MOSCOW. June 17 (Interfax) - Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who received the Russian state prize last week, expressed hope that his pieces of literature and historic novels will help Russia in hard times.

"Attention to my works shown in the state prize is honorable for me," Solzhenitsyn in an interview with the Vesti Nedeli program on the air of the Rossiya TV channel on Sunday.

"At the end of my life I could hope that historic materials and stories, scenes of life and characters dealing with the severe and uneasy period in our country which I created and which later were presented to readers, would come into people's consciousness, their memories," the writer said.

"This sad Russian experience is likely to help us in a possible repetition of unstable social situations. It would warn us against and turn us from disastrous failures. Indeed, how many times we have shown firmness. It saved us. And it will help us today on our hard way of healing," Solzhenitsyn said.

Meanwhile, Nataliya Solzhnitsyna, the spouse of the writer, said in an interview with the Vesti-24 TV channel that Solzhenitsyn decided to give a half of the prize in money terms to the Neiro foundation, the foundation at the Burdenko Neurosurgery Institute.

The money will be used "to pay for the surgeries of people who cannot afford them," she said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree decorating Solzhenitsyn with the Russian state prize for his outstanding humanitarian work last week.