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Russia Makes Gulag Horror Books Required Reading
MOSCOW — Russia has made a once-banned book recounting the brutality and despair of the Soviet Gulag required reading in the country’s schools, the Education Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
The ministry said excerpts of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 1973 epic “The Gulag Archipelago” have been added to the curriculum for high-school students. The book was banned by Soviet censors, sparking Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s retreat into exile.
The decision announced Wednesday was taken due to “the vital historical and cultural heritage on the course of 20th-century domestic history” contained in Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s work, the ministry said.
