On this day, February 12, 1974 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union. He moved to Berlin and lived in the home of Heinrich Böll in Langenbroich in North Rhine Westphalia.
During World War II he served as a Red Army commander and was twice decorated and was awarded the Order of the Red Star on July 8, 1944.
While in East Prussia as an artillery officer he witnessed war crimes against German civilians.
After the war he was imprisoned for his anti-Soviet writings.
During the Khrushchev years he was released from prison and exonerated but after the Khrushchev he was back in trouble and lost his citizenship
In 1990 his Soviet citizenship was restored, and in 1994, he returned to Russia with his wife, Natalia, who had become a United States citizen.
From then until his death, he lived with his wife in a Moscow
He as a staunch believer in traditional Russian culture, and expressed his disillusionment with post-Soviet Russia in works such as Rebuilding Russia, and called for the establishment of a strong presidential republic balanced by vigorous institutions of local self-government.
What would he think of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, his mother’s ancestral home?
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