Nobel Prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in an interview published Tuesday to coincide with the release of a new work on Jews in Russia, denied that his earlier books revealed an anti-Semitic outlook.
Mr. Solzhenitsyn, best known for his images of Soviet prison camps, told the weekly Moskovskiye Novosti that research on his book Two hundred years together, 1795-1995 had revealed a wealth of material on Jews' contribution to Russian society.
The writer said he remained good friends with prominent Jews. He also revealed differences with President Vladimir Putin, saying the Kremlin leader had ignored his advice.
Mr. Solzhenitsyn, who returned from the United States in 1994 after 20 years in exile, predicted that the book would attract all manner of criticism — as had previous works, mostly from people who had not bothered to read them.
"Some will get involved in polemics because they know nothing about this. Others will do so out of bias," he told the weekly. "I tolerate this bias to an extent that would have infuriated someone else. I was merely surprised every time."
Mr. Solzhenitsyn said he had deliberately avoided anti-Semitic references in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, depicting camp life, and had portrayed a Jewish doctor in Cancer Ward.
U.S. senators had accused him of anti-Semitism in August 1914 on the basis of excerpts taken out of context, he said. "Many who attacked me used this sensitive issue because they knew it was easy to play on it, particularly when I was in America,"
Mr. Solzhenitsyn has earned a reputation as a standard bearer of nationalism in post-Soviet Russia, calling for the defence of the cultural values of the country's Slav majority.
Reviled and jailed in the Soviet period and expelled in 1974, he was hailed as a hero as communism collapsed for his depictions of the excesses of Stalinism. But he also criticized the hardship inflicted by Russia's post-Communist rulers and what he saw as moral degradation.
His public influence has waned, though he remains a symbol of resistance.
Mr. Solzhenitsyn discussed his work on Jews with fellow Nobel laureate Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who dropped in on the writer during a Moscow visit last month.
The first volume of Mr. Solzhenitsyn's new work, covering the period until 1917, describes the Jews' place as tsars limited their rights and confined them to a "Pale of Settlement" in what is now mostly Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.
The book, running to more than 500 pages with hundreds of footnotes from archival sources, describes increasingly violent nationalist pogroms, culminating in a 1903 riot in Chisinau, capital of present-day Moldova, in which dozens were killed.
"I call on both sides — Russians and Jews — to display tolerant mutual understanding and recognize their share of the blame ...," Mr. Solzhenitsyn wrote in his introduction. "I am sincerely trying to understand both sides and with this in mind I have plunged into events, not polemics."
