Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Saturday, April 8, 2017

Thoughts on Putin's Russia

Here is a riddle not for us contemporaries to figure out: Why is Germany allowed to punish its evildoers and Russia is not.  What kind of dangerous path lies ahead of us if we do not have the chance to purge ourselves of that putrefaction rotting inside our body?  What, then, can Russia teach the world?[1]

-          Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956.  Volume I (1973).




[1] Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956.  An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Vol 1., tr. Thomas P. Whitney (Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1973), p. 176.

On military experiences (and on Trump's "surprise" strike on Syria that again ignores the rule of law).

I remember very well that right after officer candidate school I experienced the happiness of simplification, of being a military man and not having to think things through; the happiness of being immersed in the life everyone else lived, that was accepted in our military milieu; the happiness of forgetting some of the spiritual subtleties inculcated since childhood.[1]

-          Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956.  Volume I (1973).




[1] Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956.  An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Vol 1., tr. Thomas P. Whitney (Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1973), p. 162.