Excerpts from Alexander Solzhenitsyn‘s 1973 epic The Gulag Archipelago, once banned by Soviet censors, have now been added to the curriculum for high-school students in Russia.
The decision by he Education Ministry, announced today, was taken due to “the vital historical and cultural heritage on the course of 20th-century domestic history” contained in Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s work, the ministry said.
It is believed that over a million Russians perished in the Gulag, created by Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin and expanded by Josef Stalin as a clandestine network of prison and labor camps.
The Gulag Archipelago, published in the West in 1973, has secretly circulated within the Soviet Union since its publication.
Full story in today’s Moscow Times.