Order of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Books

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a renowned Russian novelist and one of the most prominent Soviet dissidents in history. He was a vocal critic of communism and highlighted the political repression occurring in the USSR during his era. In 1970, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for the moral strength with which he upheld the essential traditions of Russian literature. Solzhenitsyn served as a captain in the Red Army during World War II before being arrested by SMERSH for a private letter in which he criticized Joseph Stalin. He was sentenced to eight years in the Gulag for this offense and subsequently placed in internal exile. After the Khrushchev Thaw, he was released and exonerated, which allowed him to focus on writing. His first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, was published in 1962. Following Khrushchev's removal from power, he was urged to cease writing, but he persisted. In 1973, he published The Gulag Archipelago, which provoked outrage among the Soviets and resulted in the loss of his citizenship.