Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Cold War Icon, Gulag Author, Russian Nationalist?

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Alexander Solzhenitsyn was one of the Cold War’s most iconic writers. This book offers an in-depth analysis of his reception in the US, UK, and Germany before and after 1991. Elisa Kriza skilfully explores how Solzhenitsyn’s work can be understood with the paradigm of witness literature and uncovers the dynamics behind the politicised reception of his writing. From the mid-1980s onwards, Solzhenitsyn’s popularity dwindled – was this for ideological reasons? What about the rumours linking him with Russian nationalism? This study does not shy away from stretching beyond anti-communism and touching more contentious subjects – such as anti-feminism, anti-Semitism, and revisionism – in Solzhenitsyn’s work and reception. Bringing Solzhenitsyn back from his ‘critical exile’ and redefining his work as memory culture, Kriza’s book is a crucial scholarly intervention, unveiling the mechanism that can transform a controversial figure into a moral icon.