An interesting discussion on the significance of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This summary is from Theodore Dalrymple:

It seems to me that we have asked three fundamental questions:

i) What is the literary standing or status of Solzhenitsyn?

ii) What was his political effect in practice, in the Soviet Union and the West.

iii) Did or do his less attractive opinions detract from one or both of the above?

Let us take the first question first. Will anyone, other than specialists in Soviet and Russian history, read him in a hundred years’ time, for what he tells us about the human condition sub specie aeternitatis? Here it seems to me that he will be in what Somerset Maugham called the first rank of the second-raters (where he put himself). I am reminded of Trigorin’s self-proclaimed epitaph in The Seagull: He was a good writer, but not as good as Turgenev. But it seems unfair to criticize every writer because he is not as good as someone else. Which of us would ever put pen to paper if he were to be compared all the time with Shakespeare? But we wouldn’t want there to be only Shakespeare.

It seems to me undeniable that he had a great effect in the Soviet Union and the West. It is possible of course that this tells us more about the West than about Solzhenitsyn. It seems to me also undeniably true that he told us nothing that we could, and should, have know before. But as Gide remarked, everything has been said before, but it has to be repeated. Solzhenitsyn confronted western intellectuals with evidence in such a way that they could not deny it any longer, and surely he deserves credit for that. The fact that some people suffered even more than he does not make him any the less of a brave man – far braver than I, for example.

Finally, his undoubtedly unsavoury opinions on some subjects. Can he match Dostoyevsky for the viciousness and stupidity of his anti-Semitism, however? Surely not. But who thinks that Dostoyevsky’s insights into human psychology and the real wellsprings of revolutionism are any the less valuable for that? Also, it seems to me that some charity is in order regarding Solzhenitsyn’s age when he espoused Putinism. Not only is judgment sometimes impaired with age, but so too does the fight go out of some people, especially those who have suffered in their own flesh and blood.

In summary: Great as a man? Yes. Flawed? Yes. Of the first rank as a writer? Possibly not. Which of us on the panel equals him?