Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described the release of a school-adapted version of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago as a landmark event at a meeting on Tuesday with the author's widow, Natalia.
Last year, she proposed publishing a shortened version of Solzhenitsyn's controversial epic, which he based on eyewitness testimony and primary research as well as his own experience as a prisoner in a Soviet Gulag labour camp. Putin supported the initiative.
Since then, the book has been abridged and published for the school curriculum, and Natalia Solzhenitsyna brought one of the 10,000 freshly printed copies along to her meeting with the prime minister. She said that she had to cut the book by three-fourths in order to adapt it for school-aged readers.
The prime minister said that he appreciated her effort. "Without knowing what's in these pages, it is impossible to have a complete understanding of our country and difficult to reflect on our future," the prime minister told Natalya Solzhenitsyna.
"This is a meaningful event, particularly on the eve of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions," he added.
Sergei Syomushkin