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
... possible to inspect any but a tiny fraction of the letters and private papers that can throw light into obscure corners of the subject's life. It is a story that is still continuing and therefore incomplete: there is always the ...
... possible treatment of her problems with her former husband, Reshetovskaya once wrote that “you will probably end up pleasing neither side”— which is all too likely an outcome (and will probably extend to political matters no less than ...
A Biography Michael Scammell. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. The writing of this biography would not have been possible without the cooperation of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who first discussed the project with me in Zurich in 1974 and kindly invited me ...
... possible and making the sign of the cross over their closed shutters each night in the hope that this might ward off the search parties. But it didn't. One night a gang of armed men burst into the house and took Roman away as a hostage ...
... possible that the Solzhenitsyns, as non-Cossacks, found themselves somewhere in the middle. In the existing histories of the period, the village of Sablia figures neither as a Bolshevik nor as a White stronghold and was the site of no ...
Contents
6 FIGHTING FOR THE FATHERLAND | |
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 | |
7 ARREST | |
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 | |