In his Nobel Prize lecture, Solzhenitsyn, one of the greatest and most influential writers of the 20th century, warned against the suppression of literature, which helps preserve national memory and truth, and appealed to artists and writers to stand against oppressive governments and violent acts and extravagant lies. 'The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, justice nothing,' the man who had spent nearly a decade in the labor camps of the Gulag told a complacent world. 'The price of cowardice will only be evil; we shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.' Solzhenitsyn had served time in Russian prison and labor camps for having criticized Josef Stalin in correspondence with a school friend. He declined to attend the prize-giving ceremony himself, for fear of not being allowed to return to the Soviet Union. (His new wife was expecting their first child.) The text of the address, portions of which are below, was...
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