PCGUIA 10/PC Guia 10.iso/database/shared.dir/01412_Field_164.cap.txt

Text File | 1996-03-14 | 3KB | 191 lines

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Solzhenitsyn was
the defiant
symbol of
freedom during
the oppressive
years of Soviet
communism. He
survived the
camps, and he
survived cancer
almost by an
effort of will. He
was determined
to chronicle the
history of the
vast network of
labor camps he
called 'the gulag
archipelago'
#
The Soviet public
was stunned
when One Day in
the Life of Ivan
Denisovich was
published.
Permission to
publish came
from Khrushchev
himself, and it
was part of his
campaign to
discredit his
predecessor
Joseph Stalin.
Solzhenitsyn
became a star
overnight
#
Cancer Ward,
Solzhenitsyn's
second novel,
portrays the
harsh life-or-
death conditions
of the cancer
wing of a hospital
in Soviet Central
Asia. Cancer
becomes a
metaphor for the
condition of the
Soviet state as
much as the
clinical situation.
The novel was
not published in
the USSR
#
The Gulag
Archipelago
describes the
structure and
operation of the
Soviet labor camp
system or the
"gulag". (The
camps are dotted
like islands across
the map of the
country: hence
the title.) It was a
masterpiece of
clandestine
research, drawing
on interviews
with hundreds of
survivors
#
The men and women
who inhabited the
islands of the
gulag archipelago
were a nation
of slave laborers.
It was they who
built many of
the great engin-
eering feats of
the Soviet state:
the canals, the
dams, the subways
and the industrial
cities. Millions
of innocent people
died anonymous
deaths - exactly
how many, still
nobody knows
@
Following the
award to him of
the Nobel prize,
pro-Soviet
Russian writers
portrayed
Solzhenitsyn as
"more dangerous
than Pasternak".
But Solzhenitsyn
was by nature
more combative
than the author of
Doctor Zhivago. He
used the publicity
he received in the
west as a kind
of shield against
the attacks of
the KGB
#
Solzhenitsyn was
unceremoniously
expelled from the
Soviet Union in
1974 after he
accepted the
Nobel Prize. He
arrived distraught
in West Germany,
where he was
met by Heinrich
Boll, the German
author, who was
his friend and
loyal supporter
#
In 1976
Solzhenitsyn
settled in
Vermont in the
United States,
where he lived
frugally for
over 20 years,
continuing his
research and
writing an epic
history of the
Russian Revolution
#
Solzhenitsyn
vowed never to
forget his time
in prison. Even
during his long
exile in the US,
on one day
in every year
he would eat only
prison rations, to
remind himself of
how he had lived
in the gulag for
eight long years
#
Solzhenitsyn was
invited, almost
begged, to come
home in the years
of glasnost. He
held out until the
country that
condemned him
had ceased to
exist. This was
perhaps a mis-
take: in 1989 he
would have been
greeted as a hero
and a prophet. But
by 1994, Russia
had changed too
much, and he was
met with little
more than idle
curiosity
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