Repression and reflection: On the 100th anniversary of A. I. Solzhenitsyn

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the issue of 1930s–40s repression. The assessment of Stalin’s role in Russian history is an integral element of this topic, and public opinion in modern Russia still remains divided on this matter. The exposure of Stalin’s personality cult, originally endorsed by N. Khrushchev in the 1950s–60s, was later brought to a halt. Yet, without denouncing Stalin’s personality cult, it is impossible to establish true democracy in Russia. The spheres where the theme of power and violence of the previous century has been addressed in its utmost entirety are literature and cinematography.

The author of the paper does not endeavour to analyse the numerous literary works in full, yet he refers to the camp prose by Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov (“The GULAG Archipelago” and “Kolyma Tales”), the military prose by Grossman and Astafiev (“Life and Fate” and “Everything Flows”, “Cursed and Killed” and “Merry Soldier”), modern prose by V. Sorokin and G. Yakhina (“Blue Fat” and “My Children”), the courageous and vibrant journalism of the 1990s and the early 2000s (publications in the magazines Novy Mir, Octyabr, Znamya, Ogoniok); newspaper journalism of The Moscow News, Arguments and Facts, The New Times; television journalism of The Spotlight of Perestroika, Vzglyad, Puppets, series of telebridges, etc.).

The special role of cinema as, perhaps, the most popular visual art form of the 20th century is well known. The films made by Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Shukshin, and German represent milestones in the history of our culture as much as the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Bulgakov. The line of creative artists who addressed the issue of Stalin’s terror is continued by Tengiz Abuladze. In his masterpiece “Repentance” shot four years prior to the period of Gorbachev’s liberal reforms, the film director managed to express the expectations of the Soviet intelligentsia. For the first time, the need for de-Stalinization of the Soviet society (similar to denazification that took place in Germany) — the need for liberation, for curing our collective consciousness from the infection of totalitarian ideology was advocated so directly and uncompromisingly. The experience of watching and analysing the film allows us to formulate possibly the main existential question for all of us: are we ready, following the example of the film characters — father and son — to follow the path of moral insight and repentance?