The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956 (Masterplots II: Nonfiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Type of Work: History/autobiography
- Time of Work: 1918-1956
- Setting: The Soviet Union
- Principal Characters: Vladimir Ilich Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikolay Krylenko, Genrikh Yagoda, NIkolay Yezhov, Lavrenty Beriya, Iosif Averbakh, Andrey Vyshinsky, Viktor Abakumov, Mikhail Ryumin, Andrey Vlasov, D. T. Terekhov, Lev Kopelev, Varlam Shalamov, Georgy Tenno
- Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography, Memoir, History
- Subjects: Communism or communists, Politics, Prisons, Socialism, Police, Human rights, Corruption, Labor, Soviet Union or Soviets, Penal colonies
- Locales: Soviet Union
Form and Content
The three bulky volumes which constitute Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s indictment of Soviet Marxism and its excesses may be characterized as part autobiography, part history, and part political interpretation. The arrangement of materials is essentially topical. The first volume deals with the formalities of arrest and incarceration, as well as historical developments; the second volume depicts varieties of forced labor and the circumstances of camp life; the final volume is concerned with problems of escape, resistance, and eventual release.
In his...
[The entire page is 3420 words long]
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