The Russian Question

Few living Russians speak with greater authority on their country s prospects, and few have Solzhenitsyn s genius for provoking a creative debate. Steeped as he is in Russia s history, he here interrogates the past, and assesses the mistakes of the past, in order to suggest lessons for the shaping of Russia at a crucial moment in its history. Although one school of thought among Russian intellectuals proposes an expansion of the nation s borders and a return to hegemony, Solzhenitsyn argues that the nation s future identity and security, indeed its regeneration, lie in an inner development within a Slavic nucleus, which he identifies as Russia, the Ukraine, Belorussia and Kazakhstan. Any foreigner who wishes to know more about the debate within Russia on its identity and meaning in a post-Soviet future will do well to start with this position paper by one of the country s greatest writers and men of vision.