Alexander Solzhenitsyn

1
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• World Literature
• Fall 2005

2
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• 1918
• Born on Dec. 11 at Kislovodsk in Southern Russia
• Father killed six months before Alexander was
  born
• Reared by mother who was a typist

3
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• 1940
• Married Natalya (Natasha) Reshetovskaya
• insisted that they should have no children to
  interfere with his writing.
• 1941
• Graduated from Rostov University with a degree in
  mathematics and physics.
• 1941-1945
• Served in the Red Army during World War II
• captain of artillery
• twice decorated

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Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• 1945
• Arrested for making derogatory comments about
  Stalin.
• interrogated at the Lubyanka prison in Moscow
• described what happened to him there in his novel
  The First Circle.
• sentenced to 8 years in labor camps.
• double degree in mathematics and physics saved
  him mostly from hard physical labor
• was sent to Marfino, a specialized prison that
  employed mathematicians and scientist in research

5
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• 1953
• Released after Stalin's death.
• Exiled to southern Kazakhstan
• worked as mathematics and physics teacher
• wrote in secret

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Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• 1954
• Hospitalized for treatment of stomach cancer.
• 1956
• Sentence annulled
• Returned to Moscow
• Continued working as a school teacher

7
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• 1962
• Allowed to publish his first book, One Day in the
  Life of Ivan Denisovich
• Published in the leading Soviet literary journal
  Novyi Mir
• Controversial
• Caused a sensation at home and abroad, with its
  descriptions of conditions in the labor camps.
• At the time of publication, the government had
  yet to admit to the existence of the camps.
• 1965
• Manuscripts were seized by the KGB.
• His wife hid the draft of The Gulag Archipelago.

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Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• 1968
• Attacked for aligning himself with "the enemies
  of the USSR"
• Neither of his next two novels could be published
  in his native country.
• Expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union.
• 1970
• Awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

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Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• 1973
• Married Natalya (Alya) Svetlova after his divorce
  from Natasha was finalized.
• 3 sons
• Yermolai, Stephan, and Ignat.
• 1974
• Arrested and expelled from the Soviet Union
  after the foreign publication of the first of the
  three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago (1973).
• The first Russian-language edition did not appear
  until 1989.

10
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• Exiled in Switzerland
• criticized the Soviet system and its denial of
  human rights.
• 1976
• Family moved to Vermont
• Turned to criticism of the decadence and
  materialism of the West.
• 1980
• Memoirs, The Oak and the Calf, published

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Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• 1991
• Political climate in Russia changed
• 1994
• Returned to his native land
• Currently lives in St. Petersburg (Moscow)