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Comment by ch4s3 | Hacker News Reader

I don't read Russian, so I can't comment on that article.

I don't find the anti-semitism charge very credible, he speaks out against anti-semitism very strongly in both the Gulag Archipelago, and several essays. He also claimed that an anti-semitic essay attributed to him was a hatched job by the KGB, which seems at least possible. I also stand by my claim that he was a brilliant writer. I think if you try to take everything in his descriptions of the Gulag system as literal fact, you'll find historical discrepancies, but his work isn't meant to be wholly historic, but rather more expansive.

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> I think if you try to take everything in his descriptions of the Gulag system as literal fact, you'll find historical discrepancies

What ones stand out for you? I am relatively ignorant on the subject. Your comment stimulated me to google a bit and I came up with this¹ critical (and currently topical) criticism of him for anti-semitism in which he is accused of blaming Jewish people for playing a leading role in the red terror:

His reported self defense included a reference to the Kiev/Kyiv Cheka (precursors to OGPU and NKVD): 'To explain the actions of the Kiev cheka [secret police] only by the fact that two thirds were Jews, is certainly incorrect."'

1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/25/russia.books

Sidenote: regardless of the merits of the book or its criticisms I thought this was a funny line: "This book is a weak one professionally. Factually, it is so bad as to be beyond criticism. "

I think he gets some fair criticism for reporting some third hand accounts of some mass executions and publishing some inflated numbers, but I don't think his intention was to pin those down precisely, but rather to give account of the magnitude of the tragedy.

It’s not credible, and anyone who has read more Solzhenitsyn than a summary of Two Hundred Years Together knows that.

When he published it he spoke of Jewish friends praising Russian silence on the history he covered. This is kind of the same thing. There is a really unfortunate tendency by certain groups to equivocate criticism of historical Jewish actions with criticism of the Jewish people, and the word antisemitic has lost almost all meaning as a result. Reaction to that book is far from the sole example.

It is possible to criticize the behavior of certain historical Jews without filling your heart with hate for an entire people and preaching Hitler’s ideologies. That is a nuance that is lost by Jewish people who call others “antisemitic” at the first hint of criticism. That said, however, it is also somewhat fair because the Jewish people have endured unspeakable horrors in a blink of history.

I've read The Gulag Archipelago and some essays, but not Two Hundred Years Togethers so I can't comment on that work. I generally get the sense from his work that I have read that he harbored no ill will towards anyone based on ethnic or Religious identity.

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