One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Product Details

An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps. 4 cassettes.





Solzhenitsyn's first book, this economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's life in a labor camp in Siberia, is a modern classic of Russian literature and quickly cemented Solzhenitsyn's international reputation upon publication in 1962. It is painfully apparent that Solzhenitsyn himself spent time in the gulags--he was imprisoned for nearly a decade as punishment for making derogatory statements about Stalin in a letter to a friend.

Customer Reviews ::

A Voice for the Countless - Eric Wilson - Nashville, TN United States
"One Day in the Life..." is stark, humane, and ceaselessly hopeful.

Solzhenitsyn spend years in labor camps and exile, and he filters those experiences into this tale of one prisoner going through a day in the freezing wastelands of Siberia. Ivan has a ten-year sentence, and has learned to work the system of guards, gangs, and mess hall. He hates the cold, but he knows ways to fight it and finagle better tools, smokes, and food. He, like the others, is a survivor who thinks mostly of himself; on the other hand, he is willing to share with his favorite Estonians.

Throughout, Solzhenitsyn gives glimpses into the various regions of the former Soviet Union, into the politics and even religious thoughts, and let's us see these things through colorful yet simple language that befits his protagonist. Ivan is anything but self-pitying. He is a voice for the countless prisoners of that day ang age. It's hard to fathom, in our culture, the impact this story had on the international community in the midst of Communism in Russia. Many then were unaware of the abuses under that system. Solzhenitsyn brought into the light the many cruelties suffered under Stalin's rule. I traversed Russia on the Trans-Siberian Express in the late 1980s, and it is sad to think of the many censored artists, writers, poets, and preachers who died in the country's harsh eastern landscape.

The final paragraphs of this book don't rely on heightened drama but on the weighty realism of Ivan's ongoing incarceration. Despite this reality, Ivan is focused on the next day alone, thankful, full of hope, looking for the good in the midst of trouble. It's this attitude that makes "One Day in the Life..." a classic to be shared for generations to come.