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 | | The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn ISBN-10: 9780060007768 ISBN-10: 0-06-000776-1 ISBN-13: 9780060007768 ISBN-13: 978-0-06-000776-8 Paperback 2002-02-01 Harper Perennial Modern Classics Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description 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. | ||
Reviews | ||
Encyclopedic in Scope. Please Click on Links Below to My Unabridged-Version Reviews Instead of repeating other reviewers, let's consider some details related to comparison of Nazi and Communist camps, Russian history, Soviet geopolitics, etc. Please read my detailed, annotated reviews of the three original, unabridged, sets of volumes. Click on: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 I-II Gulag Archipelago, Two : III-IV The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Parts V-VII Enjoy! | ||
A soul-shaking earthquake of a book... What can be added to what has already been celebrated about this book? I'm only embarrassed to have read the abridged version, somewhat mockingly--even if authorized by Solzhenitsyn--referred to by the author as offered to those too busy in our modern world to read the entire text. Nonetheless, this abridged *Gulag Archipelago* is as powerful a document of human evil and the capacity...if we dare...of the human capacity to transcend that evil as has ever been written. Part horror story, part Russian history, part holy book, *The Gulag Archipelago* is virtually an alternate Bible penned by a man who has the moral authority of an Old Testament prophet. With savage satire and a well-earned bitterness that makes absolutely no attempt to conceal his unmitigated contempt and outrage, Solzhenitsyn vents the long-repressed, apocalyptic anger of a man whose witnessed--and suffered--first-hand the worst indignities that man can inflict upon fellow men. *The Gulag Archipelago* isn't only about Stalinist totalitarianism, it's about totalitarianism as it exists everywhere--even within our own hearts. Solzhenitsyn appeals to his readers to examine--honestly and uncompromisingly--their conscience to see the wrongs we've committed and the wrongs we've been complicit by turning the other way. Evil is not "out there" in some other government, some other people, or person--it's a potential within all of us, all the time, as is the good we might access instead to stand up to it. *The Gulag Archipelago* was a dangerous book when it was written and it's still a dangerous book today--dangerous because of its universality, its individuality, its radical apolitical morality. It's a book that should be required reading in every school--but never will be--because it teaches us to beware, not of this or that political regime, but of *all* political regimes, of all power, of all concentrated authority, of all complacency in the face of injustice and the oppression so often committed in the name of the "common good." If you don't have time to read the unabridged text, this shortened--not quite 500 pages--version will be more than enough to convince you that someday you should, that *The Gulag Archipelago* is, indeed, one of the greatest, noblest, most important calls to conscience ever written. | ||
The single greatest literary work of the twentieth century. The title of this review is truly the way I feel about this book. The first volume relates stories of arrest and interrogation, the second volume tells of life in the camps, and the third talks of life in internal exile. The second volume, in particular, is at times haunting and at others uplifting in ways that are absolutely beyond description. The story of the woman who was set aside to starve to death simply because she "wasn't worth her bread ration" is one of the many that will stay with you forever. The book was absolutely earth-shattering when it was published as the Soviet Union was still at the height of its power, but in bringing forth reports of Stalin's brutality it creates universal, timeless themes. Anyone who wishes to understand the human experience and to truly examine one's own soul must read this book. In this book Solzhenitsyn describes the intelligentsia as those who are preoccupied with the spiritual side of life. Reading this book will focus you on the spiritual in ways you could never imagine. A beautiful, stunning work. Monumental. | ||
A STYLISTIC ACHIEVEMENT ALSO The original three volumes of this book changed my life, my world, my soul. There is little I can add to what others have already said except for one thing. This bitter humor, the voice of incredulity, the moments when Stalin's mask slips (for instance a scientific article are about the discovery of a frozen mammoth in the Siberian tundra and the casual reference to how it tasted - only Gulag prisoners would eat a 10,000 year old mammoth). Overall let me put it this way. This is the greatest exercise in SUSTAINED IRONIC TONE in the history of literature. The derisive, incredulous, witnessing voice never stops digging for the Truth. | ||
The nail in the coffin of the Soviet State "A stone is not a human being, and even stones get crushed." This was an absolutely brutal, yet enlightening read. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a young, decorated Red Army officer who served bravely during the war, only to be arrested, tortured, and sent to the Gulag Archipelago (the forced labor camp system) to do a ten year sentence, followed by permanent internal exile. This book is a combination of his own personal experiences, and a general history of the gulag system which he has gathered from research as well as other personal stories sent to him by other inmates. For privately criticizing Stalin, the author was clearly guilty of being a dangerous "enemy of the people" worthy of torture and death,(Solzhenitsyn writes with a brilliant sense of sarcasm) but the fact is, many were arrested quite arbitrarily, many simply because of a need to fill quotas. I'm reminded of a quote by Stalins right hand man Molotov, when speaking about the randomness of arrests, years after the war: "a man could have been a right-winger, and not realized he was a right-winger. We had to be sure." Or something to that effect. These enemies of the people would feed the "sewage disposal system" of the Soviet state. In his sarcastic, metaphorical writing style, the author describes all the horrors of the system, beginning with arrest and torture, *ahem* interrogation, and all through the stages of the camp system where death and cruelty became the only certainties. Ruthlessness, Solzhenitsyn writes, was the measure of a Bolsheviks worth. The more single-mindedly cruel he was, determined his dedication to the state. Any form of kindness toward the accused was seen as a sign of weakness and lack of zeal. Most disturbing was his descriptions of the torture, he claims that there were 52 different methods at the interrogators disposal, to ensure they don't become bored of course! 14 hour work days in subzero temperatures with inadequate clothing and pitiful food rations were also the norm. People were often beaten, terrorized and shot out of hand for the smallest infractions, or occasionally for the mere amusement of the guards. Such is life in the Archipelago! Although some have accused Solzhenitsyn of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, i.e. condemning communism as a whole because of Stalinism, he is absolutely right when he claims that the brutality and terror were started under Lenin and Trotsky. While one can split hairs and argue that things might have turned out differently without Stalin, I see no reason to believe that things would have been THAT different. He also makes a consistent point of comparing the Soviet state to that of the Tsars, claiming that whatever their faults, life in Imperial Russia was never even close to this harsh. I specifically appreciated how he pointed out how easy the Bolshevik revolutionaries had it when they were arrested under the Tsar. Two, maybe three years in lenient exile for trying to overthrow the state! Yet under the Soviets, you would get 10, maybe 25 years of hard labor for practically nothing, which you would probably not survive anyway. All in all, this is a disturbing but brilliant and essential read for understanding the Soviet state. 5 stars. | ||