Yuliya Rumyantseva

 Yuliya Rumyantseva

“Yuliya Rumyantseva was confined in the internal prison of a nazi camp while they tried to find out from her the whereabouts of her husband, who had escaped from that same camp. She knew, but she refused to tell.”

From the stories of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, we were able to understand that there are individuals that choose to practice righteousness and do not become disloyal or treacherous. We learn that the stories of the Gulag Archipelago describe the manner that there were righteous individuals who did not practice deceit, did not slander, and did not betray others. This is interesting to note because Viktor E. Frankl also describes the manner that there were righteous individuals in the concentration camps who refused to betray, deceive, or slander others. This is interesting because we are able to understand how despite circumstances, individuals can choose to be righteous rather than wicked.

We learned that individuals were able to persevere without betraying others. We learn that it is commonly seen in the socialist and communist dystopias that individuals are tempted to betray and envy others. We learn that despite persecution and envy, righteous individuals were able to persevere. There was the story of a priest in Soviet Russia who escaped being sent to gulag because he was not in his apartment at the time. We learn that the believers hid the priest for multiple years so that the socialist Soviets did not take him to gulag.

We learn that instead of betraying the priest, the believers rather hid the priest and did not tell the Soviets about his whereabouts. There are multiple stories in the Gulag Archipelago that describe individuals that did not betray others. Instead they decided to be loyal and righteous. There was the story of an older woman who hid another priest, called a metropolitan in Orthodox Christianity, and did not betray him. Instead, the older woman decided to deny knowing the whereabouts of the metropolitan to the Soviet socialists.

There is a story of a woman that did not betray the location of her husband who had fleed from a German concentration camp. We learn that the woman was interrogated by the nazi socialists and despite attempts to get her to tell the socialists her husbands whereabouts, she decided to not betray. This is interesting knowing that evil attempts to lead to sin saying that everyone is a sinner when, in reality, each individual is different and there are righteous individuals who choose to be good rather and treacherous.

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Figures of History and Individualism allows us to persevere knowing that throughout history there have been righteous individuals that decided to practice good and not practice sin. We are able to persevere knowing that there is no need to fear nor have negative emotions knowing that we trust in the Creator and not in idolatry. We are able to learn about righteous individuals that decided to speak truth and help others even when there are lies being told that attempt to lead individuals to disobedience and the practice of sin. We can persevere without practicing sin and idol worship.