Russian author and historian, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk in the northern Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian seas. His father, a tsarist artillery officer, was killed in an hunting accident six months before Aleksandr's birth.

To support herself and her son, Solzhenitsyn's mother worked as a typist. Solzhenitsy studied mathematics and physics at Rostov University, graduating in 1941. In 1939-41 he took correspondence cources in literature at Moscow State University. He married Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaia in 1940, they divorcen in 1950, remarried in 1957, and divorced in 1972. They had three sons. In 1973 Solzhenitsyn married Dmitrievna Svetlova.

In WW II he achieved the rank of captain of artillery and was twice decorated. From 1945 to 1953 he was imprisoned for writing a letter in which he criticized Joseph Stalin. Solzhenitsyn served in the camps and prisons near Moskow, and camp in Ekibastuz, Kazakhstan (1945-53).

During his imprisonment he was sent to Marfino, a specialized prison that employed mathematicians and scientist in reserach. He was then transferred to forced-labour camp in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, where he developed stomach cancer. Solzhenitsyn was exiled to South Kazakhstan village of Kok-Terek (1953-56), where he worked as mathematics and physics teacher, and wrote in secret. He developed a cancer, but was successfully treated in Tashkent (1954-55). Later these experiences were basis for the novels First Circle, and Cancer Ward.

After rehabilitation Solzhenitsyn settled in Riazan as teacher (1957).

Solzhenitsyn published his first book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, in 1962 in the Soviet literary journal Novy Mir. The book gained fame both in the USSR and the West, and was compared with Fedor Dostoyevsky's novel House of the Dead. The period of official favour lasted few years and Solzhenitsyn was denied to publish his manuscripts. Between the years 1963 and 1966 Solzhenitsyn managed to publish four stories.

KGB confiscated the novel V KRUGE PERVON and other writings in 1965 and Solzhenitsyn circulated an open letter to Fourt Congress of the Writers' Union. Unpublished works were smuggled in the West from 1971 and secured Solzhenitsyn's international fame as one of the most prominent opponents of government policies.

Rejecting the ideology of his youth, Solzhenitsyn came to believe that the struggle between good and evil cannot be resolved among parties, classes or doctrines, but is waged within the individual human heart. This Tolstoian view and serch for Christian morality was considered radical in the ideological atmosphere of the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s.

As with Boris Pasternak, the Soviet government denounced Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Prize as a politically hostile act. In 1974 he was exiled from the Soviet Union. He lived first in Switzerland and moved then in 1976 to the United States, where he continued to write series called The Red Wheel, an epic history of the events, that led to the Russian Revolution.

After collapse of the Soviet Union Solzhenitsyn returned from Vermont to his home land in 1994. He made a sensational whistle-stop tour through Siberia, and settled then in Moskow. Solzhenitsyn was also received by President Yeltsin and in 1994 he gave an address to Russian Duma. He has continued to write, becoming a highly popular figure, criticizing western materialism and Russian bureacracy and secularization. On the other hand he has accused not to condemn Russian chauvinism. His works have not lately gained such reputation as earlier.

Since his return Solzhenitsyn has published sevaral works. Essay Rebuilding Russia (1990) was widely published, and in 1991 his treason charges were formally dropped. In 1997 was established the Solzhenitsyn Prize for Russian writing. His latest book ROSSIYA V OBVALE (Russia Collapsing), published by Viktor Moskvin, appeared in 1998 and attaced on Russia's business circles and government. The first printing is 5 000 copies.

See also: Heinrich Böll

For further reading: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn by S. Allaback (1978); Solzhenitsyn in Exile by J.B. Dunlop, et al. (1985); Solzhenitsyn: The Moral Vision by E.E.E. Ericson (1980); Solzhenitsyn: A Biography by M. Scammell (1985) The Great Reversal by Paul N. Siegel (1991); Solzhenitsyn and the Modern World by Edward E. Ericson (1993); One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. A Critical Companion, ed. by Alexis Klimoff (1997); Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century of His Life by D.M. Thomas (1998)

Selected works:

• ODIN DEN'IVANA DENISOVICHA, 1962 - ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH-
• MATRENIN DVOR, 1963 - We Never Make Mistakes
• DVA RASSKAZA, 1963
• DLIA POL'ZY DELA,1964 - For the Good of the Cause
• ETIUDY I KROKHOTNYE RASSKAZY, 1964
• IZBRANNOE, 1965
• SOCHINENIIA, 1966
• ZAKHAR-KALITA, 1966
• RAKOVYI KORPUS, 1968 (2 vols.)
• V PERVOM KRUGE, 1968 - THE FIRST CIRCLE
• RAKOVYI KORPUS I-II, 1968-69 - CANCER WARD
• OLEN' I SHALASHOVKA, 1969 - The Love-Girl and the Innocent
• SOBRANIE SOCHINENII, 1969-70 (6 vols.)
• Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record, 1970
• Six Etudes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1971
• AVGUST CHETYRNADTSATOGO, 1971 - The Red Wheel: A Narrative in Discrete Periods of Time - AUGUST 1914
• Stories and Prose Poems by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1971
• A Lenten Letter to Pimen, Patriarch of All Russia, 1972
• SVECHA NA VETRU, 1973 - Candle in the Wind
• Letter to the Soviet Leaders, 1974
• Solzhenitsyn: A Pictorial Autobiography, 1974
• AMERIKANSKIE RECHI, 1974
• PRUSSKIE NOCHI, 1974 - Prussian Nights
• From Under the Rubble, 1975
• The Calf and the Oak, 1975
• LENIN V TSIUROKHE, 1975 - Lenin in Zurich
• ARCHIPELAG GULAG, 1918-1956: OP'BIT KHUDOZHESTVENNOPO ISSLEDOVANIJA I-II, 1974-76 - THE GULAG ARHIPELAGO
• Warning to the West, 1976
• RASSKAZY, 1976
• A World Split Apart, 1978
• Détente, 1980
• The Mortal Danger (with Arthur M. Schlesinger), 1980
• East and West, 1980
• To Free China, 1982
• Victory Celebrations, 1983
• Prisoners: A Tragedy, 1983
• KRASNOE KOLESO, 1893-91
• OCTOBER 1916, 1984
• MARCH 1917, 1986
• APRIL 1917, 1991
• MALOE SOBRANIE SOCHINENII, 1991 (7 vols.)
• RUSSKIE PISATELI-LAUREATY NOBELEVSKOI PREMII, 1991
• PO MINUTE V DEN', 1995
• EGO, 1995
• DVUCHASTNYE RASSKAZY, 1996
• PUBLITSISTIKA V TREKH TOMAKH, 1996
• KAK ZHAL' I DRUGIE RASSKAZY, 1996

Compiled by Kuusankoski Public Library, Finland (© 1997) and René Märtin (© 1998-2001).