Harvard University thought it had pulled off an enormous coup when it made what, for it, turned out to be the huge mistake of inviting Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to speak at its Graduation Ceremony on 8 June 1978. It expected that this man, who had been given political asylum in the United States would show his gratitude to his new home country. To focus on attacking his old persecutors, the Communists, but Solzhenitsyn saw himself as a man now living in the United States – and he saw his proper role as being telling the Americans the truth about itself as he saw it – in the way that often only a foreigner could do.
Tag words: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch; The Gulag Archipelago; Soviet Union; Patrick M Talbot; Augusto Zimmerman; the Enlightenment; Cardinal Pell; Miranda Devine; President Biden; Hunter Biden;
