Did Solzhenitsyn say: “They are lying to us, we know that they are lying, they know that we know that they are lying”?

An alleged quote from Nobel Prize laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn about lying has been circulated online. We checked whether Solzhenitsyn really said this.

An alleged quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn has been circulating for several years now. social networks and onlinequotation books. She is often mentioned in connection with criticism restrictive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, with hashtag #Navalny or in respect Russian propaganda during a “special military operation” in Ukraine in 2022. At the trial in The Hague in the case of the crash of flight MH17, the daughter of one of the victims “quoted” Solzhenitsyn in her speech. Edition The Insider wrote: “She began her speech by reading in Russian a quote from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago: “They lie, we know that they lie, and they know that we know that they lie.” This phrase about lies, allegedly belonging to Solzhenitsyn, can be found on the Internet not only in Russian, but also in English, French, German And Chinese languages.

According to The Insider, the quote about lying is taken from The Gulag Archipelago. IN text In the work, the key word “lie” is mentioned seven times, but the quote we are interested in does not appear there even in meaning. Solzhenitsyn talks a lot about lies and inaction in his article "Don't live by a lie" or interview Time magazine, where the Nobel laureate says that “in our country, lying has become not just a moral category, but also a pillar of state.” But even in these texts it was not possible to find an exact quote. In the rest works There is no such quotation from Solzhenitsyn in Russian or English either.

A Google search for the phrase yields various variations and wordings, but nowhere is there any indication of the work from which the quotation is taken. The same phrase, translated into English, is also attributed to Solzhenitsyn in English-language sources, and also without indicating the work. One of users Twitter found a similar statement in a speech by American Admiral Arleigh Burke. In 1963, at a US Senate committee hearing, Admiral Burke called their American colleagues do not trust the USSR when it comes to disarmament obligations:

“Soviet people, communists, are masters of deception. I was at conferences with them, with the communists, when they lied about obvious things. They are lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know that they are lying, and yet they lie, and they have no shame when they are caught in a lie, because if they have power, they don’t care.”

A similar phrase in English is found in trailer to the 2016 documentary Hypernormalization, directed by Adam Curtis: “We live in a world where the powerful are deceiving us. We know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, they don't care. We say we care, but we don't do anything. And nothing ever changes. This is fine. Welcome to the world of post-truth." The trailer doesn't indicate who the quote belongs to.

An earlier source in which the quotation we are interested in appears almost verbatim is book the 2010 “Mountain of Crumbs” by the writer Elena Gorokhova, who emigrated from the USSR, based on the memories of her childhood in the Soviet Union. At the age of 24, Gorokhova emigrated to the United States, so her books are published in English. Translated into Russian it quote about lies sounds like this: “The rules of the game are simple: they lie to us, we know that they are lying, they know that we know it, but they still continue to lie, and we pretend to believe them.”

Until 2019, a quote about lies on the Internet was usually was attributed Elena Gorokhova. In 2019, this quote in English began appearing in Twitter already with an erroneous indication of the authorship of Solzhenitsyn. Most likely, the erroneous attribution from English-language accounts also made its way to Runet.

So, there is no such quote about lying in Solzhenitsyn’s texts. The phrase is probably attributed to him, since Solzhenitsyn is considered one of the most famous Soviet dissidents who openly criticized communism and political repression in the Soviet Union.

Cover image: website solzhenitsyn.ru

Incorrect quote attribution

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. A. I. Solzhenitsyn. "Don't live by a lie"
2. Arzamas. Test: Will you understand Solzhenitsyn?