Literary titan Alexander Solzhenitsyn dead at 89

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, an icon of the great Russian writer in the mold of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, died of heart failure this week in his Moscow home. He was 89 years old. As hundreds gathered in the rain on Tuesday to pay their last respects to Solzhenitsyn, other writers, national leaders and public figures began pondering the essence of who he was for Russian society - dissident, writer, a historical figure endemic to the 20th century, thinker or simply legend. He was buried Wednesday at Donskoy Cemetery in a ceremony that included goose-stepping guards and the dirges of a religious choir. A Day in the Life Indeed, the dismantling of the Communist state in Russia would not have been possible without Sol­zhe­nitsyn's relentless pursuit in uncovering the atrocities of the Stalin regime, a quest that began in 1962... [read full story]