Gorbachev honours Solzhenitsyn’s ‘unique destiny’
MOSCOW: The last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev paid tribute
yesterday to the “unique destiny” of late Russian writer and dissident
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Interfax news agency reported.
Solzhenitsyn, a chronicler of the Soviet gulag prison camps who died
late Sunday aged 89, “was a person with a unique destiny whose name will
remain in Russian history,” Gorbachev was quoted as saying.
“Like millions of citizens, Solzhenitsyn lived through tough times.
He was one of the first to talk about the inhumane Stalinist regime and
about the people who experienced it but were not broken,” Gorbachev
said.
Solzhenitsyn’s role in undermining Joseph Stalin’s totalitarian
regime “cannot be underestimated,” Gorbachev said. His works “changed
the consciousness of millions of people,” he added.
“Until the end of his days he fought for Russia not only to move away
from its totalitarian past but also to have a worthy future, to become a
truly free and democratic country. We owe him a lot,” he said.
AFP |