Solzhenitsyn: A BiographyThis book, first published in 1984, was the first full biography of Solzhenitsyn. Starting with his childhood, it covers every period of his life in considerable detail, showing how Solzhenitsyn’s development paralleled and mirrored the development of Soviet society: ambitious and idealistic in the twenties and thirties, preoccupied with the struggle for survival in the forties, hopeful in the fifties and sixties and disillusioned in the seventies. Solzhenitsyn’s life thus serves as a paradigm for the history of twentieth-century Communism and for the intelligentsia’s attitudes to Communism. At the same time, this book relates Solzhenitsyn’s life to his works, all of which contain a large element of autobiography. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 79
... called him a saint, a prophet, a political visionary, a living literary classic. Others think him a megalomaniac, a monster of egotism, and a literary mediocrity. At one time one almost never heard a word against him; he was lionized ...
... called inogorodniye, or “outsiders,” the somewhat contemptuous name applied by Cossacks to non-Cossack Russians and subsequently adopted by the latter as a normal mode of description. The Solzhenitsyns were non-Cossack Russians, or ...
... called upon to play the roles of both son and husband, he needed now to assert his independence of her and break away. He was therefore ripe for new experiences, and it was only natural that he should begin to reach out from the family ...
... called for an almost total forcible collectivization of the peasantry, with the aim of extorting sufficient funds to finance a vast expansion of heavy industry. At the same time the kulaks, or rich peasants, were to be “liquidated” as a ...
... called Oleg Rozhdestvensky, a “pale thin boy who was top of his class, never talked about politics and had joined the Pioneers with obvious reluctance.” Rozhdestvensky has been observed attending church with his mother and wearing a ...
Contents
25 THE CREST OF THE WAVE | |
26 FIRST DOUBTS | |
27 LENIN PRIZE CANDIDATE | |
28 NOT ANOTHER PASTERNAK | |
29 ENTER THE | |
30 THE TURNING | |
31 A PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT | |
32 THE BEST FORM OF DEFENCE | |
8 AN ENEMY OF THE TOILING MASSES | |
9 TWO ARE AN ORGANIZATION | |
10 FIRST STEPS IN THE ARCHIPELAGO | |
11 TO THE NEW JERUSALEM | |
12 LIFE AMONG THE TRUSTIES | |
13 SPECIAL | |
14 IN THE FIRST CIRCLE | |
15 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS | |
16 NOT QUITE SIBERIA | |
17 A SON OF GULAG | |
18 EXILED IN PERPETUITY | |
19 CANCER WARD | |
20 MATRYONAS PLACE | |
21 THE SCHOOLMASTER FROM RYAZAN | |
22 ON THE THRESHOLD | |
23 BREAKTHROUGH | |
24 A TRUE HELPER OF THE PARTY | |
33 LETTER TO THE WRITERS CONGRESS | |
34 PLAYING THE WESTERN CARD | |
35 PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AT FIFTY | |
36 EXPULSION FROM THE WRITERS UNION | |
37 THE TAMING OF NOW MIR 38 THE NOBEL PRIZE | |
39 THE START OF A VAST ENTERPRISE | |
40 DEATH OF A POET | |
41 WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY | |
42 DIVORCE | |
43 COMING INTO THE OPEN | |
44 THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO | |
45 DEPORTED | |
46 FIRST MONTHS IN THE WEST | |
47 TAKING POSITIONS | |
48 CLARIFICATIONS | |
49 ON THE MOVE | |
Select Bibliography | |