Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was the first to break down the wall of silence surrounding repression in the Soviet Union.

It was absolutely necessary to write about the Gulag to make the country and the world aware of what was happening. He had the highest qualities of audacity in deciding to tell the truth about the repressions, and that was his most important achievement.

Many of us knew about it but did not have the courage to write about it then. But Solzhenitsyn did that in 1962 with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and he was the first to bring attention to it. After this, the literary and social culture of our country changed because he opened up a new world. Writers, scientists, cultural workers, intellectuals could no longer view the world through rose-tinted glasses.

The power of the system was destroyed after that. Many had tried to break through that wall before him, but he was the first really to do it. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and his return to Russia he lost influence.

Solzhenitsyn did not want Western democracy here. He was a conservative nationalist, a religious man, and he wanted Russia to return to somewhere in the 16th century.

Future generations will recognise Solzhenitsyn’s huge impact on the course of life in the Soviet Union, but they won’t pay so much attention to his philosophy because it doesn’t suit modern life.

Roy Medvedev, 82, was a dissident historian who was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party in 1969 for his critical studies of the Stalin era. He was reinstated in 1988

Times Recommends

• Would you live on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall?
• Wish you were here, says Iraq tourist board
• Russian policeman’s corruption plea to Putin