Who was Aleksandr Solzhenitsy?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) was a Russian novelist, historian, and outspoken Soviet dissident who exposed the brutalities of the forced labor camp system known as the Gulag. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature “for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature”. His work was a driving force in raising global awareness of the Soviet Union’s political repression.
Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, Russia, and studied mathematics and physics. He served in the Red Army as a decorated artillery captain during World War II. In 1945, he was arrested for criticizing Joseph Stalin in private letters and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag and three years of internal exile. His experiences as a miner and bricklayer in the camps profoundly influenced his later writing about the Gulag system.
