The Cancer Ward by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn Mother Russia

 The Cancer Ward by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Mother Russia

 

All things Russian seem a bit hard to take at this point.

For this reader and political man- I am interested in what goes on in the world, which in the nutshell would be – politics, even if the original meaning is distorted today and it has come to signify a dirty occupation and an obscene interest.

Russia is doing many bad things today, and it is not just Putin- 84 % of the people agree with him and think that what is going on in the Ukraine is only just, they fight a fair war.

The Cancer Ward exposes some of what was wrong in the Soviet Union, and alas, much of it is good for Russia in the 21^st century. Albeit, Solzhenitsyn came back to Russia after his exile, and was way too keen on nationalism, if I remember well.

The Cancer Ward is based on the author’s experience and has sent such a powerful message that it was banned.

There is political talk, beyond the symbolism and the double- speak, even if a doctor says at one point:

-          Let’s not talk politics” –when a patient seems bent on criticizing the regime

The characters represent the walks of life under a communist regime, which I had the bad luck to know so well. There is the apparatchik – Rusanov- who is a small dictator, arrogant, selfish and quick to threaten:

-          I have been here for 18 hours. I will report you to the higher authorities.

When there is a question – what is important, what life depends on, Rusanov says:

-          Ideology

And when the author who is questioning what is important in life is mentioned: Tolstoy, the nomenklaturist does not think of the great Tolstoy, but of the lesser one.

There is a Geophysicist, who has interested me because I have graduated geophysics.

A love story is plagued by the fact that the treatment emasculates the patient, and in the language of the time, there is always another meaning in the background.

I remember how we went to the theater and we all knew, laughed or shuddered when lines, which seemed simple and innocent were said on stage:

-          I am cold, or I am hungry…there is no light, or oh, cheese!

In those days there was no food, no heating and the lights were cut off, so almost every other sentence was subversive and the censors could not cut the plays in half, although so much was banned. Like Solzhenitsyn…

                "A man dies from a tumor, so how can a country survive with growths like labor camps and exiles?"

Even if it is very important from a historical perspective, I must say that listening to an audio adaptation of this work was painful.

I do not like recalling the shortages, the censure, darkness, lack of freedom.

It is horrifying to hear nostalgic people.

Some days ago I listened (for a while and then shut myself off) to a professor from the Academy of Economic Sciences- no less. He was singing praises for…Ceausescu – a kind of smaller Stalin.

This is outrageous: what is that teacher going to transmit to his students. What is the value of a man who appreciates communism? Not much in my view.

Solzhenitsyn writes about The Cancer Ward that the 'evil man' who threw tobacco in the macaque's eyes at the zoo is meant to directly represent Stalin, and the monkey the prisoner.