Thoughts on The Ukraine

I remember when I was a little girl, my dad always walked around with a book. He read all the time. After dinner, if the Braves were not playing or ACC basketball was not in season, he was sitting in his big chair, entrenched in a book. Several years ago, I went through boxes and boxes of his books and one caught my eye. It was The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I remember my dad's face when he would talk to my mom about the book. He had a kind of fear in his voice. I was too young to understand the contents of the book, but I knew when my dad was serious. He would adjust his glasses, look at the floor, and jingle change in his pocket. My mom would say, "We don't have to worry about such things here." And he would say, "That is what Germany thought, and I flew mission after mission from England to Germany to end such a reign."

In a review by Maureen Hanes, she writes this about the book:

One of the main themes that Solzhenitsyn focuses on throughout the work is that exposing the truth about the gulag system and committing it to memory is necessary in order for people to process the trauma of the system and prevent future atrocities. Solzhenitsyn saw gulags as an almost logical extension of the repression of the Soviet system and made comparisons to other similar phenomena in the 20th century, such as Nazi concentration camps. Unlike in Nazi Germany, however, Solzhenitsyn pointed out that there had been nothing in the Soviet Union like the Nuremburg Trials, leaving Soviet citizens without any similar sense of justice and remembrance. Solzhenitsyn writes, “In keeping silent about evil… we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future."

Today, we are living in very uncertain times. We have books being banned, and the desire to rewrite history. This afternoon, I listened to Putin as he tried to create a story to defend his desire to invade The Ukraine. He creates a false narrative, and repeats it over and over again until people start to believe it as fact.

Americans seem to know little history, and many are satisfied with whatever someone tells them. Many Americans seem to side with Putin; perhaps they have not read his history or Russia's, for that matter. Democracy is in distress, and it is important that we understand what freedoms we are given and how sacred they are. Putin has little interest in democracies.

I found this quote from the book and thought it was fascinating. Even in prison, there was a flicker of hope. We cannot let racism, inequality, authoritarianism, and corruption destroy our country that was painfully fought for, and we must support democracies across the world. Be careful what you wish for...

If the first thing you see each and every morning is the eyes of your cellmate who has gone insane, how then shall you save yourself during the coming day? Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev, whose brilliant career in astronomy was interrupted by his arrest, saved himself only by thinking of the eternal and infinite: of the order of the Universe - and of its Supreme Spirit; of the stars; of their internal state; and what Time and the passing of Time really are.

And in this way he began to discover a new field in physics. And only in this way did he succeed in surviving in the Dmitrovsk Prison. But his line of mental exploration was blocked by forgotten figures. He could not build any further - he had to have a lot of figures. Now just where could he get them in his solitary-confinement cell with its overnight kerosene lamp, a cell into which not even a little bird could enter? And the scientist prayed: "Please, God! I have done everything I could. Please help me! Please help me continue!"

At this time he was entitled to receive one book every ten days (by then he was alone in the cell). In the meager prison library were several different editions of Demyan Bedny's Red Concert, which kept coming around to each cell again and again. Half an hour passed after his prayer; they came to exchange his book; and as usual, without asking anything at all, they pushed a book at him. It was entitled A Course in Astrophysics! Where had it come from? He simply could not imagine such a book in the prison library. Aware of the brief duration of this coincidence, Kozyrev threw himself on it and began to memorize everything he needed immediately, and everything he might need later on. In all, just two days had passed, and he had eight days left in which to keep his book, when there was an unscheduled inspection by the chief of the prison. His eagle eye noticed immediately. "But you are an astronomer?" "Yes." "Take this book away from him!" But its mystical arrival had opened the way for his further work, which he then continued in the camp in Norilsk.

– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn