Solzhenitsyn's works are assigned in high school in Russia today by the official federal curriculum. He wanted many things which people in the West didn't understand and was one of the reasons behind his difficult reception. The politics may be fake, but what I'm suggesting is the sentiments are real and no sentiments are a worthy debate for us to have. And Solzhenitsyn fits into that debate here in the US just as he fits in in Russia.
Historian and author Stephen Kotkin of Princeton University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the historical significance of the life and work of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Solzhenitsyn's birth.