Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The extraordinary "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is one of the most significant and outspoken literary documents ever to come out of Soviet Russia. A brutal depiction of life in a Stalinist camp and a moving tribute to man's triumph of will over relentless dehumanization, this is Alexander Sotzhenitsyn's first novel to win international acclaim. The Soviet Union eventually revoked the author's citizenship and had him deported, and he only returned recently after the collapse of the U.S.S.R.

After years of living in exile, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia in 1994 and published a series of eight powerfully paired stories. These groundbreaking stories— interconnected and juxtaposed using an experimental method Solzhenitsyn referred to as “binary”—join Solzhenitsyn’s already available work as some of the most powerful literature of the twentieth century. With Soviet and post-Soviet life as their focus, they weave and shift inside their shared setting, illuminating the Russian experience under the Soviet regime. In “The Upcoming Generation,” a professor promotes a dull but proletarian student purely out of good will. Years later, the same professor finds himself arrested and, in a striking twist of fate, his student becomes his interrogator. In “Nastenka,” two young women with the same name lead routine, ordered lives—until the Revolution exacts radical change on them both. The most eloquent and acclaimed opponent of government oppression, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, and his work continues to receive international acclaim. Available for the first time in English, Apricot Jam: And Other Stories is a striking example of Solzhenitsyn’s singular style and only further solidifies his place as a true literary giant.

Clássico da literatura russa, obra do autor prêmio Nobel Aleksandr Soljenítsyn ganha nova tradução no Brasil, depois de décadas fora de catálogo. Marco da literatura de testemunho, Arquipélago Gulag denunciou os terrores do stalinismo nos campos de trabalhos forçados da antiga União Soviética mesclando relatos e reconstrução histórica à experiência do próprio autor, que passou oito anos como detento. Arquipélago Gulag – Um experimento de investigação artística (1918-1956), obra-prima do russo Aleksandr Soljenítsyn (1918-2008), prêmio Nobel de Literatura, foi escrita clandestinamente entre 1958 e 1967. Para contar a história, construída a partir do testemunho de 227 sobreviventes dos campos do Gulag, na União Soviética, Soljenítsyn precisou montar uma verdadeira operação secreta. Passou duas temporadas em um sítio na Estônia, longe da vigilância soviética, onde escreveu a maior parte do texto. Com o manuscrito pronto, aquartelou-se em uma casa de campo próxima a Moscou, onde revisou, datilografou e microfilmou cada página em 1968. Uma cópia foi entregue a uma amiga francesa, que naquele mesmo ano contrabandeou o livro para fora da cortina de ferro. A primeira edição de Arquipélago Gulag foi lançada em Paris no final de 1973, mesmo ano em que o manuscrito foi descoberto pela KGB. Poucas semanas depois do lançamento, o autor foi preso, acusado de "alta traição", teve a cidadania soviética retirada e foi obrigado a deixar a URSS. Isso não impediu para o livro fosse traduzido para dezenas de línguas, recebesse críticas positivas e vendesse milhões de cópias. Esta edição da obra foi traduzida diretamente do russo a partir da última versão do livro — condensada, apesar de ter perto de 700 páginas. Esse trabalho foi realizado por Natália Soljenítsyn, a pedido do próprio autor, com o intuito de atrair novos leitores, já no final da vida. Os três volumes originais foram reduzidos a um só, preservando a estrutura de capítulos da obra original. A capa foi desenhada por Mateus Valadares.

'One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world' Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn In the first month of the First World War the Russian campaign against the Germans creaks into gear. Crippled by weak, indecisive leadership the Russian troops battle desperately, even as the inevitability of failure and their own sacrifice dawns. Solzhenitsyn's astounding work of historical fiction is a portrait of pre-revolutionary Russia, a tragic war story, and an epic novel in the great Russian tradition.

One of the great allegorical masterpieces of world literature, Cancer Ward is both a deeply compassionate study of people facing terminal illness and a brilliant dissection of the “cancerous” Soviet police state.

Ein Tag im Leben des Iwan Denissowitsch von Alexander Solschenizyn zählte zu den größten literarischen Ereignissen der Tauwetter-Periode in den UdSSR. Erstmals wagte ein sowjetischer Autor das Tabuthema des stalinistischen Lagersystems unverblümt darzustellen. Inhalt: Im Mittelpunkt der Handlung steht der Häftling Nr. S 854 – Iwan Denissowitsch Schuchow, ein Zimmermann, der nach einer absurden Anklage wegen Hochverrats zu zehn Jahren Lager verurteilt wurde, von denen er acht bereits abgesessen hat. Das Geschehen beschränkt sich auf einen einzigen Tag im Januar 1951, dessen monotoner Verlauf stellvertretend für die 3653 Tage steht, die Schuchow insgesamt abzusitzen hat. Der Tagesablauf ist von der Lagerverwaltung streng vorgegeben: Wecken, Essen fassen, morgendlicher Zählappell, Filzen auf verbotene Gegenstände, harte körperliche Arbeit in der »Brigade Nr. 105«, die auf die Baustelle eines Kraftwerks abkommandiert ist, Mittagessen, wieder Arbeit, usw. Diesen Ablauf kennt Schuchow mittlerweile in- und auswendig; er hinterfragt weder die Rituale der Lagerbürokratie noch die Willkür der Bewacher. Schuchow lebt ausschließlich in der Gegenwart, sein Handeln und Denken ist darauf abgestellt, listig und klug sein Überleben zu sichern und innerhalb der Tagesroutine kleine Vorteile für sich herauszuschlagen: etwa für einen Tag ins Krankenrevier eingewiesen zu werden, wo man sich einmal richtig ausruhen kann, oder ein Paar echte Lederstiefel zugeteilt zu bekommen. Insbesondere das Essen besitzt für den ständig hungrigen Häftling eine geradezu obsessive Bedeutung. Über die Welt außerhalb des Lagers erfährt Schuchow so gut wie nichts, und das Wenige, was er in den ein, zwei Briefen erfährt, die ihm seine Frau pro Jahr schreibt, interessiert ihn nicht mehr. Nur indem Schuchow seine sinnlose, entmenschlichte Existenz als Normalzustand akzeptiert, kann er die Kraft zum Überleben finden. Am deutlichsten wird dies in seiner Einstellung zur Arbeit. Die Mitglieder der Brigade kontrollieren sich gegenseitig, da bei schlechter Leistung eines Einzelnen alle bestraft werden, doch nicht nur deshalb packt Schuchow fleißig an. Er ist in positivem Sinne naiv, ein arbeitsamer, bodenständiger Mensch, der es nicht ertragen kann, Dinge halb oder schlecht zu erledigen. Indem er sich mit der Wand, die er mauert, als seinem Werk identifiziert, verleiht er der Zwangsarbeit und seiner ausweglosen Lage einen Sinn, den sie objektiv gesehen nicht haben.(Amazon.de)

In the madness of World War II, a dutiful Russian soldier is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp. So begins the masterpiece of modern Russian fiction, the harrowing account of a man who has conceded to all things evil with dignity and strength. First published in 1962, it is considered one of the most significant works ever to emerge from Soviet Russia. Illuminating a dark chapter in Russian history, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is at once a graphic picture of work camp life and a moving tribute to man's will to prevail over relentless dehumanization, told by "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy [and] Gorky" (Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times).

English, Russian (translation)

Notice: "In the First Circle" and "The First Circle": "In The First Circle" is 200pp longer; "The first circle" is a censored and abridged version. The thrilling cold war masterwork by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, published in full for the first time Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949.The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state—or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps . . . and almost certain death. First written between 1955 and 1958, In the First Circle is Solzhenitsyn's fiction masterpiece. In order to pass through Soviet censors, many essential scenes—including nine full chapters—were cut or altered before it was published in a hastily translated English edition in 1968. Now with the help of the author's most trusted translator, Harry T. Willetts, here for the first time is the complete, definitive English edition of Solzhenitsyn's powerful and magnificent classic.

"Kreftavdelingen" er en spesialavdeling på et provinssykehus i Sovjetunionen. Avdelingen og pasientene gir oss et tverrsyn av dagens russiske samfunn. Hovedpersonen, Oleg Kostoglotov, er forfatterens talerør, og hans levnetsløp speiler forfatterens: Solzjenitsyn var selv pasient ved et kreftsykehus i midten av 1950-årene, like etter at han var sluppet ut av slaveleir. Kostoglotov fikk sin første tvil om Sovjetunionens politikk ved vinterkrigen mot Finland. En annen pasient er den lille partifunksjonæren Rusanov, som har gjort stor suksess ved å føre kartotek over sine medmennesker. Nå under tøværet kan det bli nokså hett for ham. Det slår gnister av lidenskapelige politiske opprør blandt pasientene. Det er også en dyptpløyende menneskeskildring, en beretning om menneskers reaksjoner, på bakgrunn av en alvorlig sykdom. Dette er den første.

Après la publication, en 1962, de son roman, Une journée d’Ivan Denissovitch, où il dépeignait la vie d’un prisonnier du Goulag, Alexandre Soljénitsyne reçut, venus de toute la Russie, des centaines de lettres de témoignages sur les camps soviétiques. À partir de ce matériau, il composa l’Archipel du Goulag qui, lors de sa parution en Occident en 1974, suscita une prise de conscience des réalités du régime soviétique. Devenu un best-seller international, l’ouvrage fut tiré à des millions d’exemplaires avant d’être publié dans le pays de l’auteur. Publié en trois volumes aux éditions Fayard (1991-2013), l’ouvrage fait ici l’objet d’une version abrégée inédite, conformément à la version russe établie en 2010 par Natalia Soljénitsyne. Traduit du russe Édition abrégée inédite Préface de Natalia Soljénitsyne

Après la publication, en 1962, de son roman, Une journée d’Ivan Denissovitch, où il dépeignait la vie d’un prisonnier du Goulag, Alexandre Soljénitsyne reçut, venus de toute la Russie, des centaines de lettres de témoignages sur les camps soviétiques. À partir de ce matériau, il composa l’Archipel du Goulag qui, lors de sa parution en Occident en 1974, suscita une prise de conscience des réalités du régime soviétique. Devenu un best-seller international, l’ouvrage fut tiré à des millions d’exemplaires avant d’être publié dans le pays de l’auteur. Publié en trois volumes aux éditions Fayard (1991-2013), l’ouvrage fait ici l’objet d’une version abrégée inédite, conformément à la version russe établie en 2010 par Natalia Soljénitsyne. Traduit du russe Édition abrégée inédite Préface de Natalia Soljénitsyne

"Things have almost reached rock bottom. A universal spiritual death has already touched us all, and physical death will soon flare up and consume us both and our children—but as before we still smile in a cowardly way and mumble without tounges tied. But what can we do to stop it? We haven't the strength?" Read the whole essay: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/SolhenitsynLies.php

A new edition of the Russian Nobelist's collection of novellas, short stories, and prose poems Stories and Prose Poems collects twenty-two works of wide-ranging style and character from the Nobel Prize-winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose shorter pieces showcase the extraordinary mastery of language that places him among the greatest Russian prose writers of the twentieth century.When the two superb stories Matryona's House and An Incident at Krechetovka Station were first published in Russia in 1963, the Moscow Literary Gazette, the mouthpiece of the Soviet literary establishment, wrote: His talent is so individual and so striking that from now on nothing that comes from his pen can fail to excite the liveliest interest. The novella For the Good of the Cause and the short story Zakhar-the-Pouch in particular--both published in the Soviet Union before Solzhenitsyn's exile--fearlessly address the deadening stranglehold of Soviet bureaucracy and the scandalous neglect of Russia's cultural heritage. But readers who best know Solzhenitsyn through his novels will be delighted to discover the astonishing group of sixteen prose poems. In these works of varying lengths--some as short as an aphorism--Solzhenitsyn distills the joy and bitterness of Russia's fate into language of unrivaled lyrical purity.

Costruito in uno spazio temporale ristretto, i tre giorni del Natale del 1949, e in un luogo chiuso, la šaraška di Marfino, una prigione alle porte di Mosca dove ingegneri, matematici, scienziati di ogni tipo detenuti per crimini politici, lavorano alla costruzione di apparecchiature destinate a rendere lo Stato sovietico sempre più potente, il romanzo di Aleksander Solzenicyn Nel primo cerchio potrebbe apparire claustrofobico. Ma le vite e i ricordi dei tanti prigionieri subito allargano l’orizzonte e il respiro da quelle stanze anguste a tutta la città e all’immenso paese, regalandoci uno degli affreschi più appassionanti della letteratura, non solo russa. Tra dialoghi dotti, discussioni politiche e taglienti ironie quella che ne viene fuori è una superba e indimenticabile composizione di caratteri, luci, colori. La vita di una nazione. Paragonato da Heinrich Böll a una cattedrale, il romanzo della cattedrale ha la struttura e, come dice nella postfazione Anna Zafesova, “possiede il respiro della navata – il panorama multidimensionale della Russia staliniana, dalle campagne desolate ai salotti della borghesia rossa, e dalle segrete del gulag ai teatri moscoviti – e la vertiginosa guglia dei capitoli su Stalin, ma anche la moltitudine di angoli reconditi, cappelle, affreschi, statue che emergono dall'oscurità, composti da singole storie, scene, personaggi, in un quadro corale che ricorda nella ricchezza e terribile nitidezza un gigantesco Giudizio Universale a tutta parete”. Concepito nel 1945-1953, scritto nel 1955-’58, modificato nel 1964, ricostruito dall’autore nel 1968, il portentoso romanzo arriva finalmente al lettore nella sua versione integrale, a mezzo secolo di distanza dalla prima traduzione italiana.

The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.

Notice: "In the First Circle" and "The First Circle": "In The First Circle" is 200pp longer; "The first circle" is a censored and abridged version. Set in Moscow during a three-day period in December 1949, 'The First Circle' is the story of the prisoner Gleb Nerzhin, a brilliant mathematician. At the age of thirty-one, Nerzhin has survived the war years on the German front and the postwar years in a succession of Russian prisons and labor camps. His story is interwoven with the stories of a dozen fellow prisoners - each an unforgettable human being - from the prison janitor to the tormented Marxist intellectual who designed the Dnieper dam; of the reigning elite and their conflicted subordinates; and of the women, wretched or privileged, bound to these men. A landmark of Soviet literature, 'The First Circle' is as powerful today as it was when it was first published, nearly thirty years ago.

Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society

Drawing on his own incarceration and exile, as well as on evidence from more than 200 fellow prisoners and Soviet archives, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn reveals the entire apparatus of Soviet repression—the state within the state that ruled all-powerfully. Through truly Shakespearean portraits of its victims—men, women, and children—we encounter secret police operations, labor camps and prisons; the uprooting or extermination of whole populations, the welcome that awaited Russian soldiers who had been German prisoners of war. Yet we also witness the astounding moral courage of the incorruptible, who, defenseless, endured great brutality and degradation. The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956—a grisly indictment of a regime, fashioned here into a veritable literary miracle—has now been updated with a new introduction that includes the fall of the Soviet Union and Solzhenitsyn's move back to Russia.

It is a question if any work of literature in our era other than The Divine Comedy is commensurate with The Gulag Archipelago in structure, scale, multiplicity of incident and characters, emotional range, variety of inflection and, above all, in the staggering magnitude of its underlying concept. In this masterpiece, the author of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The First Circle has orchestrated thousands of incidents and individual histories into one narrative of unflagging power and momentum. Written in a tone that encompasses Olympian wrath, bitter calm, savage irony and sheer comedy, it combines history, autobiography, documentary and political analysis as it examines in its totality the Soviet apparatus of repression from its inception following the October revolution of 1917. The "Archipelago" of Mr. Solzhenitsyn's work is the network of secret police installations, camps, prisons, transit centers, communications facilities, transportation systems and espionage organizations which, in his view, honeycombs the length and breadth of the Soviet Union. Drawing on his own experience, material from Soviet archives, cases collected during his eleven years of labor camps and exile, and the evidence of more that 200 fellow prisoners, Mr. Solzhenitsyn concludes that the secret police are the vital element of the Soviet regime, and have been ever since its founding by Lenin. Numerous studies of the Soviet system of control have been published in the West but until now nothing so complete, so carefully documented and assembled, and never before has a literary giant devoted his gifts of narrative and characterization to the enterprise. Solzhenitsyn has here created and peopled with brilliantly portrayed human beings a vast, overarching fresco of that state within a state which is the Gulag Archipelago. (Taken from the inside jacket material of the Harper & Row First Edition of 1973)

"BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY" --Time Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police 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

"Una giornata di Ivan Denisovič" si risolve in una delle più schiette opere socialiste che la letteratura sovietica ci abbia consegnato, e la critica, implicita e chiara, della stratificazione sociale del "campo", della divisione regolamentata del lavoro, della strapotenza della gerarchia burocratica ha un senso di verdetto su un'intera epoca (Vittorio Strada).

In "An Incident at Krechetovka Station," a Red Army lieutenant is confronted by a disturbing straggler soldier and must decide what to do with him. "Matryona's House" is the tale of an old peasant woman, whose tenacious struggle against cold, hunger, and greedy relatives is described by a young man who only understands her after her death.

Повесть "Раковый корпус" была задумана Солженицыным летом 1954 года в Ташкенте, где после ссылки он лечился в онкологическом диспансере. Воспоминания об этом легли в основу повести. Ее герои — пациенты "ракового корпуса". Среди них люди всех социальных слоев, возрастов со всех концов необъятной страны. В их судьбах отразилось то состояние советского общества, когда, пораженное беззаконием власти, как страшной болезнью, оно получило надежду на исцеление. Позиция автора в произведении резко расходилась с официальной идеологией, поэтому опубликовать его писатель смог только за рубежом. На родине повесть была впервые издана в 1990 году.