Volume 42, Number 16 · October 19, 1995
Russian Lessons
By Tatyana Tolstaya
'The Russian Question' at the End of the Twentieth Century
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated and annotated by Yermolai Solzhenitsyn
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 135 pp., $15.00
What a strange spectacle it is: Alexander Solzhenitsyn's biweekly broadcasts on Russian television. In the late evening, when the long Moscow day-light begins to fade and the construction dust settles, the writer pours out a stream of banalities, platitudes, and exclamations ('It's a nightmare!,' 'This is terrible!,' 'Disgraceful!') in his brisk, hearty falsetto, flapping his arms about, stretching them toward the television camera, lifting them to the ceiling, or even covering his face, as if he can no longer bear the thought of so much horror. He condemns everything that comes to hand. And, in his own way, he is absolutely right—like any elderly pensioner who sits on a bench in the courtyard to take the fresh air before bed, vent the irritation accumulated over a lifetime, and grumble against life, which hasn't listened to him. There really is a lot of disgracefulness around. It's news to no one.
Review, 3967 words
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