Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn is a Nobel laureate, a great Russian writer and public figure. His name is associated with the patriarchy of world classical literature, he is characterized by ruthlessness and categorical judgments about everything that happened in the country during his lifetime. Solzhenitsyn was able to speak in accessible and patriotic words on behalf of millions, promoted national ideas, advocated justice and goodness.
Solzhenitsyn: history of origin
“What is high among people is disgusting before God!” - to object to the elder of Russian literature is impossible in our days. Suffered life path of Alexander Isaevich is a direct confirmation of his awareness of the simple truths of human existence. A journalist was born in 1918 in the North Caucasus, in a family of immigrants from Kuban peasants. Solzhenitsyn's parents were intelligent people, trained in literacy and basic sciences. Alexander Isaevich’s father died at the front during the First World War, without having seen his descendant. The writer’s mother, Taisiya Zakharovna, who got a job as a typist after her husband’s death, had to move with little Sasha to Rostov-on-Don. Here the childhood of the great writer passed.
The love of literature comes from childhood
It would seem that the future of Alexander Isaevich was a foregone conclusion from school. Of course, teachers who admired the child’s incredible abilities could not have imagined that Solzhenitsyn would receive the Nobel Prize for “the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature” - this is the official name of the nomination. Nevertheless, the boy’s penchant for writing contrastingly distinguished him from a number of students in his school years.
Having successfully completed his studies at the Physics and Mathematics University at Rostov University, the great writer in the future was hired by a school teacher. The playwright’s life flowed in a measured manner: combining work and continuing to study in absentia (Faculty of Philosophy in Moscow), he devoted his free time to creating stories, essays and poems. Changes occurred in his personal life: Alexander Isaevich married a student Natalya Reshetovskaya, who was fond of literature and music. In the fall of 1941, the writer was called up for service. After a couple of years of training at a military school, Solzhenitsyn got to the front, where he still managed to cut free minutes for literary work.
The beginning of the struggle with the political regime
Solzhenitsyn’s receipt of the Nobel Prize is not so much a consequence of the talent of the playwright or his ability to correctly line up, but the result of a persistent and stubborn struggle for anti-Soviet agitation. Alexander Isaevich did not succeed in publishing the first opuses in wartime: in 1945, Solzhenitsyn, being the captain, was arrested for correspondence with a friend containing criticism of Comrade Stalin.
The author’s attempt to undermine dictatorial authority cost him eight years in prison camps. Man of amazing will and desire: being in prison, he did not abandon the idea of ​​telling the whole world about the passions of the Stalinist regime.
The creative rise of Solzhenitsyn: the period from 1957 to 1964
Only in 1957 was a political prisoner rehabilitated. Solzhenitsyn probably didn’t think about the Nobel Prize at that time, but he was not going to keep silent about the repressions of past years. The period of the Khrushchev thaw became one of the most favorable for the writer's work. The then leadership of the USSR not only did not prevent the exposure of the criminal policy of the predecessor, but also allowed the publication of the novel "One Day by Ivan Denisovich." The work, written easy accessible to the general public, produced a real explosion: it dealt with one day of a camp prisoner. The story began to be published in Europe, all critics praised the work, which allowed him not to stop and send regular stories for publication.
The ban on the works of Solzhenitsyn in the USSR
The change of the leading state leadership of the mid-70s again played into the hands of Solzhenitsyn. Before the Nobel Prize, writers tried to nominate for the national award - the Lenin Prize. However, his candidacy was excluded by secret ballot.
By the way, this could not affect the writer’s popularity at all: Solzhenitsyn read the entire class of the Soviet intelligentsia. It was impossible to buy novels in a bookshop, but the works literally went around, leaving each reader with no more than three days. Some stories were published without covers, as a brochure - it was convenient and made it easy to hide the essays of the forbidden playwright if necessary.
Political repression against the writer
In 1965, power began to radically intervene in the writer's work. Confiscation of manuscripts, literary writers' archives, a ban on reading evenings with the playwright and the publication of a new novel, The Cancer Corps, which supposedly “distorted reality” and was recognized as anti-Soviet and, finally, expelled from the USSR Writers Union — such measures hindered literary work, but could not stop the foreign edition of the novels. Everything that was not printed at home, went into circulation abroad. True, the author himself did not give his consent to such a step, realizing the scale of responsibility.
Getting the Nobel Prize: Awarding without a Laureate
When Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize, Soviet television tried to hide from the public the news about the award of the "bourgeois" award to his citizen. The courage of the author of works in which the truth of life has gone beyond the framework of "socialist realism" deserves true respect. In fact, courage and stability in upholding nationwide justice - this is exactly what Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize for.
But, instead of the solemn award ceremony in Stockholm, to which Alexander Isaevich was invited, the event was celebrated in a close circle of people closest to him, broadcasting from Sweden was listened to by radio at the dacha of the friend and composer Mstislav Rostropovich. It is worth noting one interesting point regarding the Nobel Prize for Solzhenitsyn’s works: the writer became a record holder of his kind, after all, only 8 years have passed from the date of the first story to be awarded - in the history of the award this is the fastest gaining world recognition.
Fearing that in the event of a trip abroad the authorities would refuse him return entry, he stayed at home. The direct presentation of the Nobel Prize to Solzhenitsyn took place only in 1974, four years after the award ceremony.
Writer's difficulties after the Nobel Prize
Immediately after the playwright was announced by the laureate of a prestigious world award, the previously launched campaign against him began to rapidly gain momentum. Over the next couple of years, all publications of the author were destroyed at home, and the Paris publication of the Gulag Archipelago only angered the representatives of the communist elite.
The author’s widow, Natalya Dmitrievna, is convinced that Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Prize in Literature saved her from exile and imprisonment. The award saved the writer not only freedom and life, but also made it possible to create contrary to Soviet censorship. When Alexander Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize, the negative rulers of the Soviet Union now had no doubts: the further residence of the “agitator” and “propagandist of anti-Soviet ideas” in the country would only strengthen his position.
Expulsion in exchange for the truth: 16 years in exile
Soon, Andropov, the then chairman of the KGB, and the prosecutor general, Rudenko, prepared a project to expel the writer from the country. The final decision of the authorities was not long in coming: In 1974, Solzhenitsyn was deprived of his citizenship and deported to the Federal Republic of Germany by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “for the systematic commission of acts incompatible with belonging to USSR citizenship and damaging the USSR”.
By a presidential decree of 1990, citizenship of the playwright and his family was returned. In addition, in the autumn of that year, the whole country again remembered Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Prize. Published in Komsomolskaya Pravda, his programmatic article on the capitalist arrangement of Russia was well received by the public. A few months later, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the State Prize for the Gulag Archipelago, published in France in 1973. Soon, all the works published outside of Russia were published in the writer's homeland, and in the mid-90s he returned home with his wife and sons, immediately actively participating in social activities.
Solzhenitsyn's return to public activity in the 90s
The Nobel Prize winner, Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, became for Russian circles the personification of democratic power, a supporter of the construction of a new, anti-communist state. Surprisingly, the writer received a variety of proposals, right up to running for the presidency.
Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn’s public appearances demonstrated the lack of demand for his past ideas in society. Being a living representative of a different era, a classic of national literature and at the same time a denouncer of the inhuman Stalinist regime, Alexander Isaevich put forward ideas that irrevocably moved away from the realities of modernity, remaining a tragic page in Russian history in the past.
Criticism of the latest work of the Nobel laureate
A vivid example of the discrepancy between Solzhenitsyn’s creativity and the present, according to critics, was the book “Two hundred years together. The work was published in 2001. But the result of ten years of painstaking work by the author simply shocked the representatives of the scientific and historical sphere. The writer’s conception itself was numb — the history of the Jewish people in Russia. The work caused a flurry of bewilderment and criticism from critics - why did Solzhenitsyn again raise the already problematic topic of relations between the two peoples?
Opinions were divided on Solzhenitsyn’s work, and therefore some considered the work a masterpiece, a real manifesto of the Russian national idea, while others gave mixed ratings to the author’s work, saying that the writer almost praises the Jews, but it would be different to write about them harder. Someone even considered a work from a series of openly anti-Semitic short stories. Solzhenitsyn himself repeatedly emphasized the maximum objectivity and impartiality of the topic covered.
To summarize: the importance of Solzhenitsyn's work in world literature
It is too early to judge the author’s creative approach, to look for the positive and negative sides of his book - the publication is not complete. But, apparently, the relevance of the theme of this work will cause more than one wave of discussions and discussions.
For Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize did not become the merit of his whole life. The writer took a worthy place in the history of Russian and world literature, promoting to the masses thoughts about the true state of affairs in the country, doing journalism and public work. Most of the author’s works were issued in millions of copies both in Russia and abroad. “The Gulag Archipelago”, “In the First Circle”, “The Cancer Corps” and many other works became the embodiment of the playwright’s worldview, which accounted for many difficult life tests.
Remember not to forget!
The great writer passed away in August 2008. The cause of death of 89-year-old Solzhenitsyn was acute heart failure. On the day of farewell to the playwright, D. Medvedev issued a decree implying the perpetuation of the memory of a public figure and writer. In accordance with the presidential decision, the best scholarships of Solzhenitsyn were established for the best students of Russian universities, one of the capital's streets is now named after Alexander Isaevich, and monuments were erected in Rostov-on-Don and Kislovodsk, and memorial plaques were opened.
Today, some of Solzhenitsyn's works are included in the mandatory minimum of the general education program in Russian literature. Schoolchildren read the novel “One Day by Ivan Denisovich”, the story “Matrenin Dvor”, the writer’s biography are studied in history lessons, and since 2009 the list of works recommended for reading has been supplemented by the “Gulag Archipelago”. True, schoolchildren read an incomplete version of the novel - having reduced the work several times, the widow of Solzhenitsyn preserved its structure and personally prepared it for publication.