SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr (Isaevich)

Nationality: Russian. Born: Kislovodsk, 11 December 1918. Education: School in Rostov-on-Don; University of Rostov, 1936-41, degree in mathematics and physics 1941; correspondence course in philology, Moscow University, 1939-41. Military Service: Served in the Soviet Army, 1941-45: captain; decorated twice; arrested and stripped of rank, 1945. Family: Married 1) Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaia in 1940 (divorced), remarried in 1957 (divorced 1973), three sons; 2) Natalia Svetlova in 1973, one stepson. Career: Physics teacher, secondary school, Morozovsk, 1941; sentenced to eight years imprisonment for anti-Soviet agitation, 1945: in prisons in Moscow, 1945-50, and labor camp in Kazakhstan, 1950-53; released from prison, and exiled to Kok-Terek, Siberia: mathematics teacher, 1953-56; released from exile, 1956, and settled in Ryazan, 1957, as teacher, then full-time writer; unable to publish from 1966; charged with treason and expelled from U.S.S.R., 1974; lived in Zurich, 1974-76, and in Cavendish, Vermont since 1976; reinstated to Union of Soviet Writers, 1989; Russian citizenship restored, 1990; treason charges formally removed, 1991. Awards: Foreign book prize (France), 1969; Nobel prize for literature, 1970; Templeton prize, 1983; National Arts Club medal (U.S.), 1993. D.Litt.: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1978. Member: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1969; Honorary Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, 1975.

Publications

Short Stories

Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha. 1962; as One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1963.

Etudy i krokhotnye rasskazy. 1964; as Stories and Prose Poems, 1971; as Prose Poems, 1971; as Matryona's House and Other Stories, 1975.

Rasskazy [Short Stories]. 1990.

Novels

Dlia pol'zy dela. 1963; as For the Good of the Cause, 1964.

Sluchai na stantsii Krechetovka; Matrenin dvor. 1963; as We Never Make Mistakes, 1963.

V kruge pervom. 1968; as The First Circle, 1968; restored complete edition, 1978.

Rakovyi korpus. 1968; complete edition, 1968; as Cancer Ward, 2 vols., 1968-69; as The Cancer Ward, 1969.

Six Etudes. 1971.

Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo. 1971; as August 1914, 1972; expanded version, as Krasnoe koleso 1, in Sobranie sochinenii, 11-12, 1983; revised edition, as part of Krasnoe koleso, 1983-86.

Krasnoe koleso: povestvovan'e v otmerennykh srokakh [The RedWheel]:

Uzel 1: Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo. 2 vols., 1983; as The Red Wheel: A Narrative in Discrete Periods of Time, 1989.

Uzel 2: Oktiabr'shestnadtsatogo. 2 vols., 1984; as November 1916, 1998.

Uzel 3: Mart semnadtsatogo. 2 vols., 1986.

Uzel 4: Aprel' semnadtsatogo. 1991.

Plays

Olen' i shalashovka. 1968; as The Love-Girl and the Innocent(produced 1981), 1969; as Respublika truda, in Sobranie sochinenii 8, 1981.

Svecha na vetru. 1968; as Candle in the Wind, 1973; as Svet, koroty, v tebe, in Sobranie sochinenii 8, 1981.

Pir podebitelei. In Sobranie sochinenii 8, 1981; as Victory Celebrations (produced 1990), 1983.

Plenniki. In Sobranie sochinenii 8, 1981; as Prisoners, 1983.

P'esy i kinostsenarii (plays and film scripts). 1981. The Love-Girl and the Innocent (includes Prisoners; Victory Celebration). 1986.

Poetry

Prusskie nochi: poema napisannaia v lagere v 1950. 1974; asPrussian Nights, 1977.

Other

Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works]. 6 vols., 1969-70.

Les Droits de l'écrivain. 1969.

Nobelevskaia lektsiia po literature. 1972; as Nobel Lecture, edited by F.D. Reeve, 1972; as One Word of Truth, 1972.

Arkhipelag Gulag. 3 vols., 1973-76; as The Gulag Archipelago, 3 vols., 1974-78; abridged edition in 1 vol., edited by Edward Ericson, Jr., 1985.

Iz-pod glyb. 1974; as From Under the Rubble, 1975.

Mir i nasilie [Peace and Violence]. 1974.

Pis'mo vozhdiam Sovetskogo soiuza. 1974; as Letter to the Soviet Leaders, 1974.

A Pictorial Autobiography. 1974.

Solzhenitsyn, the Voice of Freedom (two speeches). 1975. Bodalsia telenok s dubom (autobiography). 1975; as The Oak and the Calf, 1980.

Lenin v Tsiurikhe. 1975; as Lenin in Zurich, 1976.

Detente: Prospects for Democracy and Dictatorship. 1975.

America, We Beg You to Interfere (speeches). 1975.

Amerikanskie rechi [American Discourse]. 1975.

Warning to the Western World (interview). 1976.

A World Split Apart (address). 1978.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn Speaks to the West (speeches). 1978.

Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works]. 1978—.

The Mortal Danger: How Misconceptions About Russia Imperil the West. 1980.

East and West (miscellany). 1980.

Issledovaniia noveishei russkoi istorii. 1980—.

Publitsistika: stat'i i rechi (articles and speeches). 1981.

Kak nam obustroit' Rossiiu [How Are We to Put Russia inOrder?] 1990.

Rebuilding Russia: Toward Some Formulations. 1991.

Les Invisibles. 1992.

Editor, Russkii slovar' iazykovogo rasshireniia. 1990.

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Bibliography:

Solzhenitsyn: An International Bibliography of Writings by and About Him by Donald M. Fiene, 1973.

Critical Studies:

Solzhenitsyn by Georg Lukács, 1970: Solzhenitsyn: The Major Novels by Abraham Rothberg, 1971; Alexander Solzhenitsyn by David Burg and George Feifer, 1973; Solzhenitsyn: Critical Essays and Documentary Materials edited by John B. Dunlop and others, 1973, revised edition, 1975; Solzhenitsyn by Christopher Moody, 1973, revised edition, 1976; Solzhenitsyn: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by Kathryn Feuer, 1976; Solzhenitsyn: Politics and Form by Francis Barker, 1977; The Politics of Solzhenitsyn by Stephen Carter, 1977; Solzhenitsyn by Steven Allaback, Taplinger, 1978; Solzhenitsyn and the Secret Circle by Olga Andreyev Carlisle, 1978; Solzhenitsyn Studies: A Quarterly Survey (journal) from Spring 1980; Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky: A Study in the Polyphonic Novel by Vladislav Krasnov, 1980; Solzhenitsyn, Tvardovsky and "Novy mir" by Vladimir Lakshin, 1980; Solzhenitsyn: The Moral Vision by Edward E. Ericson, 1982; Solzhenitsyn's Traditional Imagination by James Curtis, Athens, 1984; Solzhenitsyn by Georges Nivat, 1984; Solzhenitsyn: A Biography by Michael Scammell, 1984; Solzhenitsyn in Exile: Critical Essays and Documentary Material edited by John B. Dunlop, Richard S. Haugh, and Michael Nicholson, 1985; Solzhenitsyn: Myth and Reality by A. Flegon, 1986; Solzhenitsyn and the Modern World by Edward E. Ericson, 1993; The Solzenitsyn Files: Secret Soviet Documents Reveal One Man's Fight against the Monolith, edited by Michael Scammell, 1995; Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in His Life by D. M. Thomas, 1998.

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Although known primarily for his novels and longer works, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has produced several important short stories. "The Easter Procession" describes an Easter 50 years after the revolution, at which a rowdy group of teenagers harasses the Orthodox faithful, mostly old women, deacons, and priests. These "hooligans" insult the spiritual event taking place by being drunk, swearing, and flashing knives. The narrator warns that this generation will "trample" on everyone else.

In contrast, in "For the Good of the Cause" young people voluntarily construct a building to house their technical school, but they lose it to a scientific research institute. The students' enthusiasm for their work is a rare example of socialism at its best. But despite the impassioned pleas of their principal that communism must choose people over prestige, the students' needs are subordinated to the view of the party bureaucracy that the research institute is a higher priority.

Another short story, "The Right Hand," deals with sterile bureaucratic rules that override humanitarian responses. Like Rakovui korpus (The Cancer Ward), this story is related by a camp survivor who is recovering in Tashkent from a life-threatening condition. At the age of 35 the protagonist has already endured ten years of camp life, and he reflects on the truth that "the true savour of life is not to be gained by big things but from little ones" (translated by Michael Glenny). Enjoying his taste of freedom at the clinic where he can ogle girls, he attempts to help a sickly veteran who seeks admittance to the hospital. Both men are rebuffed by a callous receptionist who has no sympathy for the veteran. The author infers that simple human kindness is lacking because of an inflexible bureaucratic routine.

Solzhenitsyn uses fiction as a vehicle to preserve memories of his eight years in prison camps. In 1962 the journal Novy Mir published Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), which enjoyed immediate success. Solzhenitsyn had actually begun the novella before 1959 and called it "Shch-854." Khrushchev, who wanted to denigrate Stalin, approved publication of the work with its new title. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, although fiction, is also an historical perspective—the political climate at the time precluded an objective history of the Stalinist period. Ivan Denisovich (Shukov) represents the common individual incarcerated in a Soviet camp for an insignificant crime; his energies are devoted entirely to survival under brutal conditions.

The stories "Matrena's House" and "Incident at Krechotovka Station" were published in Novy Mir in 1963. Matrena, a prototypical peasant character, demonstrates spirituality and selflessness. The latter story concerns a railroad station during World War II, where a soldier is denounced by the station commandant. Thestory illustrates the workings of a police state in which trainloads of former soldiers, having been sentenced to prison terms, pass through the station. Zotov, the station commandant who feels sympathy for Tveritinov, a former actor who elicits his help, nevertheless must turn him in to the police. Yet Zotov shows his sensitivity by manifesting doubt over his decision.

"Zakhar Kalita" ("Zakhar-the-Pouch") describes a summer bicycling holiday at Kulikovo Field, the scene of a battle in 1380 between the Russians and the Mongols. The narrator focuses upon the Keeper of the Field, an eccentric muzhik named Zakhar who carries a pouch in which he keeps a Comments book and other articles. Seemingly a foolish figure at first, Zakhar, by the end of the story, becomes the "Spirit of the Field," a faithful guardian of the best of Russian traditions, and the narrator judges Kulikovo Field as an important piece of Russian history that needs to be preserved.

Solzhenitsyn's work follows in the nineteenth-century tradition of realism epitomized by Tolstoii. His range of characters is broad, including persons from all levels of Soviet society. His language is simple, concrete, terse, and understated, although he often intrudes into the narration through his didactic comments. Certainly the personal experiences of the author have refined his efforts to recreate the effects of the prison camps, the loss of freedom, and the sense of exile and suffering inherent in his characters' struggles. His major themes deal with freedom and repression: the struggle to survive and achieve a sense of self-worth in spite of a cruel and inhumane system of government.

—Shirley J. Paolini

See the essays on "Matrena's House" and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.