Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Aleksandr Isayevich[a] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Solzhenitsyn (/ˌsoʊlʒәˈniːtsɪn, ˌsɔːl­/;[2] Russian: Алекса́ндр Иса́евич Солжени́ цын, pronounced [ɐlʲɪ ˈksandr ɪˈsaɪvʲɪtɕ sәlʐɨˈnʲitsɨn]; 11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008)[3] (often Romanized to Alexandr or Alexander)[4][5] was a Russian novelist, historian, and short story writer. He was an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union and communism and helped to raise global awareness of its Gulag forced labor camp system. Solzhenitsyn in 1974 He was allowed to publish only Born Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn one work in the Soviet Union, One 11 December 1918 Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Kislovodsk, Russian SFSR (1962), in the periodical Novy Mir. After this he had to publish in the Died 3 August 2008 (aged 89) West, most notably Cancer Ward Moscow, Russia (1968), August 1914 (1971), and Occupation Novelist · essayist The Gulag Archipelago (1973). Ethnicity Russian­Ukrainian Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Citizenship Soviet Russia (1918–1922) 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for Soviet Union (1922–1974) the ethical force with which he has [1] pursued the indispensable Stateless (1974–1990) Soviet Union (1990–1991) traditions of Russian literature".[6] Russia (1991–2008) Solzhenitsyn was afraid to go to Stockholm to receive his award for Alma mater Rostov State University fear that he would not be allowed Notable One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to reenter. He was eventually works The First Circle expelled from the Soviet Union in Cancer Ward 1974, but returned to Russia in The Gulag Archipelago 1994 after the state's dissolution. Two Hundred Years Together The Red Wheel Contents Notable Nobel Prize in Literature (1970) awards Templeton Prize (1983) 1 Biography Lomonosov Gold Medal (1998) 1.1 Early years State Prize of the Russian Federation 1.2 World War II (2007) 1.3 Imprisonment International Botev Prize (2008) 1.4 Marriages and Spouse Natalia Alekseyevna Reshetovskaya children (married 1940–52 and 1957–72) 1.5 After prison Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova (married 1.6 Later years in the 1973–2008, his death) Soviet Union Children Yermolai Solzhenitsyn (born 1970) 1.7 Expulsion from the Soviet Union Ignat Solzhenitsyn (born 1972) 1.8 In the West Stepan Solzhenitsyn (born 1973) 1.9 Return to Russia (all with Natalia Svetlova) 2 Death Website 3 Legacy www.solzhenitsyn.ru (http://www.solzhenitsyn.ru/) 4 KGB operations against Solzhenitsyn 5 Views on history and politics 5.1 "Men have forgotten God" 5.2 On Russia and the Jews 5.3 On Post­Soviet Russia 5.4 The West 5.5 Communism, Russia, and nationalism 5.6 The Holodomor 5.7 World War II 5.8 Vietnam War 6 Published works and speeches 7 Popular media 7.1 TV documentaries on Solzhenitsyn 8 Notes 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 Further reading 11.1 Biographies 11.2 Reference works 12 External links Biography Early years Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, RSFSR (now in Stavropol Krai, Russia). His mother, Taisiya Zakharovna (née Shcherbak) was of Ukrainian descent.[7][8] Her father had risen from humble beginnings to become a wealthy landowner, acquiring a large estate in the Kuban region in the northern foothills of the Caucasus.[9] During World War I, Taisiya went to Moscow to study. While there she met and married Isaakiy Solzhenitsyn, a young officer in the Imperial Russian Army of Cossack origins and fellow native of the Caucasus region. The family background of his parents is vividly brought to life in the opening chapters of August 1914, and in the later Red Wheel novels.[10] In 1918, Taisia became pregnant with Aleksandr. On 15 June, shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed, Isaakiy was killed in a hunting accident. Aleksandr was raised by his widowed mother and aunt in lowly circumstances. His earliest years coincided with the Russian Civil War. By 1930 the family property had been turned into a collective farm. Later, Solzhenitsyn recalled that his mother had fought for survival and that they had to keep his father's background in the old Imperial Army a secret. His educated mother (who never remarried) encouraged his literary and scientific learnings and raised him in the Russian Orthodox faith;[11][12] she died in 1944.[13] As early as 1936, Solzhenitsyn began developing the characters and concepts for a planned epic work on World War I and the Russian Revolution. This eventually led to the novel August 1914 – some of the chapters he wrote then still survive. Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics at Rostov State University. At the same time he took correspondence courses from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History, at this time heavily ideological in scope. As he himself makes clear, he did not question the state ideology or the superiority of the Soviet Union until he spent time in the camps. World War II During the war Solzhenitsyn served as the commander of a sound­ranging battery in the Red Army,[14] was involved in major action at the front, and twice decorated. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star on 8 July 1944 for sound­ranging two German artillery batteries and adjusting counterbattery fire onto them, resulting in their destruction.[15] A series of writings published late in his life, including the early uncompleted novel Love the Revolution!, chronicles his wartime experience and his growing doubts about the moral foundations of the Soviet regime.[16] While serving as an artillery officer in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn witnessed war crimes against local German civilians by Soviet military personnel. The noncombatants and the elderly were robbed of their meager possessions and women and girls were gang­raped to death. A few years later, in the forced labor camp, he memorized a poem entitled "Prussian Nights" about these incidents. In this poem, which describes the gang­rape of a Polish woman whom the Red Army soldiers mistakenly thought to be a German, the first­person narrator comments on the events with sarcasm and refers to the responsibility of official Soviet writers like Ilya Ehrenburg. In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn wrote, "There is nothing that so assists the awakening of omniscience within us as insistent thoughts about one's own transgressions, errors, mistakes. After the difficult cycles of such ponderings over many years, whenever I mentioned the heartlessness of our highest­ranking bureaucrats, the cruelty of our executioners, I remember myself in my Captain's shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: 'So were we any better?'"[17] Imprisonment In February 1945, while serving in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn was arrested for writing derogatory comments in private letters to a friend, Nikolai Vitkevich,[18] about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, whom he called "Khozyain" ("the boss"), and "Balabos" (Yiddish rendering of Hebrew baal ha­bayit for "master of the house").[19] He was accused of anti­Soviet propaganda under Article 58 paragraph 10 of the Soviet criminal code, and of "founding a hostile organization" under paragraph 11.[20][21] Solzhenitsyn was taken to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, where he was interrogated. On 7 July 1945, he was sentenced in his absence by Special Council of the NKVD to an eight­year term in a labour camp. This was the normal sentence for most crimes under Article 58 at the time.[22] The first part of Solzhenitsyn's sentence was served in several different work camps; the "middle phase," as he later referred to it, was spent in a sharashka (i.e., a special scientific research facility run by Ministry of State Security), where he met Lev Kopelev, upon whom he based the character of Lev Rubin in his book The First Circle, published in a self­ censored or "distorted" version in the West in 1968 (an English translation of the full version was eventually published by Harper Perennial in October 2009).[23] In 1950, he was sent to a "Special Camp" for political prisoners. During his imprisonment at the camp in the town of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan, he worked as a miner, bricklayer, and foundry foreman. His experiences at Ekibastuz formed the basis for the book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. One of his fellow political prisoners, Ion Moraru, remembers that Solzhenitsyn spent some of his time at Ekibastuz writing.[24] While there Solzhenitsyn had a tumor removed. His cancer was not diagnosed at the time. In March 1953, after his sentence ended, Solzhenitsyn was sent to internal exile for life at Birlik[25], a village in Baidibek district of South Kazakhstan region of Kazakhstan (Kok­ terek rural district).[26][27] His undiagnosed cancer spread until, by the end of the year, he was close to death. In 1954, he was permitted to be treated in a hospital in Tashkent, where his tumor went into remission. His experiences there became the basis of his novel Cancer Ward and also found an echo in the short story "The Right Hand." It was during this decade of imprisonment and exile that Solzhenitsyn abandoned Marxism and developed the philosophical and religious positions of his later life, gradually becoming a philosophically­ minded Christian as a result of his experience in prison and the camps.[28][29][30] He repented for some of his actions as a Red Army captain, and in prison compared himself to the perpetrators of the Gulag: "I remember myself in my captain's shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: 'So were we any better?'" His transformation is described at some length in the fourth part of The Gulag Archipelago ("The Soul and Barbed Wire").