Solzhenitsyn biography briefly the most important personal life. A brief overview of the work of A. I. Solzhenitsyn

Russian writer, publicist, and public figure Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11, 1918 in Kislovodsk. Solzhenitsyn's parents came from peasants, but received a good education. When the First World War began, his father, Isai Solzhenitsyn, volunteered for the front from Moscow University and was awarded three times for bravery. He died while hunting six months before the birth of his son. To feed herself and her child, Solzhenitsyn's mother, Taisiya Zakharovna (née Shcherbak), worked as a typist after her husband's death, and when the boy was six years old, she moved with her son to Rostov-on-Don.

In 1936, Solzhenitsyn graduated from high school and entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of Rostov University. In 1939 he entered the externship of the art history faculty of the Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History in Moscow. After graduating from university, Solzhenitsyn worked as a mathematics teacher in a Rostov secondary school.

In 1941 he was mobilized and served in the artillery. In 1943 he received the Order of the Patriotic War of the second degree, in the next - the Order of the Red Star, being already a captain.

On February 9, 1945, at the front in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn was arrested for harsh anti-Stalinist statements in letters to his childhood friend Nikolai Vitkevich. On July 27, 1945, he was sentenced to eight years in forced labor camps under Article 58 of the Criminal Code, paragraphs 10 and 11.

For a year, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was in a Moscow prison, and then was transferred to Marfino, to a specialized prison near Moscow, where mathematicians, physicists, scientists of other specialties conducted secret scientific research. The experience of these years is reflected by the writer in such works as "Deer and Shalashovka", "Dorozhenka", "In the First Circle", "Gulag Archipelago". Since 1950, Solzhenitsyn was in the Ekibastuz camp (the experience of "general work" was recreated in the story "One Day in Ivan Denisovich"); here he contracted cancer (the tumor was removed in February 1952). Since February 1953, Solzhenitsyn was in "eternal exile" in the village of Kok-Terek (Dzhambul region, Kazakhstan).

In February 1956, Solzhenitsyn was rehabilitated by a decision of the USSR Supreme Court, which made it possible for him to return to Russia.

In 1956-1957 he was a teacher at a rural school in the Vladimir region. Since 1957, Solzhenitsyn lived in Ryazan, where he taught at a school.

In May-June 1959, Solzhenitsyn wrote the story "One Day in Ivan Denisovich" (the original name was "Shch-854"), the manuscript of which was transferred to Alexander Tvardovsky, editor-in-chief of the Novy Mir magazine. Tvardovsky understood that censorship would not give permission for publication, and applied for permission personally to Nikita Khrushchev. In 1962, Solzhenitsyn's magazine debut took place. "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" was the first published work on the camp theme.

In 1963, the stories "Matrenin's Dvor" and "An Accident at the Krechetovka Station" were published in the January "Novy Mir".

From 1965 to 1968 the Gulag Archipelago was written, in 1966 the novel Cancer Ward was completed.

After Khrushchev's fall, Solzhenitsyn was criticized by the authorities, a campaign was launched against the writer: in September 1965, the KGB seized his author's archive; the possibilities of publications were blocked, only the story "Zakhar-Kalita" ("New World", 1966) was published. The triumphant discussion of "Cancer Ward" in the prose section of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union did not bring the main result - the story remained banned. In 1969, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Writers' Union.

In 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the moral strength with which he continued the tradition of Russian literature."

In February 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, charged with high treason, and stripped of his Soviet citizenship by decision of the CPSU Central Committee. For some time, the writer lived with his family in Switzerland, in Zurich, after which he moved to the United States, where he settled in the state of Vermont, near the town of Cavendish. Over the next three years, Solzhenitsyn, trying not to attract attention, visited various American universities with Russian archival funds, and worked on the epic "The Red Wheel", reworked the first "knot" of "August the Fourteenth," and also created two new novels "October Sixteenth" and "March Seventeenth". In addition to artistic creativity, Solzhenitsyn was actively involved in journalism, reflecting on the past and future of Russia, trying to find an original Russian way based on national moral values.

The chapters from the "Gulag Archipelago" were published in the USSR only in 1989, after the start of perestroika, and in August 1990, Soviet citizenship was returned to Solzhenitsyn. In 1994, the writer returned to his homeland, but his arrival was received ambiguously, causing a lot of controversy around the writer's work and life position. After his arrival, Solzhenitsyn settled near Moscow in the property allocated to him in the village of Troitse-Lykovo, where he continued to engage in literary work. In 1998, an autobiographical work was published "A grain was pleased between two millstones. Essays on expulsion". Stories and lyrical miniatures ("Tiny") were published. In 2001-2002, a two-volume edition of the writer "Two Hundred Years Nearby" (A Study of Contemporary Russian History), devoted to Russian-Jewish relations, was published. The book drew controversial reactions. In 2006, the 30-volume Collected Works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn began to appear.

The writer died on August 3, 2008 at his home in Trinity-Lykovo from acute heart failure. He was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation. In 1998 he was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, but refused the award. He was awarded the Lomonosov Big Gold Medal (1998). In 2007 he was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation for outstanding achievements in the field of humanitarian work.

Soon after the author's return to the country, a literary prize was instituted in his name to reward writers "whose work has high artistic merit, contributes to the self-knowledge of Russia, and makes a significant contribution to the preservation and careful development of the traditions of Russian literature."

In 1974, the writer founded the Russian Public Foundation of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and gave him all the worldwide royalties for the GULAG Archipelago. Since then, the Foundation has provided systematic assistance to the victims of the GULAG, as well as financed projects related to the preservation of Russian culture.

Solzhenitsyn was married a second marriage (his first marriage to Natalya Reshetovskaya was dissolved in 1973). From marriage with his second wife Natalia Svetlova - three sons: Ermolai (born 1970), Ignat (born 1972) and Stepan (born 1973). Solzhenitsyn's adopted son, Dmitry Tyurin, Natalya Solzhenitsyn's eldest son from his first marriage, died in 1994.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

Disputes and discussions of the biography of Solzhenitsyn and his work continue even now, ten years after his death. For some, he is a moral guide, a great artist and freedom fighter. Someone will call him a distortion of history and an outstanding traitor to the Motherland. The layer of neutral, indifferent, or who have never heard anything about Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn is very thin. Isn't this evidence that we are talking about an extraordinary person.

School and University

When a person has an eventful biography, like Solzhenitsyn's, it is not easy to summarize it. There are many classified pages, incomprehensible twists and turns, which biographers and journalists interpret to their liking, and Alexander Isaevich himself did not seek to clarify and comment.

He was born a hundred years ago, in 1918, on the eleventh of December in Kislovodsk. While still a schoolboy, he showed himself as a creative person - he studied in a drama club, wrote articles, read a lot. In parallel, he studied at two universities: Rostov at Physics and Mathematics and the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History (managed to complete two courses in absentia).

During his studies (1940) he married Natalya Reshetovskaya (Natalya Svetlova will become his second wife in 1973). He conceived and began to create a series of literary works about the revolution in Russia. Work was interrupted with the onset of the war.

War time

In 1941, the war began - in the biography of Solzhenitsyn, the most important event that directed his life, like the life of the entire Soviet state, was not at all in the direction that was planned. He managed to graduate from the university and was sent to the service. He passed military training at the Kostroma Artillery School. Was awarded:

• Order of the Patriotic War, second degree;
• Order of the Red Star.

Towards the end of the war, he created projects to remove Stalin from the leadership of the state. He shared his thoughts on how to do this in letters with his acquaintances, for which he was arrested. This is information from the book of his first wife, Natalia Reshetovskaya. It is not taken on trust by everyone: everyone knew that the content of the officers' letters was under the control of censorship.

Work in the "sharashka"

The first arrest took place at the end of the war, in February 1945. Army captain, sonic reconnaissance battalion commander Solzhenitsyn was sent to the Lubyanka. In July of the same year, he was sentenced to eight years in labor camps and exile for life. As a specialist in sound-measuring devices, he was assigned to a "sharashka" - a closed design bureau (design bureau).

In two years, from forty-fifth to forty-seventh, he was transferred from one institution to another five times. The KB located in Marfino is especially interesting. This is one of the most secret pages of Solzhenitsyn's biography: the Marfin "eighth laboratory" developed secret communication systems. It is believed that it was here that the president's "nuclear briefcase" was created. The prototype of Rubin ("In the First Circle"), Lev Kopelev, also worked here, doing technical translations of foreign literature.

At this time, the youthful idea of ​​writing about the revolution was transformed: if he succeeds in getting out, a series of his novels will be devoted to life in the camps.

There are a number of publications that mention that Solzhenitsyn was an informant in the camp. However, no intelligible evidence or refutation of this has been presented.

After Stalin's death

In 1953, Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn's biography makes another death loop - he is diagnosed with cancer. After radiation therapy, stomach cancer was cured, and the nightmarish memories of that time were reflected in the work "Cancer Ward". Its publication in 1967 in the Novy Mir magazine was banned, and in 1968 the story was published abroad. It has been translated into all European languages, and was first published at home in 1990.

After Stalin's death, Solzhenitsyn was freed, but he did not have the right to move to the European part of the country. He lived in Kazakhstan. Three years later, rehabilitation followed, which allowed him to leave Kazakhstan and settle in the Ryazan region. There he worked as a school teacher, taught mathematics. He again married Natalya Reshetovskaya, whom he divorced while in prison. He spent a lot of time in nature and wrote his "Tiny".

What is "Tiny"

Adorable and wise Solzhenitsyn's "Little Tiny" - short observations filled with philosophical meaning. He called them prose poems, since each such miniature of several paragraphs contains a complete, deep thought and evokes an emotional response from the reader. The works were composed during the author's cycling trips.

"Tiny" was created over the course of two years and correspond to the period 1958-1960 in the biography of Solzhenitsyn: briefly, the most important thing and concerning the soul itself. It was during this period, in parallel with "Tiny", the writing of the most famous works - "One day of Ivan Denisovich" and "Archipelago-GULAG" (beginning of work). In Russia, prose poems were not accepted for publication, they were learned about thanks to samizdat. They were published only abroad, in the sixty-fourth year in Frankfurt (magazine "Grani", number fifty-six).

"Ivan Denisovich"

A significant and symbolic fact of Solzhenitsyn's biography is the first publication of his work in the open press. This is "One Day in Ivan Denisovich". The story, which appeared in Novy Mir in 1962, made a stunning impression on the reading audience. Lydia Chukovskaya, for example, wrote that the material itself, the boldness of its presentation, as well as the skill of the writer, are amazing.

There is another opinion - Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize in 1970 undeservedly. The main argument in favor was not the author's literary talent, but the fact of his dissidence.

Initially, the work had a slightly different look and the name "Shch-854. One day of one prisoner. " The editors demanded to redo it. Some biographers are convinced that the reason for the appearance of the story in print is not editorial changes, but a special order of Nikita Khrushchev within the framework of the anti-Stalinist campaign to expose.

Who is Russia holding on to

By 1963, two more literary masterpieces of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn were created - the biography and the list of works will be added to The Case at the Kochetovka Station and Matrenin Dvor. The last piece was given to Alexander Tvardovsky for editing in Novy Mir at the end of 1961. It did not go through the first discussion in the magazine, Tvardovsky did not dare to publish it. However, in his diary, he noted that he was dealing with a true writer, far from trying to impress, but striving to express his own vision.

After the impressive appearance in the press of "Ivan Denisovich" and its success, an attempt was made to discuss the story a second time: the editors insisted on changing the year in which the plot of the story develops, and its original title "A village is not worth a righteous man." The new name was suggested by Tvardovsky himself. In the sixty-third year, the publication took place. "Matrenin Dvor" was published in the magazine together with "A Case at the Kochetovka Station" under the general title "Two Stories."

The public outcry was extraordinary, just like after Ivan Denisovich. For almost a year, critical disputes raged, after which the author's works disappeared from the Soviet press for decades. The republishing of Matrenin's Dvor took place only in 1989 in Ogonyok, and the author did not give consent to it. The "pirate" circulation was huge - more than three million copies.

An almost documentary story was created by Alexander Solzhenitsyn - a short biography of the main character, given in the work, is genuine. Her prototype was called Matryona Zakharova. She died in 1957, and a museum was opened in her hut in 2013.

According to the vision of Andrei Sinyavsky, "Matrenin Dvor" is a fundamental work of "village literature". This thing naggingly echoes, for example, with documentaries about Russia by Leonid Parfenov, or with the works of Vasil Bykov. The fundamental idea that Russia rests only on the patience and dedication of older people, mostly women, inspires a tangible hopelessness. It is modern to this day.

Persecution period

After 1964, the curve of Solzhenitsyn's biography goes down sharply. Khrushchev, who patronized the writer, was removed. Part of Solzhenitsyn's archive falls into the hands of the KGB (1965). Works that have already been published are removed from the library fund. In 1969, the Writers' Union got rid of Solzhenitsyn, excluding him from its members. Having received the Nobel Prize in 1970, Alexander Isaevich will not dare to go to Stockholm for it. He fears that it will not be possible to return back.

Open letter

In 1973, in one of the issues of the Vremya news program, an open letter was read, drawn up and signed by a group of famous writers on August 31st. The letter was published in the Pravda newspaper. It outlined the support of a group of Soviet scientists who condemned A. Sakharov's civil position. For their part, the writers accused Solzhenitsyn of slandering the Soviet system and expressed their contempt for him. In total, thirty-one signatures were published under the letter, including:

• Ch. Aitmatov
• R. Gamzatov
• V. Kataev
• S. Mikhalkov
• B. Polevoy
• K. Simonov
• M. Sholokhov and others.

It is noteworthy that the signature of Vasil Bykov was also voiced from the television screen. However, V. Bykov refutes the accusations of anti-Sovietism of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his biography. He wrote in "The Long Way Home" that he did not give consent to place his signature on the letter, but despite this, his name was called.

A brief history of the "Archipelago"

In December of the same year, Solzhenitsyn's biography will be replenished with another event that will add his name to the list of world celebrities. The first part of the author's research "The Gulag Archipelago" is published in Paris. Only fifty thousand copies.

Six months earlier, in the summer of 1973, Solzhenitsyn gave a long interview to foreign journalists. This was the starting point for the creation of a letter of protest for a group of writers. On the day of the interview, Aleksandr Isaevich's assistant, Elizaveta Voronyanskaya, was arrested. Under pressure from the interrogators, she announced where one of the handwritten copies of the GULAG was, after which she was released. At home, the woman committed suicide.

Solzhenitsyn found out about this only in the fall, after which he ordered the publication of the work abroad. In February 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and, accused of high treason, was exiled to Germany. Later he moved to Switzerland (Zurich), then to the United States (Vermont). With royalties from the GULAG, Ivan Isaevich created a fund to support political prisoners and help their families in the USSR.

Return of Solzhenitsyn

The most important thing in the biography, perhaps, is the restoration of historical justice and the return to Russia in 1994. Since 1990, the homeland will try to rehabilitate itself before Solzhenitsyn - his citizenship will be returned, criminal prosecution will be stopped, and he will be nominated for the State Prize as the author of the Gulag Archipelago. In the same year, "New World" will publish "The First Circle", and in 1995 - "Tiny".

Solzhenitsyn settles in the Moscow region, from time to time he travels to his sons in America. In 1997 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation. He is still being published: in 1998 his stories will appear in Literaturny Stavropol, and in 2002 his collected works in thirty volumes will be published. The writer died in 2008, heart failure was named the cause of death.

Writer for "abroad"

Not everyone is inclined to consider Alexander Isaevich a patriot of their fatherland. Today, as in the seventies, they reproach Solzhenitsyn: his biography and work are focused on Western ideology. Most of the works were not published in the Soviet Union. Many accuse him, as a man who fought with the system, of the collapse of the country and of the fact that he enjoyed support:

• Radio Liberty;
• Voices of America;
• "Deutsche Welle";
• BBC (Russian section);
• "State Department" (Russian department)
• "Pentagon" (propaganda department)

Conclusion

After one of the articles in Live Journal about the manipulation of facts in the works of Solzhenitsyn and his misanthropy, readers left a lot of different comments. One of them deserves special attention: “There are too many extraneous opinions. Read the works - everything is there. "

Indeed, Alexander Isaevich could be wrong. However, it is not easy to blame a person who wrote, for example, “Coming to the Day” or any other “Little Tiny”, of dislike for the Motherland and lack of spirituality. His creations, like the bells ringing in "Traveling along the Oka", lift us from dropping to four legs.

Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11, 1918 in Kislovodsk. This is a great writer, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, politician and social activist, famous historian, dissident, Nobel laureate.
Father is a peasant worker, and mother is a Cossack. A poor family from a hard life in 1924 moved to Rostov-on-Don.
Alexander's education begins in 1926, when he was sent to a local school. It is such an early age that becomes the beginning of his formation as a writer - at school he creates his debut poems and essays.
10 years later, in 1936, Alexander continues his studies, entering the University in Rostov at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, but, at the same time, not giving up his active literary activity. After graduating from the university, in 1941 and receiving a red diploma, Alexander Isaevich decides not to finish his education on this. In 1939, he submitted documents to the Institute of Philosophy in Moscow at the Faculty of Literature and History, but, due to the outbreak of hostilities, Alexander could not receive a diploma from this institute.
During the war, Alexander really wanted to go to the front, and, not paying attention to his poor health, in 1941 he entered the service in the transport and animal transport direction. The military school of Kostroma meets the writer in 1942, where Alexander receives the rank of lieutenant. As early as 1943, the writer was serving as the commander of sound reconnaissance. Merits during the war years of Alexander were so noticeable that for them he received two honorary orders and the main title for him was senior lieutenant, and then captain.
Stalin's policy was alien to Alexander, which is why in 1945 he was sentenced and addressed to an eight-year stay in a camp and a lifelong exile. In the winter of 1952, doctors diagnosed Alexander with an incurable cancer.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was married twice, and both times to girls named Natalya. The first wife was Natalya Reshetovskaya, and the second was Natalya Svetlova. From the marriage with Natalia Svetlova, the writer Alexander left three sons who were not deprived of talents and gifts - Stepan, Ignat, and Ermolai Solzhenitsyn.
It is impossible to hide the fact that during his lifetime Alexander Isaevich was certified with more than twenty honorary awards, as well as the Nobel Prize, which he was awarded for the work "The Gulag Archipelago".
In literary circles, he is very often spoken of as Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, but in his own era.
From 1975 to 1994, Alexander managed to visit Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Great Britain, USA, France and Canada.
And already in 1994 the writer returned to his homeland, where he continued his literary activity. The first thirty volumes of the collection of works by Alexander Solzhenitsyn are published in the period 2006-2007.
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn died on August 3, 2008 in Moscow. The writer's funeral was held at the Donskoy Monastery in the necropolis.
A stone cross stands on the grave of Alexander, which was created according to the design edition of the famous sculptor Shakhovsky.

1. Solzhenitsyn's early childhood
2. Mathematician with the soul of a writer
3. From a war hero to an anti-Soviet
4. Construction sites and secret enterprises: Solzhenitsyn in labor camps
5. Death of Stalin, rehabilitation and move to Ryazan
6. Out of the Shadows: "One Day in Ivan Denisovich" and "The Gulag Archipelago"
7. Nobel Prize, emigration and return to Russia

In the winter of 1970, Solzhenitsyn completed his novel August the Fourteenth. The manuscript was secretly transferred to Paris to Nikita Struve, the head of the YMCA-press publishing house. In 1973, KGB officers arrested Solzhenitsyn's assistant, Elizaveta Voronyanskaya. During interrogation, she told where one of the manuscripts of the "Gulag Archipelago" is kept. The writer was threatened with arrest. Fearing that all copies would be destroyed, he decided to urgently publish the work abroad.

The press of the "GULAG Archipelago" caused a great resonance: in January 1974, the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee held a separate meeting, which discussed measures "Suppression of anti-Soviet activities" Solzhenitsyn. In February, the writer was stripped of his citizenship "For actions defaming the title of a citizen of the USSR" and expelled from the country. At first he lived in Germany, then moved to Switzerland, and soon decided to move to the American state of Vermont. There, the writer took up journalism, founded the "Russian Public Fund for Aid to Prisoners and Their Families."

... 4/5 of all my royalties to give to public needs, only a fifth to leave for the family.<...>In the midst of the persecution, I announced publicly that I was giving the Archipelago fees to the prisoners. I don't consider the income from the "Archipelago" my own - it belongs to Russia itself, and before everyone else - to the political prisoners, our brother. So - and it's time, do not postpone! Help is needed not once there - but as quickly as possible.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "A grain pleased between two millstones"

The attitude towards the writer in the USSR softened with the beginning of perestroika. In 1989, chapters from the Gulag Archipelago were first published, and a year later Solzhenitsyn was given back Soviet citizenship and awarded him the RSFSR Literary Prize. He refused her, saying: “In our country, the disease of the GULAG has not been overcome even today, either legally or morally. This book is about the suffering of millions, and I cannot collect honor on it "... In the fall of 1993, Solzhenitsyn and his wife committed "Farewell trip" across Europe, and then returned to Russia.

The last years of his life, Solzhenitsyn spent at a dacha near Moscow, which was presented to him by Russian President Boris Yeltsin. In July 2001, the writer published a book about Russian-Jewish relations "Two Hundred Years Together". In 2007, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the State Prize for Outstanding Achievements in the Field of Humanitarian Action. On August 3, 2008, the writer died, several months before his 90th birthday.

Interesting facts about Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Solzhenitsyn at work in the Stanford University Library. 1976. Stanford, California, USA. Photo: solzhenitsyn.ru

Homecoming. Meeting of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Vladivostok. May 27, 1994. Photo: solzhenitsyn.ru

Cover of the publication "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" in "Roman-Gazeta". 1963. Photo: solzhenitsyn.ru

1. The patronymic of Solzhenitsyn is not Isaevich, as they indicate everywhere, but Isaakievich. When the future writer received his passport, the office made a mistake.

2. During his exile in Kazakhstan, Solzhenitsyn made friends with the family of the doctor Nikolai Zubov, who taught him how to make boxes with a double bottom. Since then, the writer began to keep paper copies of his works, and not just memorize them.

4. To rename Bolshaya Kommunisticheskaya Street in Moscow in honor of Solzhenitsyn, the deputies had to change the law: before that it was forbidden to name streets after people who died less than ten years ago.

The name of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, which was banned for a long time, today rightfully occupies a worthy place in the history of Russian literature. After the publication of The Gulag Archipelago (and this happened only in 1989), neither Russian nor world literature left any works that would pose a great danger to the outgoing Soviet regime.

This book revealed the whole essence of the to-talitarian regime. The veil of lies and self-deception, which still covered the eyes of many of our fellow citizens, was asleep. After everything that was collected in this book, which was revealed with an amazing power of emotional impact, on the one hand, documentary evidence, on the other - the art of words, after the monstrous, fan-tastic martyrology of the victims “build -the property of communism "in Russia during the years of Soviet power - nothing is surprising or scary anymore!

A short biography of Alexander Isaevich is as follows: date of birth - December 1918, place of birth - the city of Kis-lovodsk; the father came from peasants, the mother was the daughter of a shepherd who later became a wealthy farmer. After high school, Solzhenitsyn graduated from the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of the University in Rostov-on-Don, and at the same time entered the correspondence course at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy and Literature. Having not finished the last two courses, he goes to war, from 1942 to 1945 he commanded a battery at the front, was awarded orders and medals. In February 1945, with the rank of captain, he was arrested - in his "correspondence were anti-Stalinist statements were found - and was sentenced to eight years, of which he spent almost a year on the investigation and transfer, three in the prison research institute and four difficult - on general work in the political special camp. Then there was a village in Kazakhstan "forever", but in February 1957, rehabilitation began. He worked as a school teacher in Ryazan. After the publication in 1962 of the story "One day of Ivan Denisovich" was adopted in the Union of Writers. But later he was forced to publish in "Samizdat" or to be published abroad. In 1969 he was expelled from the Union of Writers, in 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. of the first volume of "The Gulag Archipelago" was forcibly expelled from the Soviet Union. Until 1976 he lived in Zurich, then moved to the American state of Vermont, which by nature resembles the middle zone of Russia. In 1996, Alexander Isaevich returns to Russia. Such is the difficult life the new way of the writer.

Although the writer himself argued that the form that attracts him most in literature is “polyphonic with precise indications of time and place of action”, of his five major works, surprisingly enough, a novel in the full sense of the word can only be called “In the first circle”, for “The GULAG Archipelago”, according to the sub-title, is “the experience of artistic research”, the epic “Red Kolle-so” is “a narrative in measured terms”, “Cancer Ward” (after author's choice) is a story, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a story.

The novel "In the First Circle" was written for 13 years and has seven editions. The plot is based on the fact that the diplomat Volodin calls the American embassy to say that in three days the secret of the atomic bomb will be stolen in New York. The overheard and taped conversation is delivered to the "sharashka" - a scientific research institution of the MGB system, in which prisoners create a method for recognizing voices. The meaning of the novel is explained by a prisoner: "Sharashka is the highest, best, first circle of hell." Volodin gives another explanation, drawing a circle on the ground: “Do you see the circle? This is the fatherland. This is the first circle. But the second, it is wider. This is humanity. And the first circle is not included in the second. There are fences of prejudice. And it turns out that there is no humanity. But only the fatherland, fatherland, and different for everyone ... "

The idea of ​​the story "One day of Ivan De-nisovich" appeared in general works in the Ekibastuz special camp. "I was carrying a stretcher with my partner and thought how to describe the whole camp world in one day." In the story "Cancer Ward" Solzhenitsyn put forward his version of "inciting cancer": Stalinism, Red Terror, repression.

What attracts Solzhenitsy's work? Truthfulness, pain for what is happening, clairvoyance. A writer, a historian, he warns us all the time: don't get lost in history. “They will say to us: what can literature do against the ruthless grip of open violence? But let's not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: ​​it is certainly intertwined with lies, wrote A.I. Solzhenitsyn. - But you need to take a simple step: do not participate in lies. Let it come into the world and even reign in the world - but not through me. More is available to writers and artists: to defeat the lie! " Solzhenitsyn was such a writer who conquered lies.