Nonfiction And Reference Codexery

The Gulag Archipelago

A literary investigation of the Soviet Gulag system.

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The book exposed the brutality of the Soviet system to Russians and the rest of the world.[1] Between 1958 and 1968, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident, authored the three-volume nonfiction work The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation.[2] YMCA-Press, a Parisian publisher, issued the first Russian edition of the work in 1973.[2]

Making and release

Solzhenitsyn finished the manuscript in 1968, then microfilmed and smuggled it to his legal representative Fritz Heeb in Zürich.[3] The first edition was published by YMCA-Press a few days after Christmas 1973, about ten days earlier than Solzhenitsyn expected.[4] In 1945, while incarcerated at Lubyanka Prison (run by the KGB), Solzhenitsyn formed a friendship with Arnold Susi, a lawyer who had served as Estonia's Minister of Education before being captured following the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1944.[5] After paper and microfilm copies were produced, Solzhenitsyn gave the original typed and proofread manuscript to Susi.[5]

By interrogating Elizaveta Voronyanskaya, a typist Solzhenitsyn trusted, the KGB in 1973 managed to seize one of merely three copies of the text that remained within Soviet borders.[6] Upon hearing of Voronyanskaya's death, Solzhenitsyn gave permission for the work to be published in Paris.[4]

What the cited sources add

Solzhenitsyn voiced in The Gulag Archipelago that the primacy of good prevails over evil because it is greater in form than its opposite.[7] A Penguin edition notes that the book was abridged into one volume at the request of the author.[8] In an ABC interview, Judith Armstrong stated that The Gulag Archipelago provides an overall criticism of the system of terrible labour camps, whereas One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich focuses on individual dignity.[1]

References

  1. Mares, "Alexander Solzhenitsyn", ABC AU, 12 August 2008. facts only, no text reused. abc.net.au
  2. Wikipedia, "The Gulag Archipelago" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Goulag dans " Le Monde ", l'avant et l'après Soljenitsyne", Le Monde.fr, 2023-12-28; "Cinquante ans après avoir édité "L'Archipel du Goulag", la librairie Les Éditeurs réunis à Paris résiste encore", www.telerama.fr, 2023-12-20 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "The Gulag Archipelago" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Remnick, "The Exile Returns", 7 February 1994; Reinsch II, "Truth In Exile", The American Conservative, 28 November 2020 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "The Gulag Archipelago" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Scammell, Solzhenitsyn, a Biography, 1985 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "The Gulag Archipelago" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Solzhenitsyn, The Oak and the Calf and Invisible Allies; Rosenfeld, "Art of the Baltics: The Struggle for Freedom of Artistic Expression Under the Soviets, 1945–1991", Rutgers University Press, 2001, p. 55, 134; Solzhenitsyn, "Invisible Allies", Basic Books, 1997, p. 46–64 The Estonians (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "The Gulag Archipelago" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Solzhenitsyn, Literary Giant Who Defied Soviets Dies at 89 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Reinsch II, "Truth In Exile", The American Conservative, 28 November 2020. facts only, no text reused. theamericanconservative.com
  8. "The Gulag Archipelago", Penguin, November 2018. facts only, no text reused. penguin.co.uk

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article The Gulag Archipelago (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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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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