Alexandr Solzhenitsyn died this week at the age of 89. Many of the younger generations of Russians may not understand how important Solzhenitsyn's writings were in opening the former Soviet Union's door to the world in the late 20th century. My first foray into Solzhenitsyn's writings was Cancer Ward, my second One Day In the Live of Ivan Denisovich. I unfortunately never made it through the three-volume The Gulag Archipelago. You can read Solzhenitsyn's own brief autobiography at NobelPrize. He was awarded the prize in 1970, over 20 years before the fall of Russian communism and three years before The Gulag was published.
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