Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn:
(Kislovodsk, 11 December 1918 – Moscow, 3 August 2008).
Russian writer who was regarded as a dissident in the 1970s.
As a student of mathematics and physics, Solzhenitsyn also had a soft spot for literature. Even then, he knew he wanted to be a writer. Initially, he believed in communism. In 1945, he fought in the Red Army against the Germans, but was suddenly arrested by the NKVD. They had intercepted letters to a comrade in which the young man had been critical of Stalin. Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years of labour camp and to lifelong exile to Kazakhstan. After Stalin’s death, he was rehabilitated in 1957 and allowed to return to western Russia. He started working as a teacher in Ryazan, but secretly decided to write down his camp experiences.
One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world.
