In the West Alexander Solzhenitsyn is accorded the status of a secular saint. In 1970 the Nobel committee lauded the “ethical force” of his writings as they awarded him literature’s greatest prize. Soon after, the publication of a French edition …
Vladimir Putin’s war on history
Vladimir Putin came to the world’s notice, in 2000, styled as a New Russian Democrat. He had been an aide to the charismatic Petersburg reformist mayor, Anatoly Sobchak. His assumption of the supreme political office of president — after a …