A Mind Always Free

It is difficult to encapsulate the meaning of the life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn upon his death last Sunday. His prose revealed to an ignorant world the horrors of the systematic oppression imposed by the Communists in the Soviet Union. He consistently and convincingly argued for the inherent and basic rights of all people and appropriately faulted every standing political system for its respective failures or weakness. Perhaps most importantly he demonstrated the power of the individual to resist and outlive the monster of terror and slavery.

Yankee Scribble has a few brief words about Solzhenitsyn, which you might find interesting, as well as links to various media commentary on the man. I would like to add these two...

1978 Commencement Address at Harvard
Excerpt: "A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society... Should one point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?"

1970 Nobel Prize Speech