In an interview, Alexander Solzhenitsyn admitted that he dedicated his life to the Russian revolution. What did the author of the novel “In the First Circle” mean? Domestic history holds hidden tragic turns. The writer considered it his duty to testify about them. The works of Solzhenitsyn are a significant contribution to the historical science of the 20th century.
short biography
Solzhenitsyn Alexander Isaevich was born in 1918 in Kislovodsk. He was engaged in literary activity from his youth. Before the war, he was most interested in the history of the First World War. A future writer, dissident and public figure devoted his first literary works to this topic.
Creative and life path of Solzhenitsyn is unique. To become a witness and participant in important historical events is happiness for a writer, but a great tragedy for a person.
Solzhenitsyn met the outbreak of war in Moscow. Here he studied at the correspondence department of the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature. Behind him was Rostov University. Ahead is an officer school, intelligence and arrest. In the late nineties in the literary magazine "New World" were published works of Solzhenitsyn, in which the author reflected his military experience. And he had a considerable one.
The future writer went from Orel to East Prussia as an artillery officer . Years later, he devoted the events of this period to the works “Zhelyabugskie Vyselki”, “Adlig Schwenkitten”. He ended up in the very places where General Samsonov’s army once passed. Solzhenitsyn devoted the events of 1914 to the book The Red Wheel.
Captain Solzhenitsyn Ball was arrested in 1945. This was followed by many years of prisons, camps, and exile. After rehabilitation in 1957, he taught for some time in a rural school, near Ryazan. Solzhenitsyn rented a room from a local resident - Matrena Zakharovna, who later became the prototype of the main character of the story "Matrenin Dvor".
Underground Writer
Solzhenitsyn admitted in his autobiographical book “Calf Butting with an Oak” that although he was attracted to literature, he was very unconscious before his arrest. In peacetime, at large, he was upset that it was not easy to find fresh topics for stories. What would Solzhenitsyn's work be if he had not been imprisoned?
Topics for stories, novels and novels were born on shipments, in camp huts, in prison cells. Unable to write down his thoughts on paper, he created entire chapters of the novels “The Gulag Archipelago” and “In the First Circle” in his mind, and then memorized them.
After his release, Alexander Isaevich continued to write. To print his works in the fifties seemed an impossible dream. But he did not stop writing, believing that his work would not be lost, that at least descendants would read plays, stories and novels.
Solzhenitsyn was able to publish his first works only in 1963. Books, as separate editions, appeared much later. In his homeland, the writer was able to print stories in the New World. But this was incredible happiness.
Disease
To memorize what was written and then to burn - a way that Solzhenitsyn used more than once to preserve his works. But when the doctors told him in exile that he had several weeks left to live, he was afraid, first of all, that the reader would never see what he had created. There was no one to save Solzhenitsyn's works. Friends are in the camps. Mother is dead. His wife divorced him in absentia and married another. Solzhenitsyn folded up the manuscripts that he managed to write, then hid them in a champagne bottle, buried this bottle in the garden. And he left for Tashkent to die ...
However, he survived. With a grave diagnosis, recovery seemed like an omen from above. In the spring of 1954, Solzhenitsyn wrote The Republic of Labor, the first work in the creation of which the underground writer knew the happiness of not destroying passage after passage, but of being able to read his own work in full.
"In the first circle"
A novel about the sharashka was written in the literary underground. The prototypes of the main characters of the novel "In the First Circle" became the author himself and his friends. But, despite all the precautions, as well as the desire to publish the work in a lite version, only KGB officers had the chance to read it. In Russia, the novel "In the first circle" was published only in 1990. In the West, twenty-two years earlier.
“One day of Ivan Denisovich”
A camp is a special world. It has nothing to do with the one in which free people live. In the camp, everyone in his own way survives and dies. The first published work of Solzhenitsyn depicts only one day in the life of a hero. The author knew firsthand about camp life. And therefore, the rude and truthful realism present in the story written by Solzhenitsyn amazes the reader so much.
The books of this writer caused a resonance in world society, primarily due to reliability. Solzhenitsyn believed that the writer's talent fades, and then completely dies, if in his work he seeks to circumvent the truth. And therefore, being for a long time in absolute literary isolation and unable to publish the results of his many years of work, he did not envy the success of the representatives of the so-called socialist realism. The Union of Writers expelled Tsvetaeva, rejected Pasternak and Akhmatova. He did not accept Bulgakov. In this world, talents, if they appeared, quickly perished.
Publication history
Solzhenitsyn did not dare to sign the manuscript sent to the editorial office of the New World. There was almost no hope that "One Day Ivan Denisovich" would be released. Long painful months passed from the moment when one of the writer’s friends sent several sheets, scribbled in small handwriting to the staff of the country's main literary publishing house, when suddenly an invitation came from Twardowski.
The author of "Vasily Terkin" and part-time editor-in-chief of the journal "New World" read the manuscript of an unknown author thanks to Anna Berzer. An employee of the publishing house suggested Twardowski to read the story, uttering a phrase that became decisive: "This is about camp life, through the eyes of a simple peasant." The great Soviet poet, author of a military-patriotic poem, came from a simple peasant family. And therefore, a work in which the narration is conducted on behalf of a "simple peasant", he was very interested.
The Gulag Archipelago
The novel about the inhabitants of the Stalinist camps Solzhenitsyn created more than ten years. The work was first published in France. In 1969, the Gulag Archipelago was completed. However, publishing such a work in the Soviet Union was not only difficult, but also risky. One of the writer's assistants, who reprinted the first volume of the work, became a victim of persecution of KGB officers. As a result of the arrest and five days of continuous interrogation, a middle-aged woman testified against Solzhenitsyn. And then she committed suicide.
After these events, the writer had no doubt about the need to print the Archipelago abroad.
Abroad
Solzhenitsyn Alexander Isaevich was expelled from the Soviet Union a few months after the release of the novel “The Gulag Archipelago”. The writer was accused of treason. The Soviet media widely covered the nature of the crime that Solzhenitsyn allegedly committed. In particular, the author of the "Archipelago" was accused of complicity with the Vlasovites during the war. But nothing was said about the contents of the sensational book.
Until the last days of his life, Solzhenitsyn did not stop his literary and social activities. In an interview with a foreign periodical in the early eighties, a Russian writer expressed confidence that he would be able to return to his homeland. Then it seemed unlikely.
Return
In 1990, Solzhenitsyn returned. In Russia, he wrote many articles on current political and social topics. A significant part of the fees the writer listed in support of prisoners and their families. One of the prizes is in favor of the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. But it should be noted that the writer nevertheless refused the order of the Holy Apostle Andrew, citing his act of unwillingness to accept the award from the supreme authority, which brought the country to its present deplorable state.
Solzhenitsyn's works are a valuable contribution to Russian literature. In Soviet times, he was considered a dissident and a nationalist. Solzhenitsyn did not agree with this opinion, claiming that he is a Russian writer who loves his Fatherland above all else.