【文字参考】索尔仁尼琴之死给了俄罗斯一个反思其威权主义的机会

PROPHETS are without honour in their own country-at least until they die. For most of his adult life in the Soviet Union, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was persecuted. In exile in the West from 1974, his gloomy philippics and increasingly turgid prose aroused more bafflement than appreciation. After he returned to Russia in 1994, he was welcomed but then ignored. 先知通常在他们自己的国家没有什么荣誉–至少在他们死之前如此。亚历山大•索尔仁尼琴在苏联度过的大部分成年时光，都深受迫害。1974年之后流亡西方的日子里，索尔仁尼琴沉郁的抨击和日益冗长的散文引起了更多的困惑而不是欣赏。在他1994年回到俄罗斯后，他虽然很受欢迎但是却渐渐被人们遗忘了。 His death is a chance to make amends, although whether a Russia that is increasingly nostalgic for its totalitarian past will chose to take it is another matter. In an online poll (admittedly wildly unscientific) taken in recent weeks, the totalitarian leader Joseph Stalin is a front-runner for the title of greatest Russian. It was criticism of Stalin, expressed privately in a letter to a friend, that landed Mr Solzhenitsyn with an eight-year sentence in the camps. It counted for little that he was a twice-decorated artillery officer, on the front-line of the Red Army’s triumph over Nazi Germany. 他的死也许是弥补以往过失的一次机会，虽然日益怀念其旧时集权主义时代的俄罗斯是否会去那么做是另一回事了。在最近几周的一项网上调查投票中（并不科学），极权主义领袖约瑟夫•斯大林位于”最伟大的俄罗斯人”的前列。而正是由于在给一位朋友的信中私下里表达了对斯大林的批评，导致索尔仁尼琴先生被判在劳改营中服刑8年。而他曾上过苏联卫国战争前线，两次立功授勋的炮兵军官的身份显得无关紧要了。 Having experienced the crimes of Stalinism at first hand, he exposed them in both fiction and factual form. “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, published in 1962, gave Soviet citizens their first opportunity to read about the brutality, squalor, humiliation and fear of daily life in a prison camp, all told in the matter-of-fact style of a Russian folk tale. “The Gulag Archipelago” described the system, its tortures, rules and subculture, in relentless, gruesome, encyclopedic form. Modern scholars, able to research the subject with a freedom that Mr Solzhenitsyn could never have dreamed of, say it is astonishingly accurate. 由于曾经亲身体验过斯大林主义的罪恶，索尔仁尼琴通过小说和纪实的形式将这些都暴露出来。1962年出版的《伊万•杰尼索维奇的一天》，让苏联国民能够第一次读到在战俘集中营中残酷、肮脏、备受羞辱和充满恐惧的生活。全书以俄罗斯民间故事的形式，实事求是地写出这些内容。《古拉格群岛》描述的系统，是充满折磨，统治和亚文化的，以一种无情的，可怕的，包罗万象的形式存在的系统。拥有索尔仁尼琴先生无法想象的自由来研究这个课题的现代学者说，《古拉格群岛》的描述是令人惊讶的准确。 His other books are more patchy. Although he detested the ravages of communist rule on Russian language and culture, the clunky techniques of Socialist Realism are all too visible in works such as “The Cancer Ward”. His later works are mostly panoramic histories of Russia in the past century that most readers found impenetrable. His latest work, a lengthy series of reflections on Jewish-Russian relations, prompted charges of anti-semitism that he furiously denied. 索尔仁尼琴其它的作品更加斑驳杂疏些。虽然他非常憎恨共产主义统治对于俄罗斯语言和文化的破坏，但是在他的作品中能够清晰地看到社会主义写实主义的技巧手法，例如他的《癌症病房》。他晚期的作品更多的是俄罗斯在过去的一个世纪的全景式的历史，多数读者都很难理解。他最后的作品是对犹太人和俄罗斯人关系的一个长系列的反思作品。这个作品引起了对其反犹太主义的指控，但是索尔仁尼琴坚决否认。 Mr Solzhenitsyn was a loyal communist in his youth. As a young man, he dreamed of writing a history of the Russian revolution, oblivious to the Stalinist terror going on around him. As a bright, young maths student, he once said he could easily have ended up being recruited by the NKVD, the secret police, to perpetrate terror. Instead he became its most potent critic. His political awakening came from long talks in prison with Arnold Susi, an Estonian lawyer jailed for being a minister in a non-communist government. That friendship survived for many years after both men were released. 索尔仁尼琴先生在年轻时代是个忠诚的共产主义者。作为一个年轻人，他的梦想是写一部俄国革命历史，但是他并未察觉斯大林主义恐怖阴影正在朝他而来。做为一个生气勃勃的年轻数学系学生，索尔仁尼琴曾说他最终会被内政部人民委员会警察（秘密警察，译者注：克格勃的前身）招录而去从事恐怖活动的。恰恰相反的是，他却成为其最大的抨击者。索尔仁尼琴的政治觉醒来自于在监狱中与阿诺德苏西的长期谈话。阿诺德苏西是爱沙尼亚的一位律师，由于曾在非共产党政府中担任部长而被监禁。在他们俩人都被释放后，这段友谊还持续了好多年。 As well as the gulag, Mr Solzhenitsyn’s titanic willpower triumphed over other adversaries: cancer, censorship and Soviet bureaucratic intimidation. In 1970 he won the Nobel prize for literature, but declined to accept it in person for fear that he would not be allowed to return to the Soviet Union. But by 1974, the Soviet authorities had had enough: he was bundled onto a plane to West Germany, to spend two decades abroad. Those in the West who had championed his cause were disconcerted to find that he saw the capitalist system as little better than communism. He denounced materialism and moral emptiness, and lived in increasing seclusion in a remote corner of New England. 就像对待古拉格一样，索尔仁尼琴先生强大的意志力战胜了其它许多敌人：癌症，审查制度，苏联官僚主义威胁。1970年他获得了诺贝尔文学奖，但是他个人由于担心不被允许返回苏联而拒绝接受。但是在1974年，苏联当局对他受够了：将他塞入一架飞往西德的飞机，让他流亡海外20年。索尔仁尼琴先生认为资本主义系统并不比共产主义好多少，那些在西方支持他事业的人对此深感不安。他公开指责物质主义和道德空虚，而且渐渐地将自己隐遁于新英格兰的一个偏远的角落里。 As communism collapsed, his books, once read only in flimsy, blurred carbon copies, could all be published legally inside the Soviet Union. But he detested the man who brought that about: Boris Yeltsin, the first freely-elected leader in Russia’s history, spurning his offer of a state decoration. He could not, he said accept honours from a man who had brought misery on his people. 随着苏联共产主义的垮台，曾经以模糊的碳迹印在轻薄纸上流传的索尔仁尼琴的作品可以合法的在苏联国内出版了。但索尔仁尼琴先生却憎恨能够使这些发生的那个人–俄罗斯历史上首位自由选举的领袖，鲍瑞斯•叶利钦，并拒绝了要授予他国家勋章的请求。索尔仁尼琴说他不能接受一个给他人民带来痛苦的人给他的荣誉。 To the consternation of some of his supporters, he did accept an award from the ex-KGB officer who became Mr Yeltsin’s successor, Vladimir Putin. He even seemed to downplay Mr Putin’s role in the KGB, saying that every country needed an intelligence service. Yet, although he praised the self-respect and stability that Russia had regained under Mr Putin, he remained deeply critical of its politics and the corruption and greed that capitalism had exposed and fuelled. 令他的支持者惊讶的是，他竟然接受了一个前克格勃官员，叶利钦的继任者弗拉基米尔•普京给予他的荣誉。他甚至淡化普京在克格勃里的角色，他说每个国家都需要一个情报系统。虽然他称赞普京使俄罗斯赢回了其自尊和稳定，但是他依然猛烈抨击其政治和资本主义暴露并且助长的腐败和贪婪。 That message, often delivered in sententious, near messianic tones, had little appeal. A television programme consisting largely of all but unwatchable monologues lingered painfully on the airwaves and then died, unlamented. Few read his books. 这些信息通常以警世名言，接近救世主的语气发出，却鲜有吸引力。一个主要由大段的不忍卒读的独白组成电视节目以电波形式在空间痛苦地徘徊，然后消逝，而且无人哀悼。很少有人读他的书。 But his death is a chance for Russia’s rulers to say what they think about totalitarianism. Was the collapse of the Soviet Union the “geopolitical catastrophe” of the last century? Or is the real disaster the failure of an independent Russia to cast off the chains of authoritarianism and empire? If Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, goes beyond simply offering condolences to the Solzhenitsyn family, his thoughts on that would be eagerly awaited. 但是他的死给了俄罗斯统治者一次机会来表达他们对于极权主义的看法。苏联的垮台是上个世纪的一次”地缘政治灾难”吗？或者真正的灾难是独立的俄罗斯脱离威权主义和帝国的失败？如果俄罗斯的新总统德米特里•梅德韦杰夫不是简单的去索尔仁尼琴家吊唁死者，那么他对于上述问题的看法值得期待。