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 6-10 of 78
... able to afford one on his own. When he arrived at the sports shop with the letter, he was informed that there was a terrible shortage but that they would tip him off before the next consignment arrived so that he could come to the shop ...
... able to leap from that morass onto the firm ground of immortality. Was he one of those “rarest of individuals”? He dares not put the question, but a jocular aside refers to it indirectly: “What is life if it isn't sheer daring? To dare ...
... able to take from it not only source material but also some scenes that he hardly needed to change at all. By the time Solzhenitsyn started his novel, he had entered the university. It was usual at this time for students to have to take ...
... able to grab two luggage racks, on which they slept all the way home. 5 This incident was to inspire the last scene in Cancer Ward, in which Oleg Kostoglotov employs a similar trick to secure himself a luggage rack and rides off to an ...
... able to teach, notably in a reform school in Rostov, where she had moved at the beginning of the twenties. In time she had retrained as a bookkeeper. Meanwhile, she had been joined in Rostov by her former husband's three unmarried ...
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 | |