In Vladivostok they tried to move the monument to Solzhenitsyn, but it was immediately returned to its original place. Why does the character of the writer continue to arouse controversy? Alexander Solzhenitsyn's biography is a reflection of the entire Soviet and Russian history of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The Great Patriotic War, Stalin's camps, the "Gulag Archipelago", dissident activity, exile, criticism of the West, a return to the new Russia and disappointment with the reforms of the 1990s, Putin's approval and views that see as a harbinger of a major war with Ukraine - all this fits into one person's life. And today his character continues to divide Russian society: the authorities, on the one hand, use the writer's creative legacy to justify aggression against Ukraine, on the other hand, they want, if not to erase, then to change the policy of remembering the oppression, which is based on that legacy. Historian Alexei Ubarov explains how Solzhenitsyn's views took shape and changed over time and why they continue to cause controversy today. Open with VPN | No VPN.