Tag Archives: RKS literature

RKS Literature: The Importance of the Family Doctor (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)

“The family doctor is a figure without whom the family cannot exist in a developed society. He knows the needs of each member of the family, just as a mother knows their tastes. There’s no shame in taking to him some trivial complaint you’d never take to the outpatient’s clinic, which entails getting an appointmentContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Importance of the Family Doctor (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)”

RKS Literature: The Suffering and Mercy of War (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)

“The war was merciful to men, it took them away. The women it left to suffer to the end of their days.” Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, “Cancer Ward”, 1968.

RKS Literature: Growing Dull with The Passing Years (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)

“It’s simply that we grow dull with the passing years. We grow tired. We lose all true talent for grief or faithfulness. We surrender to time. Yet every day we swallow food and lick our fingers-in this respect we are unyielding. If we are not fed for two days we go out of our mind,Continue reading “RKS Literature: Growing Dull with The Passing Years (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)”

RKS Literature: Russians, Vodka and Strength (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

“Pasha, vodka can’t make it any worse, you’ve got to realize that. Vodka is a cure for all illnesses. I’ll drink some pure spirit before the operation, what do you think? Here, I’ve got it in a little bottle. Why spirit? Because it gets absorbed right away, it doesn’t leave any surplus water. When theContinue reading “RKS Literature: Russians, Vodka and Strength (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)”

RKS Literature: The Never-Ending Imprisonment of Soviet Soldiers Who Fought in The Second World War: Seen as Spies! (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

“Only a prisoner in his first years of sentence believes, every time he is summoned from his cell and told to collect his belongings, that he is being called to freedom. To him every whisper of an amnesty sounds like the trumpets of archangels. But they call him out of his cell, read him someContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Never-Ending Imprisonment of Soviet Soldiers Who Fought in The Second World War: Seen as Spies! (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)”

RKS Literature: Comrade Rusanov Once a Proletarian and Now a Party Bureaucrat Despises the Proletarian Kind (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)

“Gradually over the years he and Kapitolina developed an aversion to teeming human beings, to jostling crowds. The Rusanovs found streetcars, buses and trolley-buses quite disgusting. People were always pushing, especially when they were trying to get aboard. Insults were always flying around. Builders and other workers were always climbing in in dirty overalls, andContinue reading “RKS Literature: Comrade Rusanov Once a Proletarian and Now a Party Bureaucrat Despises the Proletarian Kind (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)”

RKS Literature: Comrade Rusanov as a Proud Soviet Stoolie for Stalin (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

“Rusanov was not afraid of any of them. He had helped establish the guilt of them all, more boldly and openly as time went on. On two occasions he had even gone to the confrontation, raised his voice and denounced them. At that time it was not considered the least shameful to do such aContinue reading “RKS Literature: Comrade Rusanov as a Proud Soviet Stoolie for Stalin (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)”

RKS Literature: Soviet Party Bureaucrat Thinks He Deserves the Best (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

“There was nothing wrong in a man in strengthening his material position with the help of a good salary from the state and a good pension (Pavel Nikolayevich’s dream was to be awarded a special, personal pension). Such a man has earned his car, his cottage in the country, and a small house in townContinue reading “RKS Literature: Soviet Party Bureaucrat Thinks He Deserves the Best (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)”

RKS Literature: Cancer Ward Patients Like Chickens Waiting to Have Their Heads Cut Off (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)

“But here in the clinic, sucking an oxygen balloon, eyes hardly able to roll, the tongue keeps on arguing, “I’m not going to die! I haven’t got cancer!” Just like chickens. A knife was ready and waiting for them, but they all carried on cackling and scratching for food. One was taken away to haveContinue reading “RKS Literature: Cancer Ward Patients Like Chickens Waiting to Have Their Heads Cut Off (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)”

RKS Literature: Radiation Madness in Soviet Cancer Treatment (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

“But then, ten, fifteen or eighteen years ago, when the term “radiation sickness” did not exist, X-ray radiation had seemed such a straightforward, reliable and foolproof method, such a magnificent achievement of modern medical technique, that it was considered retrograde, almost a sabotage of public health, to refuse to use it and to look toContinue reading “RKS Literature: Radiation Madness in Soviet Cancer Treatment (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)”