Solzhenitsyn – Το μέλλον

Στη συνοπτική αυτοβιογραφία του στην ιστοσελίδα nobelprize.org ο Alexandr Solzhenitsyn αναφέρει ότι οι υποσχέσεις για άρση της λογοκρισίας από το ΚΚΣΕ τον οδήγησαν το 1962 -λίγα μόλις χρόνια μετά την απελευθέρωση του από τα γκούλαγκ- να εμφανίσει κάποια έργα του στο σοβιετικό κοινό. Η γρήγορη απόσυρση και απαγόρευση τους φάνηκε να τελειώνουν μια για πάντα τη συγγραφική του καριέρα. Όμως το γεγονός αυτό αποτέλεσε το έναυσμα, ώστε ο Ρώσος συγγραφέας να συνεχίσει τη συγγραφή πιο αποφασιστικά και να γίνει ένα σύμβολο ενάντια στην καταπίεση. Ο ίδιος γράφει:

During all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced that I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared that this would become known. Finally, at the age of 42, this secret authorship began to wear me down. The most difficult thing of all to bear was that I could not get my works judged by people with literary training. In 1961, after the 22nd Congress of the U.S.S.R. Communist Party and Tvardovsky’s speech at this, I decided to emerge and to offer One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Such an emergence seemed, then, to me, and not without reason, to be very risky because it might lead to the loss of my manuscripts, and to my own destruction. But, on that occasion, things turned out successfully, and after protracted efforts, A.T. Tvardovsky was able to print my novel one year later. The printing of my work was, however, stopped almost immediately and the authorities stopped both my plays and (in 1964) the novel, The First Circle, which, in 1965, was seized together with my papers from the past years. During these months it seemed to me that I had committed an unpardonable mistake by revealing my work prematurely and that because of this I should not be able to carry it to a conclusion.

It is almost always impossible to evaluate at the time events which you have already experienced, and to understand their meaning with the guidance of their effects. All the more unpredictable and surprising to us will be the course of future events.

From, Nobel Lectures, Literature 1968-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993