Born: Kislovodsk, Russia, 11 December 1918. Education: Educated at 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 1950, remarried in 1957, divorced 1972), 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 labour 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 Riazan’, 1957, as teacher, then full-time writer; unable to publish from 1966; charged with treason and expelled from USSR, 1974; lived in Zurich, 1974-76, and in Cavendish, Vermont, 1976-94; reinstated to Union of Soviet Writers, 1989; Soviet citizenship restored, 1990; treason charges formally removed, 1991; returned to Russia, 1994. Awards: Foreign book prize (France), 1969; Nobel prize for literature, 1970; Templeton prize, 1983. 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
Fiction
Odin den’ Ivana Denisovicha. 1962; as One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, translated by Ralph Parker, 1963; also translated by Max Hayward and Ronald Hingley, 1963; Bela Von Block, 1963; Gillon R. Aitken, 1971, revised edition, 1978; Harry T. Willetts, 1990.
Dlia pol’zy dela. 1963; as For the Good of the Cause, translated by David Floyd and Max Hayward, 1964.
Sluchai na stantsii Krechetovka; Matrenin dvor [An Incident at Krechetovka Station; Matriona's House]. 1963; as We Never Make Mistakes, translated by Paul W. Blackstock, 1963.
Etudy i krokhotnye rasskazy. 1964; as Stories and Prose Poems, translated by Michael Glenny, 1971; as Prose Poems, translated by Glenny, 1971; as Matryona’s House and Other Stories, translated by Glenny, 1975.
Vkruge pervom. 1968; restored complete edition, 1978; as The First Circle, translated by Thomas P. Whitney, 1968; also translated by Michael Guybon, 1968; Max Hayward, Manya Harari, and Michael Glenny, 1988.
Rakovyi korpus. 1968; as Cancer Ward, translated by Nicholas Bethell and David Burg, 2 vols., 1968-69; as The Cancer Ward, translated by Rebecca Frank, 1968. Six Etudes, translated by James G. Walker. 1971.
Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo. 1971; as August 1914, translated by Michael Glenny, 1972; enlarged version, as Krasnoe koleso 1, 1983; revised edition, as part of Krasnoe koleso, 1983-86. Krasnoe koleso: povestvovan’e v otmerennykh srokakh [The Red Wheel]:
Uzel 1: Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo. 2 vols., 1983; as The Red Wheel: A Narrative in Discrete Periods of Time, translated by Harry T. Willetts, 1989. Uzel 2: Oktiabr’ shestnadtsatogo. 2 vols., 1984. Uzel 3: Mart semnadtsatogo. 2 vols., 1986. Uzel 4: Aprel’ semnadtsatogo. 1991. Rasskazy [Stories]. 1990.
Plays
Olen’ i shalashovka. 1968; as The Love-Girl and the Innocent, translated by Nicholas Bethell and David Burg, 1969; as Respublika truda, in Sobranie sochinenii, 1981.
Svecha na vetru. 1968; as Candle in the Wind, translated by Keith Armes and Arthur Hudgins, 1973; as Svet, koroty, v tebe, 1981.
Pir podebitelei. 1981; as Victory Celebrations (produced 1990), translated by Helen Rapp and Nancy Thomas, 1983.
Plenniki. 1981; as Prisoners, translated by Helen Rapp and Nancy Thomas, 1983.
P’esy i kinostsenarii (plays and film scripts). 1981.
Verse
Prusskie nochi: Poema napisannaia v lagere v 1950. 1974; as Prussian Nights, translated by Robert Conquest, 1977.
Other
Les Droits de l’ecrivain. 1969.
Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works]. 6 vols., 1969-70.
Nobelevskaia lektsiia po literature. 1972; as Nobel Lecture, edited and translated by F.D. Reeve, 1972; translated as One Word of Truth, 1972.
Arkhipelag Gulag: 1918-1956. 3 vols., 1973-76; as The Gulag Archipelago, translated by Thomas P. Whitney, 3 vols., 1974-78; abridged edition in one volume, edited by Edward Ericson, Jr., translated by Whitney and Harry T. Willetts, 1985.
Iz-pod glyb, with others. 1974; as From under the Rubble, translated by A.M. Brock and others, 1975.
Mir i nasilie [Peace and Violence]. 1974.
Pis’mo vozhdiam Sovetskogo soiuza. 1974; as Letter to the Soviet Leaders, translated by Hilary Sternberg, 1974.
Solzhenitsyn, the Voice of Freedom (two speeches). 1975.
Bodalsia telenok s dubom (autobiography). 1975; as The Oak and the Calf, translated by Harry T. Willetts, 1980.
Lenin v Tsiurikhe. 1975; as Lenin in Zurich, translated by Harry T. Willetts, 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), translated by Irina Alberti and Alexis Klimoff. 1978.
Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works]. 1978-.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn Speaks to the West (speeches), edited by Alexis Klimoff, translated by Harris L. Coulter and Nataly Martin. 1978.
The Mortal Danger: How Misconceptions about Russia Imperil the West, translated by Alexis Klimoff and Michael Nicholson. 1980.
East and West (miscellany). 1980.
Issledovaniia noveishei russkoi istorii. 1980-.
Publitsistika: Stat’i i rechi (articles and speeches). 1981.
Kak nam obustroit’ Rossiiu. 1990; as Rebuilding Russia: Toward Some Formulations, translated by Alexis Klimoff, 1991.
Les Invisibles. 1992.
Nashi pliuralisty: Otryvok iz vtorogo toma ”Ocherkov literaturnoi zhizni” (Mai 1982). 1992.
Invisible Allies, translated by Alexis Klimoff and Michael Nicholson. 1995.
The Russian Question: At the End of the Twentieth Century, translated and annotated by Yermolai Solzhenitsyn. 1995.
Editor, Russkii slovar’ iazykovogo rasshireniia. 1990.
Critical Studies:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn by Georg Lukacs, 1970; Alexander Solzhenitsyn: The Major Novels by Abraham Rothberg, 1971; Alexander Solzhenitsyn by David Burg and George Feifer, 1973; Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Critical Essays and Documentary Materials edited by John B. Dunlop and others, 1973, revised edition, 1975; Alexander Solzhenitsyn by Christopher Moody, 1973, revised edition, 1976; Alexander 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; Alexander Solzhenitsyn by Steven Allaback, 1978; Solzhenitsyn and the Secret Circle by Olga Andreyev Carlisle, 1978; 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. Eric-son, 1982; Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Traditional Imagination by James Curtis, 1984; Solzhenitsyn by Georges Nivat, 1984; Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Biography by Michael Scammell, 1984; Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Exile: Critical Essays and Documentary Material edited by John B. Dunlop, Richard S. Haugh, and Michael Nicholson, 1985; Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Myth and Reality by A. Flegon, 1986; Solzhenitsyn and the Modern World by Edward E. Ericson, Jr., 1993; The Solzhenitsyn Files: Secret Soviet Documents Reveal One Man’s Fight Against the Monolith, edited with introduction by Michael Scammell, translated by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, 1995; Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Robert Porter, 1997;Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile by Joseph Pearce, 1999.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s literary ambitions were already manifested in 1937 when he conceived the idea of creating a long novel about the Russian Revolution and wrote several chapters of it. At that time Solzhenitsyn believed in Leninism, approving of the October Revolution. His experience in Soviet prisons and forced labour camps made him change his political orientation, and he took upon himself the messianic task of exposing the brutality, the mendacity, and the illegitimacy of the Communist rule in Russia.
Odin den’ Ivana Denisovicha (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), called a novel in the West but really a short story, was his first published work. Written tersely and effectively, it presents a Soviet camp through the eyes of a peasant prisoner who manages to preserve his integrity in dehumanizing conditions. The story came out only because Khrushchev considered it useful for his anti-Stalin campaign. This fact facilitated the publication of Sluchai na stantsii Krechetovka [An Incident at Krechetovka Station], Matrenin dvor [Matriona's House], and Dlia pol’zy dela (For the Good of the Cause). The first story demonstrates how a young lieutenant is corrupted by the intense propaganda of vigilance designed to justify domestic repression. In the second story Solzhenitsyn draws an impressive portrait of a kind and unselfish peasant woman, a type of the righteous person that forms Russia’s moral foundation. The third story, showing a callous bureaucratic disregard for ordinary Soviet citizens, lacks depth and poignancy.
Solzhenitsyn’s last work to be published before his exile from the USSR was the short story ”Zakhar the Pouch,” concerned with the preservation of historic monuments.
The novels Vkrugepervom (The First Circle) and Rakovyi korpus (Cancer Ward) draw much upon Solzhenitsyn’s personal experiences— the one upon his life in a special prison for scientists and the other upon his stay in a cancer clinic. In both novels Solzhenitsyn raises questions of human destiny, morality, freedom, happiness, love, death, faith, social injustice, and the political purges. Man is seen in non-materialist terms as a repository of the image of eternity who must guide himself by his own conscience. The full 96-chapter version of The First Circle, published for the first time in Russian in 1978, has a stronger political colouration than its 87-chapter version, which was translated into many languages.
As in all of Solzhenitsyn’s fiction, the action in both novels takes place within a very brief period of time. The characters are well individualized. In transmitting different viewpoints, Solzhenitsyn relies heavily on heated dialogues, enhancing their dynamism by the use of short interrogative and exclamatory sentences and by references to the characters’ gestures, eyes, tones of voice, and facial expressions. Solzhenitsyn is fond of refreshing the Russian literary language with racy folk locutions, sayings, and proverbs. The novels are rich in metaphors, notably Cancer Ward, in which the animal imagery takes on symbolic significance. At the end of the novels the reader is left in the dark about the ultimate fate of the characters. But this does not matter much for Solzhenitsyn. What counts is the moral behaviour of a character at the critical point in his life, where he reveals his true value.
Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo (August 1914) was the first published ”knot” in the novel cycle Krasnoe koleso (The Red Wheel), which includes Oktiabr’ shestnadtsatogo, Mart semnadtsatogo, and Aprel’ semnadtsatogo, and depicts the history of the Russian Revolution by focusing on its crucial events. In August 1914 such an event is the defeat of the Russian troops in East Prussia, which, in Solzhenitsyn’s view, was the first in a series of military disasters that eventually led to the revolution. Solzhenitsyn equates the revolution with the senseless destruction of Russia, whose salvation lay in a gradual socioeconomic evolution with the emphasis on individual morality.
Outside the imaginative literature Solzhenitsyn’s unique achievement is Arkhipelag Gulag (The Gulag Archipelago), a comprehensive picture of the Soviet penal system from its inception to the mid-1960s. Resorting to metaphors and irony, Solzhenitsyn tells the story of arrests, interrogations, executions, camps, and exile. He rejects the principle of survival at any price. Moral decline caused by materialism and the appeasement of the Soviet Union by the West are the dominant themes of his speeches and journalistic writings. His literary autobiography, Bodalsia telenok s dubom (The Oak and the Calf), is essential for an understanding of his personality.
