Solzhenitsyn & the Modern World

Ericson argues that Russian novelist Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's moral vision, rooted in a ``Christian universalism'' that emphasizes individual responsibility and personal transformation, is profoundly relevant to the modern world. The prevailing Western view of him as an anti-democratic, anti-Western reactionary is wrong, insists Ericson ( Solzhenitsyn: A Moral Vision ). Solzhenitsyn saw a basic continuity between Lenin and Stalin in their brutal, totalitarian rule. This position is more tenable and credible today than most scholars once acknowledged, Ericson stresses. The publication of Solzhenitsyn's Rebuilding Russia (1990) leaves no doubt, he adds, that the Russian emigre writer is a proponent of grass-roots, decentralized democracy and a free-market economy. While this dense study does not entirely dispel the image of Solzhenitsyn as a messianic Russian nationalist, it is nevertheless a suggestive, rewarding reassessment of his work. (Apr.)