In The First Circle: The First Uncensored Edition

If you read this book several decades ago, it was called "The First Circle," and it was edited in a way that the author hoped would allow it to be published in the Soviet Union (though it wasn't, only being published in the West in 1968.) The version I read was published in 2009 and restores his original intent in writing the novel, restoring nine chapters that had been cut, and reverting to the original plot, which had been modified as well.

The novel is about prisoners who live occupants of a sharashka, which is kind of an R&D facility made up of political prisoners. The sharashka is in Moscow, and life in the sharashka is significantly better than living in the gulags. However, the inmates live in constant danger of being shipped to show more Siberia (and many of them spent time there.) The title refers to Dante's first circle of Hell in The Divine Comedy--in the first circle of hell, "good" pagans live in a walled garden, unable to enter heaven, but able to enjoy a bit of freedom in Hell. To the prisoners in the sharashka, they are in the first circle of hell.

The novel is a tour-de-force, exploring themes of authoritarianism, dissent, the arc of Soviet history, etc. I found the chapters that described Stalin and his inner thoughts fascinating (and a bit frightening when being read in conjunction with watching the reality show that is the Trump White House.) Not saying that Trump is Stalin, but, well, you gotta read it. Highly recommended. show less

If you read this book several decades ago, it was called "The First Circle," and it was edited in a way that the author hoped would allow it to be published in the Soviet Union (though it wasn't, only being published in the West in 1968.) The version I read was published in 2009 and restores his original intent in writing the novel, restoring nine chapters that had been cut, and reverting to the original plot, which had been modified as well.

The novel is about prisoners who live occupants of a sharashka, which is kind of an R&D facility made up of political prisoners. The sharashka is in Moscow, and life in the sharashka is significantly better than living in the gulags. However, the inmates live in constant danger of being shipped to show more Siberia (and many of them spent time there.) The title refers to Dante's first circle of Hell in The Divine Comedy--in the first circle of hell, "good" pagans live in a walled garden, unable to enter heaven, but able to enjoy a bit of freedom in Hell. To the prisoners in the sharashka, they are in the first circle of hell.

The novel is a tour-de-force, exploring themes of authoritarianism, dissent, the arc of Soviet history, etc. I found the chapters that described Stalin and his inner thoughts fascinating (and a bit frightening when being read in conjunction with watching the reality show that is the Trump White House.) Not saying that Trump is Stalin, but, well, you gotta read it. Highly recommended. show less

Moscow, Christmas Eve 1949; a man makes a phone call to the American embassy to warn them about the Soviet Atom Bomb project. This call was caught on tape and quickly disconnected by The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD). A brilliant mathematician named Gleb Nerzhin, was taken as a sharashka (known as zeks) prisoner and ordered to help track down the mystery caller. The zeks know that they have it better than a “regular” gulag prisoners but they are faced with the moral dilemma; to aid a political system they oppose or be transferred to the deadly labour camps.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a Russian author as well as a historian; he was also a critic of Soviet totalitarianism which found himself in prison much like show more Gleb Nerzhin. He was accused of anti-revolutionary propaganda under Russian SFSR Penal Code (Article 58 paragraph 10) which is a ‘catch-all’ criminal offence that could be used against anyone that might threaten the government. During the period of Stalinism, the crime of “propaganda and agitation that called to overturn or undermining of the Soviet power” jumped from a six month prison sentence to seven years of imprisonment, with possible internal exile for two to five years. On 7 July 1945, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to seven years in a labour camp for comments he made in private letters to a friend. After his sentence ended, Solzhenitsyn was then internally exiled for life at Kok-Terek, which is in the north-eastern region of Kazakhstan.

The First Circle was self-censored before Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn even attempted to get it published in 1968. Originally the book was 96 chapters long but the censorship turned the novel into 87 chapters. Some changes included the man telling another doctor to share some new medicine with the French instead of warning the Americans about the atom bomb. All mention of the Roman Catholics and religion was also removed. It wasn’t till 2009 a new English translation (not sure of the details on the Russian editions) saw the book restored and uncensored; now with the title In The First Circle.

The title alone is fascinating and it allows the reader to pick up on the whole metaphor before starting the novel. Looking at Dante’s Inferno, it is easy to find that the first circle of hell is limbo. In the epic poem Virgil introduces Dante to people like Socrates, Plato, Homer, Horace and Ovid. The time between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection is often referred to as the Harrowing of Hell, in which he descended into limbo and brought salvation to the righteous. However in Dante’s Inferno this meant that Christ saved people like Noah, Moses, Abraham and King David, but a lot of the intellectuals where left. This is metaphor for the penal institutions, making reference to all the intellectuals and political thinkers arrested under Stalin’s Russia.

This novel made me feel a lot smarter than I actually am, there is a lot of information within In The First Circle however Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn presented them in accessible way. Going into the book I knew a little about Solzhenitsyn’s life and the metaphor in the title was explained in the Goodreads synopsis. So I was able to witness how everything came together without doing any research. The book sometimes goes into Russian history; I was fascinated with everything I learnt.

I have read so many books set in Cold War Russia but I don’t think there have been many actually written by a Russian. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has lead an interesting life and I am keen to read more of his novels before attempting The Gulag Archipelago, his three volume book on the history of a gulag labour camp. If you have paid attention to my best of 2014 list you would have noticed that In The First Circle did make the list. This was a wonderful book that was both thrilling and educational, I would recommend it to anyone interested in Russian history, especially the Cold War era.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2015/01/09/in-the-first-circle-by-aleksandr-solz... show less

Believable and unbelievable at the same time, this is a riveting, gripping, mesmerizing, poignant, shocking saga about a special prison where the intellectuals of genius, under pretext of being political prisoners, slaved away as a result of cowardly iniquities of Stalin's rule. The time period is just about 4 days in December 1949, with, of course, steps back into the past of all the characters. One gets the feeling that these people are real, and that the author used his own experience in the labor camps to portray them. The conditions in the unusual prison were relatively "improved" (and there were several such "institutions" at the time) as compared to most labor camps. Why? So that imprisoned researchers and engineers could show more physically survive and produce top notch scientific research for the benefit of the ruling party. Prisoners and guards, party officials and apparatchiks - they all come to life, each with their personal history.

By now we all know of Stalin's atrocities. Yet this book is one of a kind. It made me forget the world around me while I was reading it, and if that is not an indication of a great book, I don't know what is. It made my heart wither in shame for the country of my birth, for the sordid crimes committed against the brightest minds of the land.

I was lucky that I came across this particular edition of the book, as, I understand, the author had to revise the novel several times over the years (due to censorship), but this was the final, most complete edition where he was able to fearlessly add quite an amount of material, and he died in 2008 knowing that it would be soon published in this form - and it was, in 2009. My only regret is that I didn't get my hands on the original Russian edition, but I can do that later. The translation is quite adequate. show less

Rated: B+
There is wisdom in the advice to write what you know. Solzhenitsyn wrote about repression in Russia under Joseph Stalin and life in the Gulag prison system. His description and writing are masterful -- places you as a active observer with each scene and with each discussion. Wonderful character development. I was simply just carried along by his writing. Because of the length, I became exhausted by the end.

This book was written by Solzhenitsyn from 1955 to 1958, after his first stint in one of the notorious Gulag prison camps. In order to get it published he removed nine chapters but it still took until 1968 for this "lightened version" to be published. Even this self-censored version did not garner approbation in the Soviet Union and in 1974 Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the USSR. This complete version was put together in 1978 when Sozhenitsyn replaced the nine chapters and substantially altered a dozen more. The first version was widely praised but this uncensored edition is peerless.

Most of the action in this book takes place in a prison research institute similar to one in which Solzhenitsyn spent three years. The prisoners in the show more institute are mainly engineers, physical scientists and technicians working on various projects that the KGB and Stalin wish to have. One of the main projects is to produce a working scrambler for telephone calls but there are other projects such as an attempt to categorize all Russian speech patterns. It is this project that brings top security officials to the prison. A telephone call from a pay phone to the American embassy was made on Christmas Eve. It tipped the Americans to a plan to steal the atomic bomb specifications from them in a few days time. Of course all the telephones at the American embassy were tapped and a recording made. Security officials wanted to know who had made the call and thought the experts in the prison could perhaps determine from a small group of diplomats privy to the plan.

Many of the prisoners were former soldiers from World War II who had been captured by the Germans. Their offence was that they had spent time in German POW camps and were thus suspected of having become Western agents. Sentenced to terms of at least 10 years they were estranged from their wives and families and even if they were released they would undoubtedly have trouble for the rest of their lives. Their wives were vilified by anyone who knew their husbands were in prison and they also had problems getting job and earning enough money to live. In some ways this research institute was a cushy incarceration; the prisoners had enough to eat, they earned money that could be sent to their families, they had a yard to exercise in and they had access to books. They also liked the mental challenge of the projects on which they worked but the fact remained that they were incarcerated for a long period of time. Most of them criticized the State when they thought it was safe to do so but they had to be careful because there were free citizens working along side them and it was known that many of their comrades were stoolies. The one gleam of hope in their lives was that if they were successful in their projects they might earn remission of their sentence. Juxtaposed with their hope of release was a concern that they would be furthering the USSR's totalitarian objectives by producing the work. Horns of a dilemma indeed.

So much of the state security system doesn't make sense to our Western eyes. The interminable levels of bureaucracy and oversight seem ludicrous now. When the guilty diplomat is finally arrested his experience as detailed by Solzhenitsyn is horrific. And yet he was guilty of a significant breach of security so perhaps the treatment was warranted. Except when you realize that another diplomat who was entirely innocent was arrested at the same time and put through the same treatment so guilt or innocence doesn't really matter.

All this took place decades ago and we can treat this as an historical novel now. Except that the news continues to show us examples of regimes that continue to deny basic human rights to many of their citizens. Unfortunately this book is as realistic now as it was at the time it was written. show less

The conceit of the novel is that the narrative begins with the core group of prisoners and then spirals out in ever increasing circles to include their jailers, families, a new criminal, Stalin, more loved ones, etc. The plot itself is very very small--ludicrously small for such a long book. It's more a portrait of the Soviet state as lumbering behemoth that blithely destroys lives left and right.

Disability tag mainly for a mostly blind prisoner.

Gender politics tag for the roles women play. The book finally comes alive when the women characters appear, but there's only so much they (like anyone) can do.

GLBT-interest tag because the emotional climax of the book happens m/m kissing. There's a great deal of m/m UST, although the vast show more majority of it is channeled into endless circular annoying argument or flirtation with the handful of women they see.

This is ostensibly a novel, but it is semi-autobiographical (at least). Every bit of detail of setting and arrest procedure reads frighteningly true.

I don't know how many stars to give. It's an affecting book, but it's also a helluva long slog. The parts with women in them were most interesting to me, while I found the political/philosophical arguments deeply boring. show less