Alexander Solzhenitsyn — страница 3

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Farm) and afterwards in Ryazan. During all the years until 1961, not only was he convinced that he should never see a single line of him in print in his lifetime, but, also, he scarcely dared allow any of his close acquaintances to read anything he had written because he feared that this would become known. Finally, at the age of 42, this secret authorship began to wear him down. The most difficult thing of all to bear was that he could not get his works judged by people with literary training. In 1961, after the 22nd Congress of the U.S.S.R. Communist Party and Tvardovsky's speech at this, he decided to emerge and to offer One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Such an emergence seemed, then, to Solzhenitsyn, and not without reason, to be very risky because it might lead to the

loss of his manuscripts, and to his own destruction. But, on that occasion, things turned out successfully, and after protracted efforts, A.T. Tvardovsky was able to print his novel one year later. The printing of his work was, however, stopped almost immediately and the authorities stopped both his plays and (in 1964) the novel, The First Circle, which, in 1965, was seized together with his papers from the past years. During these months it seemed to him that he had committed an unpardonable mistake by revealing his work prematurely and that because of this he should not be able to carry it to a conclusion. After 1966, his work was not published in the Soviet Union for many years. The open conflict between communist regime and Solzhenitsyn erupted with his Letter to the Fourth

National Congress of Soviet Writers (May 1967), in which he demanded the abolition of censorship, the rehabilitation of many writers victimized during the repression, and the restoration of his archives, confiscated by the KGB in 1965. After the publication abroad of The First Circle (1968) and The Cancer Ward (1968-69) abroad and winning the Nobel Prize (1970, "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature") the confrontation increased. Further public statements by Solzhenitsyn (A Lenten Letter to Pimen, Patriarch of all Russia, Letter to the Soviet Leaders, etc.) as well as the publication of the first variant of August 1914 (1971) and the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago (1973), led the Soviet authorities

to exile him to Germany (February 1974). Having settled first in Switzerland, Solzhenitsyn, his wife Natalia Dmitrievna, three sons: Ermolai, Ignat and Stepan, in 1976 moved to the United States. They lived in Cavendish, Vermont. While in the West, Solzhenitsyn completed The Oak and the Calf (1975) and Three Plays (1981). In 1982 an enlarged version of August 1914 was published as the first in a series of novels about the Russian Revolution to be called collectively The Red Wheel.  Excerpts from this work had been published in 1975 as Lenin in Zurich. There were many public addresses and speeches also: A World Split Apart, Misconceptions About Russia Are a Threat to America, etc. The intellectual and moral influence of Solzhenitsyn played an important role in the

fall of communist power in East Europe and Russia. In 1989 Gulag Archipelago was published as a serial in the literary magazine Novy Mir.  In 1990 Solzhenitsyn was again admitted the Soviet citizenship. Then he published How to Reconstruct Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals.  He came back to Russia in May 1994. Among his new works was Russian Question at the End of XX Century, Russia in the Abuss and other publicist writing, short stories. Now the magazine Novy Mir has began to publish his Sketches on Exile (a sequel of The Oak and the Calf). There is a new his historical book now: 200 Years Together. After return he tried to influence the modern Russian politics and met President Yeltsin (1994) and President Putin (2000). 2. Master’s

works. Literature, however, was not Solzhenitsyn's first profession. He graduated from Rostov University (and with honors) and in the 50s taught mathematics, physics and astronomy. Perhaps, this explains the logic always present in his literary work. The idea of every short story or epic novel is always crystal clear. The author's stand is never ambiguous. The celebrated One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which made the writer famous overnight, is a wild protest against Stalin's concentration camps and, in a broader sense, against suppression of any personality. But this protest is expressed in amazing artistic form, where every word is richly colored. One Day and Matriona's Home have been read by millions of people in this country, while the large-scale novels In Circle