Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Soviet and Russian author and dissident who exposed the Gulag.
His nonfiction work The Gulag Archipelago sold tens of millions of copies and challenged the Soviet state directly.[1]
Quick Facts
- Born
- 11 December 1918
- Birthplace
- Kislovodsk, Russian SFSR
- Died
- 3 August 2008
- Place of death
- Moscow, Russia
- Citizenship
- Soviet Union (1922–1974)
- Stateless (1974–1990)
- Soviet Union (1990–1991)
- Russia (from 1991)
- Education
- Rostov State University
- Occupation
- Novelist
- essayist
- historian
- Children
- 3, including Ignat
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
During World War II he served as a Red Army artillery officer and was twice decorated, receiving the Order of the Red Star on 8 July 1944.[2][3] In February 1945 he was arrested by SMERSH for criticizing Joseph Stalin in private correspondence and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag.[4][5][6] After his release he was sent to internal exile in Kazakhstan, where he taught math and physics while secretly writing.[6] Solzhenitsyn's birth in Kislovodsk on 11 December 1918 was to a family that, according to the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center timeline and Angela Brintlinger, remained devout members of the Russian Orthodox Church despite the Soviet anti-religious campaign of the 1920s.[4][6][7]
At Rostov State University, Solzhenitsyn pursued studies in mathematics and physics, and simultaneously enrolled in correspondence courses.[8] Nikita Khrushchev gave explicit approval for the 1962 publication of Solzhenitsyn's first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which depicted Stalinist repressions.[9][10] The three-volume nonfiction work The Gulag Archipelago came out in 1973; its publication resulted in Solzhenitsyn being stripped of his Soviet citizenship and deported to West Germany in 1974.[9][7]
What the cited sources add
The Nobel Foundation account states that Solzhenitsyn was already an outcast when awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970 and that he decided not to go to Stockholm to receive it.[11] The Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center timeline notes that the KGB attempted to assassinate Solzhenitsyn using the deadly toxin ricin.[6] Angela Brintlinger's article records that Solzhenitsyn was arrested by SMERSH for writing derogatory comments about Stalin in a private letter.[7] The same source states that Solzhenitsyn's exile was commuted after Khrushchev's Secret Speech and he was permitted to return to central Russia.[7]
Christopher Hitchens wrote that Solzhenitsyn was turned away from the White House on Henry Kissinger's advice by President Gerald Ford.[12] The Nobel Foundation's account notes that Solzhenitsyn smuggled his Nobel Lecture out of the USSR by giving a microfilm containing the text to a journalist at the Belorussian railway station.[11]
References
- Wikipedia, "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Nobel Prize in Literature 1970", Nobel Foundation; Scammell, "The Writer Who Destroyed an Empire", The New York Times, 11 December 2018 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Scammell, p. 119 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: pamyat-naroda.ru (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Timeline", Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center; Angela Brintlinger, "Alexander Solzhenitsyn", Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, December 2018 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Ericson (2008) p. 10; Moody, p. 6 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Timeline", Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center. facts only, no text reused. solzhenitsyncenter.org
- Angela Brintlinger, "Alexander Solzhenitsyn", Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, December 2018. facts only, no text reused. origins.osu.edu
- Wikipedia, "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Gulag Archipelago" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "How I helped Alexandr Solzhenitsyn smuggle his Nobel Lecture from the USSR", Nobel Foundation (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Benno, "Soviet Literature in the 1960s", Methuen, 1965, p. 191; Wachtel, "One Day – Fifty years later", Slavic Review, 2013, p. 102–117 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "How I helped Alexandr Solzhenitsyn smuggle his Nobel Lecture from the USSR", Nobel Foundation. facts only, no text reused. nobelprize.org
- Christopher Hitchens, "Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1918–2008.", Slate Magazine, 4 August 2008. facts only, no text reused. slate.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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