As I came to understand this more and more over the years, a succession of changes was introduced into the structure, meaning, and tone of my projected speech. Today’s speech.And it now bears little resemblance to the one first conceived on those icy evenings in the prison camp.
Because of everything the author went through, he sees everything differently, himself, his life, his past , and others. So much so that the way he writes and what he writes about has changed
And today, accompanied by the shades of the fallen, as with bowed head I permit others who were worthy earlier to precede me to this platform— how am I today to surmise and to express what they would have wished to say?
The author feels as since he was so lucky to share his story and survive, he feels the need to share others stories as-well, and he feels pressure over that.
Those who vanished into this abyss when they had already earned a literary reputation are at least known; but how many there were who had not yet been recognized,
Many of the people in the Gulag could not have a reputation or their story shared because their life was cut short. The author was thinking about this and thinking about how his own luck let him share his experience.