In Moscow, in the early hours on Monday, the outstanding Russian writer and Nobel Prize laureate passed away in his home in Moscow. According to his family, the cause of death was an acute heart attack. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was only a few months short of his 90th birthday. Because of his deteriorating health, he was prevented from appearing much on television lately. Nevertheless, he did not use this as an excuse to stop working, and he was preparing an anthology of his complete œuvre for publication. Unfortunately, he did not live to see the publication of the revision in English of his novel The First Circle (V kruge pervom).

According to the writer Aleksei Varlamov, one of the main strengths of Solzhenitsyn laid in the fact that he fought "for" something, he did not fight "against" something. "He lived throughout the 20th century; he survived some of the harshest and most tragic times in our history. He held us up, perhaps, he saved us, but, we did not understand it [at the time]," Mr. Varlamov said.

For many decades, people could read Solzhenitsyn's works only in typewritten or manuscript copies (so-called samizdat, "self-publication" – Editor's note), all the time understanding that if one read his book on camp life, one ran the very real risk of running afoul of the authorities. In most people's eyes, he was a prophet. However, to reach this position, Solzhenitsyn had to pass through all the "circles" of the Stalinist prisons and camps, overcome a terrible disease, and find the courage to talk about this phenomenon through the prism of his personal experiences. Now, we must say that the departure of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn marked the closing of an epoch in literature. ...

In 1970, a momentous event occurred: [Solzhenitsyn] was awarded the Nobel Prize, and the academy cited "the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature." This "politically-hostile" award cost Solzhenitsyn his membership in the Writers' Union of the USSR, and it led to his exile four years later from his native motherland. ...

In May 1994, Aleksandr Isayevich returned to Russia. His train travelled throughout Russia, he was met as a conquering hero at each stop, and the journalists stuck close to him throughout his tour of Russia so as not to miss a word the writer said. "It was just an experiment, you will forgive me for the cruelty of this word, and no one believes in it anymore. Well, there was Sakharov... that is understandable. However, to act without knowing how the test will end, that there would be a Nobel Prize, that there would be a return to Russia, to accept the consequences for standing for the truth, for the motherland, and for patriotism... such is what we need so urgently now," said Yevgeny Mironov, People's Artist of Russia, who played the main role in the TV series based on Solzhenitsyn's novel The First Circle. ...

Aleksandr Isayevich remained one of the leaders of the Orthodox-patriotic revival in Russia. After he was told of the death of the writer, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said, "Aleksandr Isayevich, both for his contemporaries and for our descendants, shall remain a model of internal freedom and human dignity. He boldly spoke out to the Russian government and to the Western countries in the voice of the people. He did not fear to expose falsehood, even if this was against the trend of the time or against the prevailing public opinion. His words and participation in the Russian public dialogue shall be sorely missed."