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about Solzhenitsyn |
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One of the leading Russian writers of the 20th century, Alexander Isayevich
Solzhenitsyn, born Kislovodsk, December 11, 1918. He received the Nobel Prize
for literature in 1970 "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the
indispensable traditions of Russian literature." Active member of Russian
Academy of Sciences (1997).
Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics and physics at the University of Rostov-on-Don, graduating at the beginning of war between Germany and the Soviet Union. He served for 3 years in the Red army and attained the rank of captain in the artillery. He was arrested on February 9, 1945 for critical remarks about Stalin in letters to a friend that was intercepted by the military censors. Sentenced without a trial to 8 years of hard labor he remained until 1953 in a number of labor camps. In 1952 he contracted cancer, and was a miraculous treated (1954) in a hospital in Tashkent.
During the Chruzchev era he was rehabilitated and in 1956 was allowed to return to Central Russia. He settled there in Rjasan, taught in school mathematics and physics and worked on his novels. The novel One Day in the Life of Iwan Denisovich (1962) was the first of Solzhenitsyns works to be published in the USSR and made him well known around the world. After 1966, his work was not published in the Soviet Union for many years.
The open conflict between communist regime and Solzhenitsyn erupted with his Letter to the Fourth National Congress of Soviet Writers (May 1967), in which he demanded the abolition of censorship, the rehabilitation of many writers victimized during the repression, and the restoration of his archives, confiscated by the KGB in 1965. After the publication abroad of The First Circle (1968) and The Cancer Ward (1968-69) abroad and winning the Nobel Prize (1970, "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature") the confrontation increased. Further public statements by Solzhenitsyn (A Lenten Letter to Pimen, Patriarch of all Russia, Letter to the Soviet Leaders, etc.) as well as the publication of the first variant of August 1914 (1971) and the first volume of the Gulag Archipelago (1973), led the Soviet authorities to exile him to Germany (February 1974).
Having settled first in Switzerland, Solzhenitsyn and his family in 1976 moved to the United States. While in the West, Solzhenitsyn completed The Oak and the Calf (1975) and Three Plays (1981). In 1982 an enlarged version of August 1914 was published as the first in a series of novels about the Russian Revolution to be called collectively The Red Wheel. Excerpts from this work had been published in 1975 as Lenin in Zurich. There were many public addresses and speeches also: A World Split Apart, Misconceptions About Russia Are a Threat to America, etc. The intellectual and moral influence of Solzhenitsyn played an important role in the fall of communist power in East Europe and Russia.
In 1989 Gulag Archipelago was published as a serial in the literary magazine Novy Mir. In 1990 Solzhenitsyn was again admitted the Soviet citizenship. Then he published How to Reconstruct Russia : Reflections and Tentative Proposals. He came back to Russia in May 1994. Among his new works were Russian Question at the End of XX Century, Russia in the Abuss and other publicist writing, short stories. Now the magazine Novy Mir has began to publish his Sketches on Exile (a sequel of The Oak and the Calf). There is a new his historical book now: 200 Years Together.
After return he tried to influence the modern Russian politics and met
President Yeltsin (1994) and President Putin (2000).
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See also other Solzhenitsyn's sites: in Moscow ( first , second and third ), in Tver , in Kiev , in USA ( one and another ), in Finland . see also two discussions about Solzhenitsyn: in Russian and in English .
If somebody knows about links to other texts of Solzhenitsyn or about him, please, write me .
The Web masters are invited to an exchange of the links. As far as I know, at the moment links the given resource are placed on Andrew Troitsy's page "Alexander Solzhenitsyn" , on the page "Modern Russian literature with Vjacheslav Kurizyn" , in 'Novyj Samisadat'-Site , in 'Russian history'-Site , in "Reading's Circle" section of "Russian Magazine" , THE HALCYON COSMOPOLITAN ENTERTAINMENT , Nobel Prize Internet Archive .
For regularly following requests (from Russia, Spain, USA, etc.) to inform
an electronic address of the writer, I state that those is not known me
!! Please, address to Representation of Russian Public Fund (Solzhenitsyn's
Fund): Russia, 103009 Moscow, Tverskaja street 12, stroenie 8, app.
169. Phone/fax: +7 095/229-8639.