Alexander Soltzhenitsyn is following the footsteps
of Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Traditional Prejudices.
The anti-Semitism of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

I read the first parts of the The Gulag Archipelago when
the Soviet Union still existed; later I tried to read the
later parts, but couldn´t finish them. It was not that
I couldn´t stomach the contents, I just couldn´t get forward.

Of Solzhenitsyn´s fiction I have read some of his earlier
works. I have to admit, that I was little baffled then of
what was so important in them. Standard massive Russian
fiction. Of course I understood why it was disliked by the
Soviet authorities, but the importance put to them as art
by the western readers and critics was a little odd to me.
They weren´t that great.

Soltzhenitsyn is a writer of the very old school: He
doesn´t do art for arts sake. Art is always used for
other means. Fighting the Soviet system or interpreting
the history of Russia in a way that suits himself.

Some years ago I tried to watch a documentary about
Soltzhenitsyn. I couldn´t watch it for long. Reason was
that the movie was like some old Soviet propaganda film:
Alexander Soltzhenitsyn was portrayed like some Hero of
the Soviet Union. No stains in his armour.