"The Gulag Archipelago" is the most famous work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, first published in 1973 in France. The book has been translated into dozens of languages and has been popular among millions of readers around the world for many years. After the publication of the novel, Solzhenitsyn was accused of high treason and expelled from the USSR.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 in Kislovodsk. His father died before the birth of his son, and his mother was engaged in the upbringing of the future writer. The family was religious, so at school he refused to join the pioneer organization. In his youth, his views changed, Alexander became a Komsomol member.
From childhood he was interested in literature, read a lot, dreamed of writing a book about the revolution. But after school he entered the university at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. The young man believed that mathematics is the vocation of the smartest, and he wanted to belong to the intellectual elite.
However, after the brilliant completion of his studies, he decided to receive a second education at Moscow University at the Faculty of Literature. The training was interrupted by the Great Patriotic War. Solzhenitsyn was not subject to conscription for health reasons, but he went to the front. He insisted that he be admitted to the officer's courses, received the rank of lieutenant and went to serve in the artillery. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War.
Over time, Alexander Isaevich realized that life in the USSR did not correspond to the promises of the communist leaders, and Stalin was far from an ideal leader. He expressed his thoughts on this issue in letters to his friend Nikolai Vitkevich. Of course, they soon became known to the Chekists. Solzhenitsyn was arrested, sentenced to seven years in prison and life in exile after imprisonment. In addition, they were stripped of their titles and awards.
After serving his sentence, Solzhenitsyn lived in Kazakhstan, worked as a teacher. In 1956, his Solzhenitsyn case was reviewed and all charges dropped. Returning to central Russia, he focused on literary activity. Despite the fact that in his works the writer spoke frankly about life in the country, the authorities initially supported him, having seen anti-Stalinist themes in the work of Alexander Isaevich. However, later Khrushchev stopped supporting Solzhenitsyn, and when Brezhnev became General Secretary, the writer's books were banned.
When Solzhenitsyn's books were published in the West, by the way, without the knowledge of the writer himself, the Soviet leadership invited him to leave the country. When he refused, he was accused of treason and expelled from the Union.
Abroad, Alexander Isaevich continued to write. In addition, he created the "Russian Public Fund for Aid to the Persecuted and Their Families", and spoke a lot.
After the change of the regime in Russia, Solzhenitsyn returned to the country at the invitation of Boris Yeltsin and lived the rest of his life in his homeland. The writer passed away in 2008.
"GULAG Archipelago" - the history of creation
After the publication of the book One Day in Ivan Denisovich, Solzhenitsyn began to receive thousands of letters from prisoners and their loved ones, in which they told poignant stories of camp life. Alexander Isaevich held many meetings with them, talked, found out the details, took notes. Even then, he had the idea to create a great work about the life of prisoners. And in 1964 he worked out a detailed plan for the book and began work.
A year later, KGB officers raided the disgraced writer and seized many manuscripts. Fortunately, the "Archipelago" was saved - helped by friends and associates, among whom were former prisoners of the GULAG. Since then, the writer has been working on the book in deep secrecy.
It is worth noting that it was difficult to find official documents about camps, political prisoners and repressions; it was strictly classified by law in the USSR, and this complicated the work on the book.
The novel was completed in 1968. It was published in 1973 and certainly not in Russia. The French publishing house YMCA-PRESS has released the first volume of The Archipelago. It was preceded by the words of the author: “With an embarrassment in my heart, for years I refrained from printing this already finished book: the debt to the living outweighed the debt to the dead. But now that the state security has taken this book anyway, I have no choice but to publish it immediately."
None of the subsequent editions of this epigraph was.
Two months later, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the USSR.
And the "Gulag Archipelago" continued to be published first in France, then they began to translate into different languages and publish in other countries.
For several years, Solzhenitsyn was finalizing the novel, taking into account new information and facts. And in 1980 it was released in a new edition in France. In Russia, the book was first published in the nineties of the last century.
A lot of work has been done since that time. The last edition of "Archipelago" was published after the death of the author, but he managed to take part in the work on it. Since then, the book has been published in exactly this form.
Content
All the heroes of the novel are real people. The work is based on real events.
"The Gulag Archipelago" tells about the difficult life of prisoners who were trapped in the camps during the mass repressions, while most of them were to blame only for a couple of careless words or in no way at all. The author shows life from the inside, or rather the existence in the camps. The book contains only true stories and facts from the life of 227 prisoners, whose names are listed on the first pages of the book.
Volume one
The first volume deals with arrests, detentions that carry fear and horror to every life and to every family. Sincere stories about searches and confiscations, about tears and goodbyes. Often, forever. Not everyone who ended up in the Gulag managed to return home.
Further, we are talking about the tragic fate of intellectuals, the color of the nation, a huge number of whom were arrested, convicted, sent to camps or shot just for being educated and well-mannered people.
But the tragedy of mass repressions did not bypass those for whom, it would seem, the revolution was carried out - first of all, the peasants. During the “red terror”, the villagers remained absolutely beggars - everything was confiscated from them. And at the slightest attempt to preserve at least a miserable part of their wealth, they immediately became fists, enemies of the people and ended up in camps or were shot. The representatives of the clergy, priests, and ordinary parishioners also had a very hard time. "Opium for the people" was eradicated methodically and brutally.
As already mentioned, everyone could become an enemy of the people - it was not required to commit crimes for this. And there had to be someone to blame for any failure. So they were "appointed". Famine in Ukraine? The perpetrators were found and immediately shot, and it doesn't matter that they were not at all to blame for what happened. Did you share with a friend your thoughts about the imperfection of the Soviet leadership (as in the case of Solzhenitsyn)? Come to the camps. There are thousands of such examples. And Solzhenitsyn speaks about it directly and without embellishment.
Prison stories are hard to read. In the second volume, there is a frank story about the numerous and varied tortures to which the prisoners were subjected. In such conditions, people signed any confessions. Living conditions were also not very human - overcrowded cells without light and air. A faint hope for the restoration of justice did not always come true, unfortunately.
Volume two
The second volume is devoted to the history of the creation of the camp system. The reason that there were suddenly so many enemies and criminals in the country was not the paranoia of the leaders. Everything is much more prosaic: prisoners are free labor, practically slaves. Unbearable work in inhuman conditions, poor food, bullying by guards - these are the realities of the Gulag. Few could withstand it - the mortality rate in the camps was very high.
The author also talks about the natural conditions in which the camps were created. Solovki, Kolyma, Belomor - the harsh northern region, in which it is difficult to survive even in the wild, made the life of the prisoners completely unbearable.
Volume three
The third volume is the most poignant part. Solzhenitsyn tells in it how the offenses of prisoners are punished, in particular, an attempt to escape. A successful escape from the Gulag is an almost impossible situation. Few lucky ones managed to stay out of time or be released early.
Among them was Solzhenitsyn himself. His own pain, tragedy, broken fate, multiplied by the same crippled lives of hundreds of prisoners, allowed him to create an immortal work that still excites the minds and hearts of millions of people around the world.
