The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago (not distinguished)
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A vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centres and secret police, of informers and spies and interrogators but also of everyday heroism, The Gulag Archipelago is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's grand masterwork. Based on the testimony of some 200 survivors, and on the recollection of Solzhenitsyn's own eleven years in labour camps and exile, it chronicles the story of those at the heart of the Soviet Union who opposed Stalin, and for whom the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair. A show more thoroughly researched document and a feat of literary and imaginative power, this edition of The Gulag Archipelago was abridged into one volume at the author's wish and with his full co-operation. show lessTags
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Author Information
355+ Works 44,631 Members
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11, 1918 in Kislovodsk in the northern Caucusus Mountains. He received a degree in physics and math from Rostov University in 1941. He served in the Russian army during World War II but was arrested in 1945 for writing a letter criticizing Stalin. He spent the next decade in prisons and labor camps and, show more later, exile, before being allowed to return to central Russia, where he worked as a high school science teacher. His first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, was published in 1962. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1974, he was arrested for treason and exiled following the publication of The Gulag Archipelago. He moved to Switzerland and later the U. S. where he continued to write fiction and history. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he returned to his homeland. His other works include The First Circle and The Cancer Ward. He died due to a heart ailment on August 3, 2008 at the age of 89. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- Original title
- Архипелаг ГУЛАГ; Arkhipelag GULag, 1918-1956
- Original publication date
- 1973
- Important places
- USSR
- Epigraph*
- Met een beklemd gemoed heb ik mij er jarenlang van weerhouden dit al gereed liggende boek in druk te geven: mijn plicht tegenover hen die nog leefden, woog zwaarder dan mijn plicht tegenover de gestorvenen. Maar nu de staatsv... (show all)eiligheidsdienst het boek toch al in handen heeft, blijft mij niets anders over dan het onverwijld te publiceren. (A. Solzjenitsyn, september 1973)
- Dedication
- I dedicate this
to all those who did not live
to tell it.
And may they please forgive me
for not having seen it all
nor remembered it all,
for not having divined all of it. - First words
- How do people get to this clandestine Archipelago?
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And our younger brothers would only look at us contemptuously: Oh you stupid dolts!
- Blurbers
- Crankshaw, Edward; Webb, W L; Lessing, Doris; Spender, Stephen; West, Rebecca
- Disambiguation notice
- Aleksandr Solzhenistyn's The Gulag Archipelago has been published in a number of formats, and is catalogued in a variety of ways. The complete work consists of seven parts, often divided into three volumes as follow: V... (show all)olume One, consisting of Part I ("The Prison Industry") and Part II ("Perpetual Motion"); Volume Two, consisting of Part III ("The Destructive-Labor Camps") and Part IV ("The Soul and Barbed Wire"); and Volume III, consisting of Part V ("Katorga"), Part VI ("Exile") and Part VII ("Stalin Is No More").
THIS LT WORK IS INTENDED ONLY FOR COPIES THAT CANNOT BE DISTINGUISHED ACCORDING TO CONTENT; IN THEORY, IT SHOULD NOT EXIST.
Please do not combine your entry with this work; rather separate it here, and combine it only with other copies having similar content (e.g., Parts I-II, Parts III-IV, Parts V-VII, the complete work, an omnibus [such as Parts I-VI], any individual Part, or the abridged version). Thank you.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genre
- Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 365.450947 — Society, government, & culture Social problems and social services Punishment Institutions for specific classes of inmates Institutions for political prisoners and related groups of people
- LCC
- HV9713 .S6413 — Social sciences Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminal justice administration Penology. Prisons. Corrections By region or country
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