Books - The Gulag Archipelago

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	Books - The Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag Archipelago, probably the most powerful and influential account of the Soviet prison system, is a three volume series written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn based on extensive research, as well as his own experiences as a prisoner in a GULAG labor camp. It was published in 1973.

"GULAG" is an acronym for the administration of the Soviet prison labor camp system. The word archipelago compares the system of labor camps spread across the Soviet Union with a vast "chain of islands"; known only to those who were fated to visit it. It also produces a rhyming title in Russian (arkhipelág gulág) that is not reproduced in English translation.

Solzhenitsyn originally wrote the book in secret after his own term as a political prisoner, but he had it published abroad in 1973 after the KGB confiscated a copy of the manuscript.

The detail of the book, which presented information on the putative crimes and criminals, their phony trials, the transportation and treatment of prisoners, which put the USSR in a negative light, chronicles a long history of oppression dating back to Lenin's absorption of the Tsarist penal system.

The book is a compilation of not only Solzhenitsyn's personal experiences in the Gulag, but also the experiences of 227 fellow prisoners. These prisoners were either ones that Solzhenitsyn knew personally or whose story he heard from others. One chapter of the third volume of the book is written by a fellow prisoner named Georgi Tenno, whose exploits enraptured Solzhenitsyn to the extent that he offered Tenno a position as co-author of the book, although Tenno declined.

Interestingly enough, Solzhenitsyn did not think this series would be his defining work, even though it is, by far, his most popular work (with the possible exception of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
).

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