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The history of the United Soviet Socialist Republics is a bloody one, especially before and during the time of Stalin. Tens of millions of innocent people were tortured, imprisoned and killed; entire minority populations were targeted. In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn draws a harrowing portrait of four decades of Soviet repression. Drawing on his own experiences before, during and after his eleven years of incarceration and exile, along with records from Soviet archives and the testimony of more than 200 fellow prisoners, Solzhenitsyn paints a shocking portrait of secret police operations, labor camps, prisons and executions. But The Gulag Archipelago is also the story of astonishing moral courage and incorruptibility amid brutality and degradation. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was born in Kislovodsk, Russia in 1918. He was educated at the Moscow Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature and at the University of Rostov. He was a twice-decorated captain in the Soviet Army, but was stripped of his rank when arrested and convicted in 1945 of anti-Soviet actions. From 1945 until his exile from the U.S.S.R. in 1974 for treason, Solzhenitsyn was in and out of prisons and work camps. He settled in the United States and lived in relative isolation in Vermont. After twenty years in exile, Solzhenitsyn was welcomed back to his homeland in 1994. He was the recipient of many awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 and the Medal of Honor for Literature in 1993. ''The best nonfiction book of the twentieth century.'' - TIME
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“BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY.” —Time
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, this foundational work of Soviet history is Solzhenitsyn’s chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police and political repression that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
“The greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever leveled in modern times.” —George F. Kennan
“It is impossible to name a book that had a greater effect on the political and moral consciousness of the late twentieth century.” —David Remnick, The New Yorker
“Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece. . . . The Gulag Archipelago helped create the world we live in today.” —Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History, from the foreword
Solzhenitsyn’s “experiment in literary investigation” stands as a towering monument in 20th-century history, offering:
- A First-Hand Gulag Memoir: Follow Solzhenitsyn’s own story, from his shocking arrest as a decorated Red Army captain to his brutal interrogation at the hands of the Soviet secret police.
- Definitive Soviet History: Based on the testimony of 227 witnesses, this work uncovers the true origins of the concentration camp system, arguing it was essential to the state not just under Stalin, but from the first days of Lenin.
- The Bureaucracy of Terror: Journey into the “almost invisible country” of the Gulag, a continent of prisons and camps woven into the fabric of Soviet society and administered by an ever-present secret police.
- An Enduring Literary Masterpiece: Discover the book hailed as the “greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever leveled in modern times,” a work that forever altered the world’s moral consciousness.
