Short biography and works of Solzhenitsyn Alexander Isaevich

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In an interview, Alexander Solzhenitsyn admitted that he devoted his life to the Russian revolution. What did the author of the novel "In the First Circle" mean? Domestic history keeps hidden tragic twists and turns. The writer considered it his duty to testify about them. Solzhenitsyn's works are a significant contribution to the historical science of the 20th century.

Short biography

Solzhenitsyn Alexander Isaevich was born in 1918 in Kislovodsk. He has been active in literature since his youth. Before the war, he was most interested in the history of the First World War. The future writer, dissident and public figure devoted his first literary works to this topic.

The creative and life path of Solzhenitsyn is unique. Becoming a witness and participant in important historical events is happiness for a writer, but a great tragedy for a person.

Solzhenitsyn met the beginning of the war in Moscow. Here he studied at the correspondence department of the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature. Behind the shouldersit was Rostov University. Ahead - officer school, intelligence and arrest. In the late nineties, Solzhenitsyn's works were published in the literary magazine Novy Mir, in which the author reflected his military experience. And he had a considerable one.

As an artillery officer, the future writer went all the way from Orel to East Prussia. Years later, he dedicated the works “Zhelyabug settlements”, “Adlig Schvenkitten” to the events of this period. He ended up in the very places where the army of General Samsonov once passed. The events of 1914 Solzhenitsyn dedicated the book "Red Wheel".

Captain Solzhenitsyn was arrested in 1945. This was followed by long years of prisons, camps, exile. After rehabilitation in 1957, he taught for some time in a rural school, not far from Ryazan. Solzhenitsyn rented a room from a local resident - Matryona Zakharovna, who later became the prototype of the main character of the story "Matryona Dvor".

Underground Writer

In his autobiographical book “The Calf Butted the Oak,” Solzhenitsyn admitted that before his arrest, although he was drawn to literature, it was quite unconscious. In peacetime, at large, he was upset that it was not easy to find fresh topics for stories. What would Solzhenitsyn's works be like if he hadn't been imprisoned?

Themes for short stories, novels and novels were born on shipments, in camp barracks, in prison cells. Unable to write down his thoughts on paper, he created entire chapters of the novels The Gulag Archipelago and The First Circle in his mind, andthen memorized them.

After his release, Alexander Isaevich continued to write. In the 1950s, publishing your works seemed an impossible dream. But he did not stop writing, believing that his work would not be lost, that at least descendants would read plays, stories and novels.

Only in 1963 was Solzhenitsyn able to publish his first works. Books, as separate editions, appeared much later. At home, the writer was able to print stories in the "New World". But it was also an incredible happiness.

Disease

To memorize what was written and then burn it - a method that Solzhenitsyn used more than once to preserve his works. But when, in exile, the doctors told him that he had only a few weeks to live, he was frightened, first of all, that the reader would never see what he had created. There was no one to save Solzhenitsyn's works. Friends are in the camps. Mother died. His wife divorced him in absentia and married another. Solzhenitsyn rolled up the manuscripts that he managed to write, then hid them in a champagne bottle, buried this bottle in the garden. And he went to Tashkent to die…

However, he survived. With a difficult diagnosis, recovery seemed like an omen from above. In the spring of 1954, Solzhenitsyn wrote "The Republic of Labor" - the first work, during the creation of which the underground writer knew the happiness not to destroy passage after passage, but to be able to read his own work in full.

In the first circle

A novel about a sharashka was written in the literary underground. The prototypes of the main characters of the novel "In the First Circle" were the author himself and his acquaintances. But, despite all the precautions, as well as the desire to publish the work in a light version, only KGB officers had a chance to read it. In Russia, the novel "In the First Circle" was published only in 1990. In the West, twenty-two years earlier.

One day of Ivan Denisovich

Camp is a special world. It has nothing to do with the one in which free people live. In the camp, everyone survives and dies in their own way. In the first published work of Solzhenitsyn, only one day in the life of the hero is depicted. The author knew firsthand about camp life. That is why the reader is so struck by the rough and truthful realism present in the story written by Solzhenitsyn.

The books of this writer caused a resonance in the world society, primarily due to their authenticity. Solzhenitsyn believed that the writer's talent fades, and then dies altogether, if in his work he seeks to circumvent the truth. And therefore, being in absolute literary isolation for a long time and not being able to publish the results of his many years of work, he did not envy the success of the representatives of the so-called socialist realism. The Union of Writers expelled Tsvetaeva, rejected Pasternak and Akhmatova. Did not accept Bulgakov. In this world, if talents appeared, they quickly perished.

Publication history

Solzhenitsyn did not dare to sign the manuscript sent to the editors of Novy Mir with his own name. Hopes that "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" will see the light,there was almost none. Long agonizing months have passed from the moment one of the writer's friends sent several sheets covered in small handwriting to the staff of the country's main literary publishing house, when an invitation from Tvardovsky suddenly arrived.

The author of "Vasily Terkin" and part-time editor-in-chief of the magazine "New World" read the manuscript of an unknown author thanks to Anna Berzer. An employee of the publishing house invited Tvardovsky to read the story, uttering a phrase that became decisive: "This is about camp life, through the eyes of a simple peasant." The great Soviet poet, author of a military-patriotic poem, came from a simple peasant family. And therefore, the work, in which the narration is conducted on behalf of a "simple peasant", he was very interested.

Gulag Archipelago

The novel about the inhabitants of Stalin's camps Solzhenitsyn created more than ten years. The work was first published in France. In 1969, the Gulag Archipelago was completed. However, publishing such a work in the Soviet Union was not only difficult, but also risky. One of the writer's assistants, who reprinted the first volume of the work, became a victim of persecution by the KGB. As a result of the arrest and five days of uninterrupted interrogation, the now middle-aged woman testified against Solzhenitsyn. Then she committed suicide.

After these events, the writer had no doubts about the need to print "Archipelago" abroad.

Abroad

Solzhenitsyn Alexander Isaevich was expelled fromSoviet Union a few months after the release of the novel The Gulag Archipelago. The writer was accused of treason. The nature of the crime allegedly committed by Solzhenitsyn was widely reported in the Soviet media. In particular, the author of The Archipelago was accused of aiding the Vlasovites during the war. But nothing was said about the content of the sensational book.

Until the last days of his life, Solzhenitsyn did not stop his literary and social activities. In an interview with a foreign periodical, in the early eighties, the Russian writer expressed confidence that he would be able to return to his homeland. It seemed unlikely then.

Return

In 1990, Solzhenitsyn returned. In Russia, he wrote many articles on current political and social topics. The writer transferred a significant part of the fees in support of prisoners and their families. One of the awards is in favor of the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. But it should be noted that the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called writer nevertheless refused, motivating his act by unwillingness to accept an award from the supreme power, which brought the country to its current deplorable state.

The works of Solzhenitsyn are a valuable contribution to Russian literature. In Soviet times, he was considered a dissident and a nationalist. Solzhenitsyn disagreed with this opinion, arguing that he is a Russian writer who loves his Fatherland above all else.