Apr 11, 2017
In this podcast episode, we feature Alexandr Solzhenitsyn delivering a speech named by others as A World Split Apart at Harvard University in 1978. He is considered the Soviet Union’s greatest author, historian, and resilient critic of the government. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. This speech was delivered during tensions of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred less than 15 years earlier. The Vietnam Conflict and ongoing violence in the Middle East were supported on opposite sides by both countries. Both nations were rapidly developing new weapons with even more destructive force than during World War Two. In his speech at Harvard, Mr. Solzhenitsyn shares about the crisis that faces the world and possible solutions to end the violence and threat to humankind. You will hear the voice of him and that of the translator.
In addition to an available download transcript of this speech, I also included another PDF from Wikipedia with the life story of Mr. Solzhenitsyn. Rather than offering a commentary after this speech, I recommend reading the Wikipedia entry about him and his struggle to share the struggle within the Soviet Union and those throughout the world.