The Solzhenitsyn Files: Secret Soviet Documents Reveal One Man's Fight Against the Monolith

by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick (Translator), Michael Scammell (Editor)

Upon his release from the Gulag, the Soviet system of labor camps, following Stalin's death, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was able to publish fictionalized accounts of his prison experiences in the comparatively benign Khrushchev era. Despite intense political pressure from subsequent, more authoritarian, regimes, he continued to criticize the Soviet government through his writing, gaining fame and respect in the West, which culminated in his being awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize for literature. Presented here for the first time in English are more than 150 recently declassified documents that detail the Soviet government's relentless persecution of Solzhenitsyn and ultimately ineffectual attempts to discredit him over a span of 20 years. Appalling in their sheer volume and scope, the papers, arranged chronologically and containing explanatory notes, chillingly portray the Soviet government's single-minded obsession with silencing the writer.

472 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1995

Reviews

[Spencer Willardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of KGB secret documents about Solzhenitsyn and from the archives is really fascinating. It is amazing how much time the Central Committee devoted to this and how much they were involved in propaganda and diplomatic maneuvering to silence him. Much of what they read was "intelligence" gathered from "ordinary Soviets" and their opinion on Solzhenitsyn. A really fascinating look behind the curtain. It helps that I am interested in Solzhenitsyn as an author.