Comment on YSK that Joseph Stalin created the Great Terror. He started killing people randomly including artists, generals, doctors, scientists, government officials. Everyone was terrified.

VinegarChunks@lemmus.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• Riverside@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Gulag Archipelago is a fiction work, though. You want documented information on the Great Terror, you can go to legit works like the Memorial foundation, no need to read fiction written by a fascist

  source

  • VinegarChunks@lemmus.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    
    The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation is a three-volume nonfiction series . . .<

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago?wprov…

    source

    • Riverside@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You could go ahead quoting Wikipedia:

      UCLA historian J. Arch Getty wrote of Solzhenitsyn’s methodology that “such documentation is methodologically unacceptable in other fields of history” and that "the work is of limited value to the serious student of the 1930s for it provides no important new information or original analytical framework. Gabor Rittersporn shared Getty’s criticism, saying that “he is inclined to give priority to vague reminiscences and hearsay … [and] inevitably [leads] towards selective bias”, adding that “one might dwell at length on the inaccuracies discernible in Solzhenitsyn’s work”. Vadim Rogovin writes of the eyewitness accounts that Solzhenitsyn had read, saying he “took plenty of license in outlining their contents and interpreting them”. Both Rogovin and Walter Laquer argue that the book belongs to the genre of ‘oral history’.

      source

      • VinegarChunks@lemmus.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Assuming for the moment that all these criticisms are completely correct and valid, “Provides no new information” or “documentation is methodologically unacceptable” or “selective bias” or “took license” do not mean that a book should therefore be characterized as fictional.

        source

        • -> View More Comments
• kat_angstrom@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Oh yeah, this should be required reading for all teenagers. Does it destroy your psyche? Yes, and that’s why it’s important.

  0 out of 10, would never read again. Glad I did though.

  source

  • davel@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It shouldn’t be, because it’s a work of fiction.
    nytimes.com/…/solzhenitsyns-exwife-says-gulag-is-…

    source

    • kat_angstrom@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That’s a rather paltry article to link to declare “fiction”, based solely on his ex-wife. From wikipedia -

      Solzhenitsyn constructed his highly detailed narrative from various sources including reports, interviews, statements, diaries, legal documents, and his own experience as a Gulag prisoner.

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

      It’s not “100% accurate, detailed notes from one man’s point of view”, but this book is widely acknowledged to be a nonfiction account, even if many of the tales & details are anecdotal and not verifiable.

      source
    • VinegarChunks@lemmus.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That’s a very large conclusion to reach from one person’s completely undetailed single statement.

      source