The shadow of Solzhenitsyn, who is well known or even a star in the West, still hides the oeuvre of Varlam Shalamov, the representative of Gulag literature overgrowing him. The importance of him can be compared of Gogol, Platonov and Bely. Shalamov, until the end of his life, insisted on the ethos of the Trotskyist opposition of the 1920s and the revolutionary message of the Russian intelligentsia on the "unity of words and act" – not matching anti-Stalinism with anti-Soviet theories.
Category Archives: Former issues
The “Liberation Theology” of Varlam Shalamov
The theoretical roots of the oeuvre of Shalamov go back to the some kind of "liberation theology" of the renewal movement in the Orthodox Church developed after 1917 under the leadership of Metropolitan Vvedensky, which movement was ardently supported by his father Tikhon Sahalamov. The "Living Church" movement accepted the moral justice of the October Revolution, which it would like to actively introduce in actual life by the church. According to its adherents "communism is identical to the Gospel but was written in atheistic letters". In the 1930s the Stalinist State, after its Thermidorian turn, rather collaborated with the black-hundredist clergymen, which accepted its dictatorship.
Shalamov and Solzhenitsyn
Who Cares about Józsi the Beggar? (To the Dilemma of the Less Worst and the First Best) Methodological Contemplation on Principles and Compromises
Some humanists intend to protect humans by giving the ones in need aid. Some other humanists intend to protect humans by giving the ones in need exactly no aid.
US Neoconservatives and the Securitization of Islam
After the several decade long activism of US neoconservatives, approaching issues as security control problems became a standard element in politics. By reinterpreting the concept of security, security control has spread into areas, where problems cannot be solved by this approach. Its most severe symptom was the 2003 invasion in Iraq and the launch of the ‘war on terror’. These clearly show the threat of uncontrolled security control and the business and political interests behind.