[barrikad]

Solzhenitsin was also a right wing Russian nationalist who was absolutely part of the problem. That "realism that approaches Tolstoy's" you mentioned is actually mostly folklore and vastly exaggerated for propaganda purposes (see https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/06/archives/solzhenitsyns-ex...).

> Solzhenitsyn's Greater Russian, Orthodox-driven nationalism, Elder notes, "once made him appear sorely out of touch, but today has become increasingly fashionable." Although he is best known for his exposure of the Soviet Gulag system and his staunch anti-communism, Solzhenitsyn welcomed Putin's rise to power in 1999 and praised him for restoring Russia's national pride. In 2007, Putin visited the ailing Solzhenitsyn at home to award him a state prize for his humanitarian work. In "Rebuilding Russia," published in the dying days of the U.S.S.R., Solzhenitsyn criticized the Soviet government's haphazard border policies that he said carved up traditional "Rus." He advocated a "Russian Union" encompassing Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and the ethnic Russian parts of Kazakhstan.

From here: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/ho...

[azangru]

> That "realism that approaches Tolstoy's" you mentioned is actually mostly folklore and vastly exaggerated for propaganda purposes

I can only vouch for the realism of his description of a hospital in his Cancer Ward (published in 1966), and for a scene of phonetic spectral speech analysis in In the First Circle (1968). Both unusually lifelike and showing first-hand experience.