canons of the Apostles, declaring the part of the church led by Metropolitan Sergius schism , sometimes coined Sergianism . Due to this canonical disagreement it
16182-523: The absence of clergy, and defining their own sacred places and forms of piety. Also apparent was the proliferation of what the Orthodox establishment branded as "sectarianism", including both non-Eastern Orthodox Christian denominations, notably Baptists , and various forms of popular Orthodoxy and mysticism. In 1914, there were 55,173 Russian Orthodox churches and 29,593 chapels , 112,629 priests and deacons , 550 monasteries and 475 convents with
16356-548: The authorities to rid themselves of many political active intellectuals including writers Valentin Turchin , Georgi Vladimov , Vladimir Voinovich , Lev Kopelev , Vladimir Maximov, Naum Korzhavin , Vasily Aksyonov , psychiatrist Marina Voikhanskaya and others. A Chronicle of Current Events covered 424 political trials, in which 753 people were convicted, and no one of the accused was acquitted; in addition, 164 people were declared insane and sent to compulsory treatment in
16530-546: The authority of the monarch. He was also inspired by church–state relations in the West and therefore brought the institutional structure of the church in line with other ministries. Theophan Prokopovich wrote Peter's Spiritual Regulation , which no longer legally recognized the separation of the church and the state. Peter replaced the patriarch with a council known as the Most Holy Synod in 1721, which consisted of appointed bishops, monks, and priests. The church
16704-422: The beginning of autocephaly of the Russian Church. Although not all Russian clergy supported Jonah, the move was subsequently justified in the Russian point of view following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which was interpreted as divine punishment. While it is possible that the failure to obtain the blessing from Constantinople was not intentional, nevertheless, this marked the beginning of independence of
16878-701: The behavior of the ruling group internally. Attempts from within are suppressed through repression, necessitating international human rights organizations and foreign governments to exert external pressure for change. Russian Orthodox Church Autocephaly recognized by some autocephalous Churches de jure : Autocephaly and canonicity recognized by Constantinople and 3 other autocephalous Churches: Spiritual independence recognized by Georgian Orthodox Church: Semi-Autonomous: The Russian Orthodox Church ( ROC ; Russian : Русская православная церковь , romanized : Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov' , abbreviated as РПЦ), alternatively legally known as
17052-435: The book was essentially a "literary and political work", and "never claimed to place the camps in a historical or social-scientific quantitative perspective" but that in the case of qualitative estimates, Solzhenitsyn gave his high estimate as he wanted to challenge the Soviet authorities to show that "the scale of the camps was less than this." Historian J. Arch Getty wrote of Solzhenitsyn's methodology that "such documentation
17226-522: The character of Lev Rubin in his book The First Circle , published in a self-censored or "distorted" version in the West in 1968 (an English translation of the full version was eventually published by Harper Perennial in October 2009). In 1950, Solzhenitsyn was sent to a "Special Camp" for political prisoners. During his imprisonment at the camp in the town of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan , he worked as
17400-400: The chroniclers of the grand prince, "the princes, the boyars and many others — and especially the Russian bishops — remained silent, slumbered and fell asleep" until "the divinely wise, Christ-loving sovereign, Grand Prince Vasily Vasilyevich shamed Isidor and called him not his pastor and teacher, but a wicked and baneful wolf". Despite the chronicles calling him a heretical apostate , Isidore
17574-694: The collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1969, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Union of Writers. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature . He could not receive the prize personally in Stockholm at that time, since he was afraid he would not be let back into the Soviet Union. Instead, it was suggested he should receive the prize in a special ceremony at the Swedish embassy in Moscow. The Swedish government refused to accept this solution because such
17748-474: The crimes of the Vlasovites and Bandera gangs ." According to the editorial, Solzhenitsyn was "choking with pathological hatred for the country where he was born and grew up, for the socialist system, and for Soviet people." During this period, he was sheltered by the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich , who suffered considerably for his support of Solzhenitsyn and was eventually forced into exile himself. In
17922-479: The dangers of Communist aggression and the weakening of the moral fiber of the West were generally well received in Western conservative circles (e.g. Ford administration staffers Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld advocated on Solzhenitsyn's behalf for him to speak directly to President Gerald Ford about the Soviet threat), prior to and alongside the tougher foreign policy pursued by US President Ronald Reagan . At
18096-523: The different faiths. After receiving glowing reports about Constantinople, he captured Chersonesus in Crimea and demanded that the sister of Basil II be sent there. The marriage took place on the condition that Vladimir would be also baptized there. Vladimir had lent considerable military support to the Byzantine emperor and may have besieged the city due to it having sided with the rebellious Bardas Phokas . After Kiev lost its significance following
18270-460: The dissident movement intending to better fulfil his calling as a priest, there was a spiritual link between Men and many of the dissidents. For some of them he was a friend; for others, a godfather; for many (including Yakunin ), a spiritual father. According to Metropolitan Vladimir , by 1988 the number of functioning churches in the Soviet Union had fallen to 6,893 and the number of functioning convents and monasteries to just 21. In 1987 in
18444-973: The early 1980s: Malva Landa, Viktor Nekipelov , Leonard Ternovsky, Feliks Serebrov, Tatiana Osipova, Anatoly Marchenko , and Ivan Kovalev. Soviet authorities offered some activists the "opportunity" to emigrate. Lyudmila Alexeyeva emigrated in 1977. The Moscow Helsinki Group founding members Mikhail Bernshtam, Alexander Korchak, Vitaly Rubin also emigrated, and Pyotr Grigorenko was stripped of his Soviet citizenship while seeking medical treatment abroad. The Ukrainian Helsinki Group suffered severe repressions throughout 1977–1982, with at times multiple labor camp sentences handed out to Mykola Rudenko , Oleksy Tykhy, Myroslav Marynovych , Mykola Matusevych, Levko Lukyanenko , Oles Berdnyk , Mykola Horbal , Zinovy Krasivsky, Vitaly Kalynychenko, Vyacheslav Chornovil , Olha Heyko, Vasyl Stus , Oksana Meshko, Ivan Sokulsky, Ivan Kandyba , Petro Rozumny, Vasyl Striltsiv, Yaroslav Lesiv , Vasyl Sichko, Yuri Lytvyn, Petro Sichko. By 1983
18618-430: The early Soviet Union, non-conforming academics were exiled via so-called Philosophers' ships . Later, figures such as cultural theorist Grigori Pomerants were among active dissidents. Other intersections of cultural and literary nonconformism with dissidents include the underground poetry and the wide field of Soviet Nonconformist Art , such as the painters of the underground Lianozovo group, and artists active in
18792-715: The effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'" In an interview with Joseph Pearce , however, Solzhenitsyn commented, "[The Old Believers were] treated amazingly unjustly because some very insignificant, trifling differences in ritual which were promoted with poor judgment and without much sound basis. Because of these small differences, they were persecuted in very many cruel ways, they were suppressed, they were exiled. From
18966-410: The end of his internal exile, they remarried in 1957, divorcing a second time in 1972. Reshetovskaya wrote negatively of Solzhenitsyn in her memoirs, accusing him of having affairs, and said of the relationship that "[Solzhenitsyn]'s despotism ... would crush my independence and would not permit my personality to develop." In her 1974 memoir, Sanya: My Life with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , she wrote that she
19140-467: The enemy of the Soviet regime, this just happens to coincide with some important [international] events and we postpone the decision. — Andrei Kirilenko , a Politburo member Solzhenitsyn made an unsuccessful attempt, with the help of Tvardovsky, to have his novel Cancer Ward legally published in the Soviet Union. This required the approval of the Union of Writers . Though some there appreciated it,
19314-534: The establishment of a strong presidential republic balanced by vigorous institutions of local self-government. The latter would remain his major political theme. Solzhenitsyn also published eight two-part short stories, a series of contemplative "miniatures" or prose poems, and a literary memoir on his years in the West The Grain Between the Millstones , translated and released as two works by
19488-436: The fact that we have some level of openness. ( Vladimir Voinovich ) The heyday of the dissenters as a presence in the Western public life was the 1970s. The Helsinki Accords inspired dissidents in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia , Hungary , and Poland to openly protest human rights failures by their own governments. The Soviet dissidents demanded that the Soviet authorities implement their own commitments proceeding from
19662-577: The fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, enjoy various degrees of self-government, albeit short of the status of formal ecclesiastical autonomy. The ROC should also not be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (or ROCOR, also known as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad), headquartered in the United States . The ROCOR was instituted in the 1920s by Russian communities outside
19836-557: The foundation for the Dormition Cathedral was laid and Peter was buried there. By choosing to reside and be buried in Moscow, Peter had designated Moscow as the future center of the Russian Orthodox Church. Peter was succeeded by Theognostus , who, like his predecessor, pursued policies that supported the rise of the Moscow principality. During the first four years of his tenure, the Dormition Cathedral
20010-539: The founders of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alexeyeva wrote: What would happen if citizens acted on the assumption that they have rights? If one person did it, he would become a martyr; if two people did it, they would be labeled an enemy organization; if thousands of people did it, the state would have to become less oppressive. According to Soviet dissident Victor Davydoff, totalitarian systems lack mechanisms to change
20184-613: The founding of the Chronicle of Current Events in April 1968. The unofficial newsletter reported violations of civil rights and judicial procedure by the Soviet government and responses to those violations by citizens across the USSR. During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the rights-based strategy of dissent incorporated human rights ideas and rhetoric. The movement included figures such as Valery Chalidze , Yuri Orlov , and Lyudmila Alexeyeva . Special groups were founded such as
20358-602: The freedom to practice their faith and resistance to interference by the state in their internal affairs. The Russian Orthodox movement remained relatively small. The Catholic movement in Lithuania was part of the larger Lithuanian national movement. Protestant groups which opposed the anti-religious state directives included the Baptists , the Seventh-day Adventists , and the Pentecostals . Similar to
20532-469: The general population, large numbers remained religious. Some Orthodox believers and even priests took part in the dissident movement and became prisoners of conscience . The Orthodox priests Gleb Yakunin , Sergiy Zheludkov and others spent years in Soviet prisons and exile for their efforts in defending freedom of worship. Among the prominent figures of that time were Dmitri Dudko and Aleksandr Men . Although he tried to keep away from practical work of
20706-493: The history of the Russian penal system. It discusses the system's origins from the founding of the Communist regime, with Vladimir Lenin having responsibility, detailing interrogation procedures, prisoner transports, prison camp culture, prisoner uprisings and revolts such as the Kengir uprising , and the practice of internal exile . Soviet and Communist studies historian and archival researcher Stephen G. Wheatcroft wrote that
20880-525: The international community. Repercussions for these activities ranged from dismissal from work and studies to many years of imprisonment in labor camps and being subjected to punitive psychiatry . Dissidents active in the movement in the 1960s introduced a "legalist" approach of avoiding moral and political commentary in favor of close attention to legal and procedural issues. Following several landmark political trials, coverage of arrests and trials in samizdat became more common. This activity eventually led to
21054-412: The jurisdiction of Constantinople to that of Moscow. The handover brought millions of faithful and half a dozen dioceses under the ultimate administrative care of the patriarch of Moscow, and later of the Holy Synod of Russia, leading to a significant Ukrainian presence in the Russian Church, which continued well into the 18th century. The exact terms and conditions of the handover of the metropolis remains
21228-591: The lack of historical evidence supporting this narrative, modern church historians in Russia have often incorporated this tale into their studies. In the 10th century, Christianity began to take root in Kievan Rus' . Towards the end of the reign of Igor , Christians are mentioned among the Varangians . In the text about the treaty with the Byzantine Empire in 944–945, the chronicler also records
21402-578: The last Byzantine emperor, and the defeat of the Tatars, helped to solidify this view. By the turn of the 16th century, the consolidation of Orthodoxy in Russia continued as Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod created the first complete manuscript translation of the Bible into Church Slavonic in 1499, known as Gennady's Bible . At the same time, two movements within the Russian Church had emerged with differing ecclesial visions. Nilus of Sora (1433–1508) led
21576-463: The line that we need at the Council". A new and widespread persecution of the church was subsequently instituted under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. A second round of repression, harassment and church closures took place between 1959 and 1964 when Nikita Khrushchev was in office. The number of Orthodox churches fell from around 22,000 in 1959 to around 8,000 in 1965; priests, monks and faithful were killed or imprisoned and
21750-416: The local population solves most of its problems on its own, not waiting for the decisions of higher authorities.'" Solzhenitsyn's patriotism was inward-looking. He called for Russia to "renounce all mad fantasies of foreign conquest and begin the peaceful long, long long period of recuperation," as he put it in a 1979 BBC interview with Latvian-born BBC journalist Janis Sapiets. In 1990, his Soviet citizenship
21924-556: The moral foundations of the Soviet regime. While serving as an artillery officer in East Prussia , Solzhenitsyn witnessed war crimes against local German civilians by Soviet military personnel. Of the atrocities, Solzhenitsyn wrote: "You know very well that we've come to Germany to take our revenge" for Nazi atrocities committed in the Soviet Union . The noncombatants and the elderly were robbed of their meager possessions and women and girls were gang-raped . A few years later, in
22098-665: The most influential books of the 20th century. On 8 August 1971, the KGB allegedly attempted to assassinate Solzhenitsyn using an unknown chemical agent (most likely ricin ) with an experimental gel-based delivery method. The attempt left him seriously ill, but he survived. Although The Gulag Archipelago was not published in the Soviet Union, it was extensively criticized by the Party-controlled Soviet press. An editorial in Pravda on 14 January 1974 accused Solzhenitsyn of supporting "Hitlerites" and making "excuses for
22272-419: The most well-known of his writings, The Gulag Archipelago . The seizing of his novel manuscript first made him desperate and frightened, but gradually he realized that it had set him free from the pretenses and trappings of being an "officially acclaimed" writer, a status which had become familiar but which was becoming increasingly irrelevant. After the KGB had confiscated Solzhenitsyn's materials in Moscow, in
22446-465: The number of functioning monasteries was reduced to less than twenty. Subsequent to Khrushchev's ousting, the Church and the government remained on unfriendly terms until 1988. In practice, the most important aspect of this conflict was that openly religious people could not join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , which meant that they could not hold any political office. However, among
22620-715: The oath-taking ceremony that took place in Constantinople for Igor's envoys as well as the equivalent ceremony that took place in Kiev. Igor's wife Olga was baptized sometime in the mid-10th century; however, scholars have disputed the exact year and place of her conversion, with dates ranging from 946 to 960. Most scholars tend to agree that she was baptized in Constantinople, though some argue that her conversion took place in Kiev. Olga's son Sviatoslav opposed conversion, despite persuasion from his mother, and there
22794-588: The operation. Among other active measures, at least three StB agents became translators and secretaries of Solzhenitsyn (one of them translated the poem Prussian Nights ), keeping the KGB informed regarding all contacts by Solzhenitsyn. The KGB also sponsored a series of hostile books about Solzhenitsyn, most notably a "memoir published under the name of his first wife, Natalia Reshetovskaya, but probably mostly composed by Service A", according to historian Christopher Andrew . Andropov also gave an order to create "an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between Pauk and
22968-429: The opinion of a major part of the church's parishes, in 1927 issued a declaration accepting the Soviet authority over the church as legitimate, pledging the church's cooperation with the government and condemning political dissent within the church. By this declaration, Sergius granted himself authority that he, being a deputy of imprisoned Metropolitan Peter and acting against his will, had no right to assume according to
23142-532: The patriarch of "defiling the faith" and "pouring wrathful fury upon the Russian land". The result was a schism , with those who resisted the new practices being known as the Old Believers . In the aftermath of the Treaty of Pereyaslav , the Ottomans , supposedly acting on behalf of the Russian regent Sophia Alekseyevna , pressured the patriarch of Constantinople into transferring the metropolis of Kiev from
23316-481: The peasantry, there was widespread interest in spiritual-ethical literature and non-conformist moral-spiritual movements, an upsurge in pilgrimage and other devotions to sacred spaces and objects (especially icons), persistent beliefs in the presence and power of the supernatural (apparitions, possession, walking-dead, demons, spirits, miracles and magic), the renewed vitality of local "ecclesial communities" actively shaping their own ritual and spiritual lives, sometimes in
23490-533: The people around him" by feeding him rumors that the people around him were KGB agents, and deceiving him at every opportunity. Among other things, he continually received envelopes with photographs of car crashes, brain surgery and other disturbing imagery. After the KGB harassment in Zürich , Solzhenitsyn settled in Cavendish , Vermont, and reduced communications with others. His influence and moral authority for
23664-629: The perspective of historical justice, I sympathise with them and I am on their side, but this in no way ties in with what I have just said about the fact that religion in order to keep up with mankind must adapt its forms toward modern culture. In other words, do I agree with the Old Believers that religion should freeze and not move at all? Not at all!" Soviet dissidents Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term dissident
23838-427: The priestly families of their diocese. In 1909, a volume of essays appeared under the title Vekhi ("Milestones" or "Landmarks"), authored by a group of leading left-wing intellectuals, including Sergei Bulgakov , Peter Struve and former Marxists . It is possible to see a similarly renewed vigor and variety in religious life and spirituality among the lower classes, especially after the upheavals of 1905. Among
24012-674: The publication of The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn . In literary world, there were dozens of literati who participated in dissident movement, including Vasily Aksyonov , Yury Aikhenvald, Arkadiy Belinkov , Leonid Borodin , Joseph Brodsky , Yuli Daniel , David Dar, Aleksandr Galich , Anatoly Gladilin , Yuliy Kim , Lev Kopelev , Naum Korzhavin , Konstantin Kuzminsky , Vladimir Maksimov , Viktor Nekrasov , Varlam Shalamov , Andrei Sinyavsky , Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , Kari Unksova, Georgi Vladimov , Vladimir Voinovich , Venedikt Yerofeyev , and Alexander Zinoviev . In
24186-550: The renovated Orthodox doctrine, including that of sobornost . The resurgence of Eastern Orthodoxy was reflected in Russian literature, an example is the figure of Starets Zosima in Fyodor Dostoyevsky 's Brothers Karamazov . In the Russian Orthodox Church, the clergy , over time, formed a hereditary caste of priests . Marrying outside of these priestly families was strictly forbidden; indeed, some bishops did not even tolerate their clergy marrying outside of
24360-521: The restoration dates to 1957. In the early 1960s, the Crimean Tatars had begun to establish initiative groups in the places where they had been forcibly resettled. Led by Mustafa Dzhemilev , they founded their own democratic and decentralized organization, considered unique in the history of independent movements in the Soviet Union. The emigration movements in the Soviet Union included the movement of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel and of
24534-472: The rule of law—a hard-won stability which grants independence and space to every private citizen." In a series of writings, speeches, and interviews after his return to his native Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn spoke about his admiration for the local self-government he had witnessed first hand in Switzerland and New England . He "praised 'the sensible and sure process of grassroots democracy , in which
24708-555: The same time, liberals and secularists became increasingly critical of what they perceived as his reactionary preference for Russian nationalism and the Russian Orthodox religion . Solzhenitsyn also harshly criticised what he saw as the ugliness and spiritual vapidity of the dominant pop culture of the modern West, including television and much of popular music: "...the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits... by TV stupor and by intolerable music." Despite his criticism of
24882-581: The scattered public spaces allowed by a state that recognized its failure to eradicate religion and the political dangers of an unrelenting culture war. The Russian Orthodox church was drastically weakened in May 1922, when the Renovated (Living) Church , a reformist movement backed by the Soviet secret police, broke away from Patriarch Tikhon (also see the Josephites and the Russian True Orthodox Church ),
25056-540: The state for support. The late 18th century saw the rise of starchestvo under Paisiy Velichkovsky and his disciples at the Optina Monastery . This marked a beginning of a significant spiritual revival in the Russian Church after a lengthy period of modernization, personified by such figures as Demetrius of Rostov and Platon of Moscow . Aleksey Khomyakov , Ivan Kireevsky and other lay theologians with Slavophile leanings elaborated some key concepts of
25230-461: The term, a dissident is considered to "sit apart" from the regime. As dissenters began self-identifying as dissidents , the term came to refer to an individual whose non-conformism was perceived to be for the good of a society. The most influential subset of the dissidents is known as the Soviet human rights movement. Political opposition in the USSR was barely visible, and apart from rare exceptions, it had little consequence, primarily because it
25404-411: The territories controlled by Bolsheviks was effectively reduced to services and sermons inside church buildings. The Decree and attempts by Bolshevik officials to requisition church property caused sharp resentment on the part of the ROC clergy and provoked violent clashes on some occasions: on 1 February (19 January O.S.), hours after the bloody confrontation in Petrograd's Alexander Nevsky Lavra between
25578-595: The victory in the Great Patriotic War . From his cell in the Lubyanka, Solzhenitsyn remembered: "Above the muzzle of our window, and from all the other cells of the Lubyanka, and from all the windows of the Moscow prisons, we too, former prisoners of war and former front-line soldiers, watched the Moscow heavens, patterned with fireworks and crisscrossed with beams of searchlights. There was no rejoicing in our cells and no hugs and no kisses for us. That victory
25752-550: The war effort. In the early hours of 5 September 1943, Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky), Alexius (Simansky) and Nicholas (Yarushevich) had a meeting with Stalin and received permission to convene a council on 8 September 1943, which elected Sergius Patriarch of Moscow and all the Rus'. This is considered by some as violation of the Apostolic canon , as no church hierarch could be consecrated by secular authorities. A new patriarch
25926-564: The whole Russian tsardom is called a "third Rome". By the mid-17th century, the religious practices of the Russian Orthodox Church were distinct from those of the Greek Orthodox Church . Patriarch Nikon reformed the church in order to bring most of its practices back into accommodation with the contemporary forms of Greek Orthodox worship. Nikon's efforts to correct the translations of texts and institute liturgical reforms were not accepted by all. Archpriest Avvakum accused
26100-490: The work was ultimately denied publication unless it was to be revised and cleaned of suspect statements and anti-Soviet insinuations. After Khrushchev's removal in 1964, the cultural climate again became more repressive. Publishing of Solzhenitsyn's work quickly stopped; as a writer, he became a non-person, and, by 1965, the KGB had seized some of his papers, including the manuscript of In The First Circle . Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn continued to secretly and feverishly work on
26274-566: The years 1965 to 1967, the preparatory drafts of The Gulag Archipelago were turned into finished typescript in hiding at his friends' homes in Soviet Estonia . Solzhenitsyn had befriended Arnold Susi , a lawyer and former Minister of Education of Estonia in a Lubyanka Building prison cell. After completion, Solzhenitsyn's original handwritten script was kept hidden from the KGB in Estonia by Arnold Susi's daughter Heli Susi until
26448-542: Was "perplexed" that the West had accepted The Gulag Archipelago as "the solemn, ultimate truth", saying its significance had been "overestimated and wrongly appraised". Pointing out that the book's subtitle is "An Experiment in Literary Investigation", she said that her husband did not regard the work as "historical research, or scientific research". She contended that it was, rather, a collection of "camp folklore", containing "raw material" which her husband
26622-472: Was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 58 , paragraph 10 of the Soviet criminal code, and of "founding a hostile organization" under paragraph 11. Solzhenitsyn was taken to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, where he was interrogated. On 9 May 1945, it was announced that Germany had surrendered and all of Moscow broke out in celebrations with fireworks and searchlights illuminating the sky to celebrate
26796-572: Was also overseen by an ober-procurator that would directly report to the emperor. Peter's reforms marked the beginning of the Synodal period of the Russian Church, which would last until 1917. In order to make monasticism more socially useful, Peter began the processes that would eventually lead to the large-scale secularization of monastic landholdings in 1764 under Catherine II . 822 monasteries were closed between 1701 and 1805, and monastic communities became highly regulated, receiving funds from
26970-575: Was an "arch- reactionary ", who argued that the Soviet State "suppressed" traditional Russian and Ukrainian culture , who called for the creation of a united Slavic state encompassing Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus , and who was a fierce opponent of Ukrainian independence . It is well documented that his negative views on Ukrainian independence became more radical over the years. Harrison also alleged that Solzhenitsyn held Pan-Slavist and monarchist views. According to Harrison, "His historical writing
27144-856: Was arrested and deported the next day from the Soviet Union to Frankfurt , West Germany and stripped of his Soviet citizenship. The KGB had found the manuscript for the first part of The Gulag Archipelago . U.S. military attaché William Odom managed to smuggle out a large portion of Solzhenitsyn's archive, including the author's membership card for the Writers' Union and his Second World War military citations. Solzhenitsyn paid tribute to Odom's role in his memoir Invisible Allies (1995). In West Germany, Solzhenitsyn lived in Heinrich Böll 's house in Langenbroich . He then moved to Zürich , Switzerland before Stanford University invited him to stay in
27318-481: Was arrested by SMERSH and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag and then internal exile for criticizing Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in a private letter. As a result of his experience in prison and the camps, he gradually became a philosophically minded Eastern Orthodox Christian . As a result of the Khrushchev Thaw , Solzhenitsyn was released and exonerated. He pursued writing novels about repression in
27492-405: Was arrested by SMERSH for writing derogatory comments in private letters to a friend, Nikolai Vitkevich, about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin , whom he called "Khozyain" ("the boss"), and "Balabos" (Yiddish rendering of Hebrew baal ha-bayit for "master of the house"). He also had talks with the same friend about the need for a new organization to replace the Soviet regime. Solzhenitsyn
27666-709: Was born in Kislovodsk (now in Stavropol Krai , Russia). His father, Isaakiy Semyonovich Solzhenitsyn, was of Russian descent and his mother, Taisiya Zakharovna (née Shcherbak), was of Ukrainian descent. Taisiya's father had risen from humble beginnings to become a wealthy landowner, acquiring a large estate in the Kuban region in the northern foothills of the Caucasus and during World War I , Taisiya had gone to Moscow to study. While there she met and married Isaakiy,
27840-406: Was completed and an additional four stone churches were constructed in Moscow. By the end of 1331, Theognostus was able to restore ecclesiastical control over Lithuania. Theognostus also proceeded with the canonization of Peter in 1339, which helped to increase Moscow's prestige. His successor Alexius lost ecclesiastical over Lithuania in 1355, but kept the traditional title. On 5 July 1439, at
28014-406: Was during this decade of imprisonment and exile that Solzhenitsyn developed the philosophical and religious positions of his later life, gradually becoming a philosophically minded Eastern Orthodox Christian as a result of his experience in prison and the camps. He repented for some of his actions as a Red Army captain, and in prison compared himself to the perpetrators of the Gulag. His transformation
28188-518: Was elected, theological schools were opened, and thousands of churches began to function. The Moscow Theological Academy Seminary , which had been closed since 1918, was re-opened. In December 2017, the Security Service of Ukraine lifted classified top secret status of documents revealing that the NKVD of the USSR and its units were engaged in the selection of candidates for participation in
28362-575: Was freed from exile and exonerated . Following his return from exile, Solzhenitsyn was, while teaching at a secondary school during the day, spending his nights secretly engaged in writing. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech he wrote that "during all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared this would become known." In 1960, aged 42, Solzhenitsyn approached Aleksandr Tvardovsky ,
28536-441: Was instantly crushed with brute force. Instead, an important element of dissident activity in the Soviet Union was informing society (both inside the USSR and in foreign countries) about violation of laws and human rights and organizing in defense of those rights. Over time, the dissident movement created vivid awareness of Soviet Communist abuses. Soviet dissidents who criticized the state in most cases faced legal sanctions under
28710-593: Was involved in major action at the front, and was twice decorated. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star on 8 July 1944 for sound-ranging two German artillery batteries and adjusting counterbattery fire onto them, resulting in their destruction. A series of writings published late in his life, including the early uncompleted novel Love the Revolution! , chronicle his wartime experience and growing doubts about
28884-489: Was not ours." On 7 July 1945, he was sentenced in his absence by Special Council of the NKVD to an eight-year term in a labour camp . This was the usual sentence for most crimes under Article 58 at the time. The first part of Solzhenitsyn's sentence was served in several work camps; the "middle phase", as he later referred to it, was spent in a sharashka (a special scientific research facility run by Ministry of State Security), where he met Lev Kopelev , upon whom he based
29058-411: Was only metropolitanate in the Orthodox oikoumene that remained politically independent. The formulation of the idea of Moscow as the " third Rome " is primarily associated with the monk Philotheus of Pskov , who stated that "Moscow alone shines over all the earth more radiantly than the sun" because of its fidelity to the faith. The marriage of Ivan III to Sophia Palaiologina , the niece of
29232-430: Was planning to use in his future productions. In 1973, Solzhenitsyn married his second wife, Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova, a mathematician who had a son, Dmitri Turin, from a brief prior marriage. He and Svetlova (born 1939) had three sons: Yermolai (1970), Ignat (1972), and Stepan (1973). Dmitri Turin died on 18 March 1994, aged 32, at his home in New York City. After Khrushchev's Secret Speech in 1956, Solzhenitsyn
29406-440: Was raised by his widowed mother and his aunt in lowly circumstances. His earliest years coincided with the Russian Civil War . By 1930 the family property had been turned into a collective farm . Later, Solzhenitsyn recalled that his mother had fought for survival and that they had to keep his father's background in the old Imperial Army a secret. His educated mother encouraged his literary and scientific learnings and raised him in
29580-434: Was recognized as the lawful metropolitan by Vasily II until he left Moscow on 15 September 1441. For the following seven years, the seat of the metropolitan remained vacant. Vasily II defeated the rebellious Dmitry Shemyaka and returned to Moscow in February 1447. On 15 December 1448, a council of Russian bishops elected Jonah as metropolitan, without the consent of the patriarch of Constantinople, which marked
29754-601: Was restored, and, in 1994, he returned to Russia with his wife, Natalia, who had become a United States citizen. Their sons stayed behind in the United States (later, his eldest son Yermolai returned to Russia). From then until his death, he lived with his wife in a dacha in Troitse-Lykovo in west Moscow between the dachas once occupied by Soviet leaders Mikhail Suslov and Konstantin Chernenko . A staunch believer in traditional Russian culture , Solzhenitsyn expressed his disillusionment with post-Soviet Russia in works such as Rebuilding Russia [ ru ] , and called for
29928-463: Was selected as the first Russian Patriarch after about 200 years of Synodal rule. In early February 1918, the Bolshevik-controlled government of Soviet Russia enacted the Decree on separation of church from state and school from church that proclaimed separation of church and state in Russia, freedom to "profess any religion or profess none", deprived religious organisations of the right to own any property and legal status. Legal religious activity in
30102-437: Was sent to internal exile for life at Birlik , a village in Baidibek District of South Kazakhstan . His undiagnosed cancer spread until, by the end of the year, he was close to death. In 1954, Solzhenitsyn was permitted to be treated in a hospital in Tashkent , where his tumor went into remission. His experiences there became the basis of his novel Cancer Ward and also found an echo in the short story "The Right Hand." It
30276-399: Was used in the Soviet Union (USSR) in the period from the mid-1960s until the Fall of Communism . It was used to refer to small groups of marginalized intellectuals whose challenges, from modest to radical to the Soviet regime, met protection and encouragement from correspondents, and typically criminal prosecution or other forms of silencing by the authorities. Following the etymology of
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