Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Biography

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, short-story writer and historian. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his pursuit of the traditions of Russian literature. He was a Captain of artillery in World War II. Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned for eight years after he wrote a letter in which he criticized Joseph Stalin. He began his writing career after a period of enforced exile. His writings reflected his ideas about a benevolent totalitarian regime based on Russian’s time-honored values. His frank views against the contemporary repressive government policies infuriated the Soviet Press. Even though critics charged him with anti-Semitism, Solzhenitsyn’s works reveal an intelligent approach toward the revolutionary Jews. After he was denied publication in Russia, he started circulating his works privately in the form of ‘Samizdat’ literature. He was accused of treason and exiled from the Soviet Union after he published ‘The Gulag Archipelago’, a literary-historical record of the prisons and labor camps in Russia during Stalin’s rule. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he returned to Russia. His philosophy plays a major role in the film ‘Cloud Atlas’ and his reflections on Russian history and literature are documented in Alexander Sokurov’s ‘The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn’.