Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn. Biographical information. The phenomenon of Solzhenitsyn

Diaries and Incidental

Incidentally, in September 1962, I was not in the editorial office. Meanwhile, events developed as follows: between September 9 and 14, B.C. Lebedev in the south read aloud Solzhenitsyn's story N.S. Khrushchev and A.I. Mikoyan. September 15 (or 16) - called Tvardovsky home with the news that the story was for Khrushchev

Incidentally I will interrupt the diary for a later note. In the 70s, one of the heirs of Viktor Sergeevich Golovanov, the censor of the New World, gave me a notebook left by the deceased. On its cover it is written: “Notebook 1. Passage of materials on the magazine "New World" with

Incidentally, I interrupt my notes again for the diary of censor Golovanov. Only on November 14, from a conversation with the editor-in-chief of Goslitizdat A.I. Puzikov, he learned the details of Tvardovsky’s conversation with Khrushchev, which cemented the stunning decision - to publish the “camp report.”

Incidentally, we were still living in euphoria from the success of “One Day,” and the censorship was still wary of us after what happened. But in early December, N.S. Khrushchev unexpectedly visited the Moscow Union of Artists exhibition in Manege. Incited by V.A. Serov and other leaders of the Union of Artists, and perhaps

Related In the evening edition of Izvestia 29. III. 1963 V. Poltoratsky’s article “Matrenin’s yard and its surroundings” was published - the first, not counting Kozhevnikov’s review, response to Solzhenitsyn’s story.6. IV. 1963<…>We made an insert into the editorial for No. 4 - about “Matryona’s Dvor”. Censorship

Incidentally, the issue actually came out only at the end of January. The date 29.ХП.63, apparently, was given not according to the last, but according to the first sheet signed for printing. The censorship continued to do this, in accordance with special instructions, in order to disorient those readers, here and in the West,

Along the way<…>A.I. Todorsky, glorified in his book, had difficult fate. Lenin spoke about his pamphlet “A Year with a Rifle and a Plow” in 1920. After leaving the camp, Todorsky, himself a retired lieutenant general, spent useful work– wrote something that was not published anywhere at the time

Related At first glance, there was no consistency in the Literaturnaya Gazeta article. Praise for “meticulous quoting” and a few paragraphs later reproach the critic for “truncating quotes”; call themselves defenders of the story and its hero - and at the same time express dissatisfaction

Incidentally I didn’t write it down in my diary, but I remember this evening clearly. Busy with Ehrenburg's stories, I ran out late into the street, with difficulty caught a taxi and rushed to Zhuravlev Square, to the television theater, where I promised to appear an hour before the start. The fact is that the transmission, as in those

Incidentally A year later, I read M. Mikhailov’s essays “Moscow, 1964”, published in many countries, from which, it seems, his misadventures began: his trial, years in prison, then emigration to the West. In Mikhailov’s essays, a special chapter was devoted to our conversation . He handed over

Incidentally, the end of 1964 and the beginning of 1965 were marked for us by troubles around Tvardovsky’s article “On the occasion of the anniversary,” prepared for the opening of the 1st issue. In January, the magazine, founded in 1925, turned 40 years old.<…>Censorship marks in the article “On the occasion

With this article we open a series of articles dedicated to Nobel Prize laureates from Russia in the field of literature. We are interested in the question - for what, why and by what criteria is this award given, as well as why this award is not given to people who deserve it with their talent and achievements, for example, Leo Tolstoy and Dmitry Mendeleev.

Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature from our country in different years steel: I. Bunin, B. Pasternak, M. Sholokhov, A. Solzhenitsyn, I. Brodsky. It should be noted that with the exception of M. Sholokhov, all the rest were emigrants and dissidents.

In this article we will talk about the 1970 Nobel Prize winner writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

WHO IS ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is known to the reader for his works “In the First Circle”, “The Gulag Archipelago”, “ Cancer building", "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and others.

And this writer appeared on our heads, thanks to Khrushchev, for whom SoLZHENITSYN (even the word “lie” is present in the surname itself) became another tool for dealing with the Stalinist past, and nothing more.

The pioneer of the “artistic” lie about Stalin (with the personal support of Khrushchev) was the former camp informer Solzhenitsyn, elevated to the rank of Nobel laureate in literature (see the article “Vetrov, aka Solzhenitsyn” in the Military Historical Journal, 1990, No. 12 , p. 77), whose books were published in mass editions during the period of “perestroika” at the direction of the treacherous leadership of the country to destroy the USSR.

This is what Khrushchev himself writes in his memoirs:

I am proud that at one time I supported one of Solzhenitsyn’s first works... I don’t remember Solzhenitsyn’s biography. I was reported before that he spent a long time in the camps. In the story mentioned, he proceeded from his own observations. I read it. It leaves a heavy impression, disturbing, but truthful. And most importantly, it disgusts what happened under Stalin... Stalin was a criminal, and criminals must be condemned at least morally. The strongest judgment is to brand them work of art. Why, on the contrary, was Solzhenitsyn considered a criminal?

Why? Because the anti-Soviet graphomaniac Solzhenitsyn turned out to be a rare find for the West, which in 1970 (moreover, this year was not chosen by chance - the year of the 100th anniversary of the birth of V.I. Lenin, as another attack on the USSR) was undeservedly awarded to the author " Ivan Denisovich" Nobel Prize in Literature is an unprecedented fact. As Alexander Shabalov writes in the book “The Eleventh Strike of Comrade Stalin,” Solzhenitsyn begged for the Nobel Prize, declaring:

I need this bonus as a step up in position, in battle! And the sooner I get it, the harder I’ll become, the harder I’ll hit!

And, indeed, the name of Solzhenitsyn became the banner of the dissident movement in the USSR, which at one time played a huge negative role in the liquidation of the Soviet socialist system. And most of his opuses first saw the light “over the hill” with the support of Radio Liberty, the Russian department of the BBC, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, the Russian department of the State Department, the department of agitation and propaganda of the Pentagon, and the information department of the British MI.

And having done his dirty deed, he was sent back to Russia, destroyed by the liberals. Because even our enemies don’t need such traitors. Where he grumbled with the air of a “prophet” on Russian television with his “dissenting opinion” of the mafia Yeltsin regime, which no longer interested anyone and could change absolutely nothing.

Let's take a closer look at the biography, creativity, and ideological views of the writer A. Solzhenitsyn.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11, 1918 in Kislovodsk, into a Cossack family. The father, Isaac (that is, in fact, his patronymic is Isaakovich, that is, he lied to everyone, saying everywhere, including in writing, that he was Isaevich) Semenovich, died hunting six months before the birth of his son. Mother - Taisiya Zakharovna Shcherbak - from the family of a wealthy landowner.

In 1939, Solzhenitsyn entered the correspondence department of the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History (some sources indicate literary courses at Moscow State University). In 1941, Alexander Solzhenitsyn graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Rostov University (enrolled in 1936).

In October 1941 he was drafted into the army, and in 1942, after training at the artillery school in Kostroma, he was sent to the front as commander of a sound reconnaissance battery. Awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree and the Red Star.

The book written by Solzhenitsyn’s first wife, Natalia Reshetovskaya, published in the Soviet Union, contains funny things: it turns out that in 1944-1945, Solzhenitsyn, being a Soviet officer, composed projects for the elimination of Stalin.

At the same time, he wrote his directives in letters and sent them to his friends. So he wrote directly - “Directive number one”, etc., and this is obvious madness, because then there was military censorship and every letter was stamped “Checked by military censorship.” For such letters then, in wartime, they were guaranteed to be arrested and therefore only a half-crazed person, or a person hoping that the letter would be read and sent from the front to the rear, could do such things. And these are not simple words.

The fact is that among the artillery batteries during the Great Patriotic War there were also instrumental reconnaissance batteries - sound metering, in one of which Solzhenitsyn served. This was the most reliable means of identifying enemy firing batteries. Sound meters deployed a system of microphones on the ground that received the acoustic wave from the shot, the signal was recorded and calculated, on the basis of which they obtained the coordinates of the enemy’s firing batteries, even in a battlefield heavily saturated with artillery. This made it possible, with good organization of troop control, to begin to suppress enemy batteries with artillery fire after one to three volleys of the enemy.

Therefore, sound recorders were valued, and in order to ensure the safety of their combat work, they were stationed in the near rear, and not on the front line, and especially not in the first line of trenches. They were placed so that they would not be near objects that could be subject to enemy air raids and artillery shelling. During the retreat, they were among the first to be taken out of the battle area; during the offensive, they followed the first line troops. Those. While doing their important work, they came into direct contact with the enemy in a combat situation only in some emergency cases, and to counter him they had only small arms - carbines and personal weapons of officers.

However, A.I. Solzhenitsyn was “lucky”: the Germans hit him, the front rolled back, control of the troops was lost for some time - the opportunity to show heroism presented itself. But it was not he who showed heroism, but the battery sergeant-major, who saved it and led it to the rear. War is paradoxical. If we talk specifically about the sound-metric battery, then the foreman’s actions were correct: he saved equipment and qualified personnel from useless death in a battle for which the sound-metric battery was not intended. Why this was not done by its commander Solzhenitsyn, who appeared at the battery location later, is an open question: “the war was written off” (there was no time for such trifles).

But this episode was enough for A.I. Solzhenitsyn: he realized that in the war for socialism, which was alien to him (he himself came from a clan of not the last rich people in Russia, although not from the main branch: on the eve of the First World War, his uncle owned one of the nine Rolls- Royces” who were present in the empire) may be killed, and then the “idée fixe” will not be fulfilled - a dream from childhood: to enter the history of world literature as Dostoevsky or Tolstoy of the 20th century. So A.I. Solzhenitsyn fled from the front to the Gulag in order to be guaranteed to survive. And the fact that he pawned his friend is a trifle against the background of saving the precious life of the future “great writer.” On February 9, 1945, he was arrested and on July 27 sentenced to 8 years in forced labor camps.

Natalya Reshetovskaya further describes Solzhenitsyn's arrest, where she was interrogated as a witness, and other people were also interrogated. One of the witnesses, a sailor, a young midshipman, testified that Solzhenitsyn accidentally met him on the train and immediately began to engage in anti-Stalin propaganda. To the investigator’s question: “Why didn’t you report it right away?” The midshipman replied that he immediately realized that in front of him was a madman. That's why I didn't report it.

He stayed in the camps from 1945 to 1953: in New Jerusalem near Moscow; in the so-called “sharashka” - a secret research institute in the village of Marfino near Moscow; in 1950 - 1953 he was imprisoned in one of the Kazakh camps.

In February 1953 he was released without the right to reside in the European part of the USSR and sent to “eternal settlement” (1953 - 1956); lived in the village of Kok-Terek, Dzhambul region (Kazakhstan).

On February 3, 1956, by decision of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was rehabilitated and moved to Ryazan. Worked as a mathematics teacher.

In 1962, in the magazine “New World”, with the special permission of N.S. Khrushchev (!!!, which says a lot), the first story of Alexander Solzhenitsyn was published - “One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich” (the story “remade at the request of the editors”) Shch-854. One day of one prisoner"). The story was nominated for the Lenin Prize, which caused active resistance from the communist authorities.

In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev, the ideological inspirer and patron of A. Solzhenitsyn, was removed from power, after which Solzhenitsyn’s “star” in the USSR began to fade.

In September 1965, the so-called Solzhenitsyn archive came to the Committee state security(KGB) and by order of the authorities, further publication of his works in the USSR was stopped: already published works were confiscated from libraries, and new books began to be published through “samizdat” channels and abroad.

In November 1969, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Writers' Union. In 1970, Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize in Literature, but refused to travel to Stockholm for the award ceremony, fearing that the authorities would not allow him back to the USSR. In 1974, after the publication of the book “The Gulag Archipelago” in Paris (in the USSR, one of the manuscripts was seized by the KGB in September 1973, and in December 1973 the publication took place in Paris, which leads to interesting thoughts, given the fact that the head of the KGB at that time was Yu.V. Andropov, about whom we wrote in this article - http://inance.ru/2015/06/andropov/), the dissident writer was arrested. On February 12, 1974, a trial took place: Alexander Solzhenitsyn was found guilty of high treason, deprived of citizenship and sentenced to deportation from the USSR the next day.

Since 1974, Solzhenitsyn lived in Germany, in Switzerland (Zurich), and since 1976 in the USA (near the city of Cavendish, Vermont). Despite the fact that Solzhenitsyn lived in the United States for about 20 years, he did not ask for American citizenship. He rarely communicated with representatives of the press and the public, which is why he was known as a “Vermont recluse.” He criticized both the Soviet order and American reality. Over 20 years of emigration in Germany, the USA and France, he published large number works.

In the USSR, Solzhenitsyn's works began to be published only in the late 1980s. In 1989, in the same magazine “New World”, where “One Day...” was published, the first official publication of excerpts from the novel “The Gulag Archipelago” took place. On August 16, 1990, by decree of the President of the USSR, the Soviet citizenship of Alexander Isaevich (?) Solzhenitsyn was restored. In 1990, for his book “The Gulag Archipelago,” Solzhenitsyn was awarded the State Prize (of course, awarded by liberals who hated Soviet power). On May 27, 1994, the writer returned to Russia. In 1997 elected full member of the Academy of Sciences Russian Federation.

WHO ARE YOU, ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN - “THE GREAT WRITER” OR “THE GREAT TRAITOR” OF OUR HOMELAND?

The name of Alexander Solzhenitsyn has always caused a lot of heated debate and discussion. Some call and have called him a great Russian writer and active social activist, others - a fraud historical facts and a detractor of the Motherland. However, the truth is probably out there somewhere. The casket opens very simply: Khrushchev needed a scribbler who, without a twinge of conscience, could denigrate the successes that were achieved during the reign of Joseph Stalin. It turned out to be Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

For almost 20 years, Russian liberal ministers and officials openly called Solzhenitsyn to his face a great Russian writer. And he, even for the sake of decency, never objected to this. Likewise, he did not protest against the titles “Leo Tolstoy of the 20th century” and “Dostoevsky of the 20th century.” Alexander Isaevich modestly called himself “Antilenin.”

True, the true title of “great writer” in Russia was awarded only by Time. And, apparently, Time has already pronounced its verdict. It is curious that the lives of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov are known quite well to literary scholars and historians. And if they argue about something, it’s over some points.

The reader can easily find out why, when and how our writers were subjected to government repression. When and in what editions were their books published? What was the real success (salesability) of these books? What kind of royalties did the authors receive? For example, with what funds did Chekhov buy the Melikhovo estate? Well, Solzhenitsyn’s life is full of scandals, outrageousness, triumphs and a sea of ​​white spots, and precisely at the most turning points of his biography.

But in 1974 Solzhenitsyn found himself not just anywhere, but in Switzerland, and then in April 1976 in the USA. Well, in the “free world” you don’t have to hide from the public and journalists. But even there, Solzhenitsyn’s life is known only in fragments. For example, in the summer of 1974, using royalties from the Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn created Russian public fund assistance to the persecuted and their families" to help political prisoners in the USSR (parcels and money transfers to places of detention, legal and illegal financial assistance to the families of prisoners).

"Archipelago" was published in a circulation of 50 thousand copies. The Soviet media at that time made jokes about the illiquid deposits of Solzhenitsyn’s books in Western bookstores. One of the secrets of Solzhenitsyn and the CIA is the ratio of copies of Solzhenitsyn’s books sold to the number of destroyed.

Well, okay, let's assume that all 50 thousand were sold. But what was the fee? Unknown.

It is curious that in the United States at the end of the twentieth century they came up with an analogue of the Soviet “Union of Writers” with its literary fund. That is, the writer teaches somewhere - at universities or in some training centers for aspiring writers. In this way, there is “feeding” of those who write works that are pleasing to Western states and business.

But Solzhenitsyn, unlike Yevtushenko and many others, did not teach anywhere. However, in 1976, he purchased an expensive 50-acre (!) estate in Vermont. Along with the estate, a large wooden house with furniture and other equipment. Nearby, Solzhenitsyn is building “for work” a large three-story house and a number of other buildings.

Solzhenitsyn's sons study in expensive private schools. Alexander Isaakovich (let's call him correctly) maintains a large staff of servants (!) and security guards. Naturally, their number and payment are unknown, if not classified. However, some eyewitnesses saw two karate champions on duty around the clock in his apartment in Switzerland.

But maybe rich Russian emigrants helped Solzhenitsyn? No! On the contrary, he helps everyone himself, establishes foundations, runs newspapers, such as Our Country in Buenos Aires.

“Where is the money, Zin?”

Oh! Nobel Prize! And here again the “top secret”: I received the award, but how much and where did it go?

The 1970 Nobel Prize was awarded to A. Solzhenitsyn - "For the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature" which he was awarded in 1974.

For comparison, Mikhail Sholokhov, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, received 62 thousand dollars in 1965 (it is known what he spent on - on the improvement of his native village of Vyoshenskaya). This is not even enough to buy an estate and build a house. And Alexander Isaakovich didn’t seem to be involved in business. So our “new Tolstoy” lived without Yasnaya Polyana and Mikhailovsky, but much richer than Lev Nikolaevich and Alexander Sergeevich. So who supported “our” “great writer”?

SOLZHENITSYN'S ANTI-PATRIOTISM

In May 1974, Solzhenitsyn said:

I will go to the USA, I will speak in the Senate, I will talk with the president, I want to destroy Fulbright and all the senators who intend to make agreements with the communists. I must get the Americans to increase pressure in Vietnam.

And so Solzhenitsyn proposes to “increase the pressure.” Kill a couple more million Vietnamese or start a thermonuclear war? Let's not forget that over 60 thousand Soviet military personnel and several hundred civilian specialists fought in Vietnam.

And Alexander Isaakovich shouted: “Come on! Let's!"

By the way, he several times called on the United States to destroy communism through nuclear war. Solzhenitsyn publicly stated:

The course of history has entrusted the leadership of the world to the United States.

Solzhenitsyn congratulated General Pinochet, who carried out a coup d'etat in Chile and killed thousands of people without trial in stadiums in Santiago. Alexander Isaakovich sincerely mourned the death of the fascist dictator Franco and called on the new Spanish authorities not to rush to democratize the country.

Solzhenitsyn angrily denounced American presidents Nixon and Ford for indulging and making concessions to the USSR. They say they are “not actively interfering in the internal affairs of the USSR”, and that “ Soviet people abandoned to the mercy of fate."

Intervene, Solzhenitsyn urged, Intervene again and again as much as you can.

In 1990 (by the new liberal authorities), Solzhenitsyn was restored to Soviet citizenship with the subsequent termination of the criminal case, and in December of the same year he was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR for “The Gulag Archipelago.” According to the story of the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Kostikov, during B. N. Yeltsin’s first official visit to the USA in 1992, immediately upon arrival in Washington, Boris Nikolayevich called Solzhenitsyn from the hotel and had a “long” conversation with him, in particular, about the Kuril Islands.

As Kostikov testified, the writer’s opinion was unexpected and shocking to many:

I studied the entire history of the islands from the 12th century. These are not our islands, Boris Nikolaevich. Need to give it away. But expensive...

But perhaps Solzhenitsyn’s interlocutors and journalists misquoted or misunderstood our great patriot? Alas, having returned to Russia, Solzhenitsyn did not renounce any of the words he had previously spoken. So, he wrote in “Archipelago” and other places about 60 million prisoners in the Gulag, then about 100 million. But, having arrived, he could find out from various declassified sources that from 1918 to 1990 in Soviet Russia was repressed by political reasons 3.7 million people. Dissident Zhores Medvedev, who wrote about 40 million prisoners, publicly admitted the mistake and apologized, but Solzhenitsyn did not.

A writer, like any citizen, has the right to oppose the existing government. You can hate Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Putin, but at the same time not go over to the side of Russia’s enemies. Pushkin wrote offensive poems about Alexander I and was exiled. Dostoevsky participated in an anti-government conspiracy and went to hard labor. But in 1831, Alexander Sergeevich, without hesitation, wrote “Slanderers of Russia,” and Fyodor Mikhailovich, on the eve of the 1877 war, wrote the article “And once again that Constantinople, sooner or later, must be ours.” None of them betrayed their country.

And now in schools, between the portraits of Pushkin and Dostoevsky, portraits of Solzhenitsyn are hung. Shouldn't we go even further and hang portraits of Grishka Otrepiev, Hetman Mazepa and General Vlasov (the latter was considered a hero by A. Solzhenitsyn) in classrooms?

End of the article here:

Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11, 1918 in Kislovodsk. After the tragic death of his father, in 1924, Solzhenitsyn moved with his mother to Rostov-on-Don, and from 1926 to 1936 he studied at school, living in poverty.

In elementary school, he was ridiculed for wearing a cross and not wanting to join the pioneers, and was reprimanded for attending church. Under the influence of the school, he sincerely accepted the communist ideology, and in 1936 he joined the Komsomol. In high school, I became interested in literature and began writing essays and poems; interested in history and social life. In 1937 he conceived a “great novel about the revolution” of 1917.

In 1936 he entered the Rostov state university. Not wanting to make literature my main specialty, I chose the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. At the university he studied with excellent grades (a Stalin scholarship holder), continued literary exercises, and in addition to university studies, he independently studied history and Marxism-Leninism. He graduated from the university in 1941 with honors.

Alexander, after graduating from school and receiving an education at Rostov University, decided to devote himself to literature and came to the capital for this. He wanted to enter Moscow University, get a second education, and become a teacher. But the Great Patriotic War began. 1942

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Solzhenitsyn was not immediately mobilized, since he was considered “limitedly fit” for health reasons. He actively sought a call to the front.

He sought assignment to an officer's school, and in April 1942 he was sent to an artillery school in Kostroma; in November 1942, he was released as a lieutenant and sent to Saransk, where a reserve regiment was located to form artillery instrumental reconnaissance divisions.

In the active army since February 1943.

And here he is, the son of Russia, already the commander of the sound reconnaissance battery of the 794th Separate Army Reconnaissance Artillery Division of the 2nd Belorussian Front, decisive, never giving up, persistent and stubborn.

In this position he was continuously at the front until February 1945. The combat route is from Orel to East Prussia. In November 1943 he received the rank of senior lieutenant, in June 1944 - captain. At the front, he kept war diaries, wrote a lot, and sent his works to Moscow writers for review. He was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War and the Red Star, but did not have time to receive them.

At the front, Solzhenitsyn continued to be interested in public life, but became critical of Stalin (for “distorting Leninism”); in correspondence with an old friend (Nikolai Vitkevich), he spoke abusively about “Godfather,” by whom Stalin was guessed, kept in his personal belongings a “resolution” drawn up together with Vitkevich, in which he compared the Stalinist order with serfdom and spoke about the creation of an “organization” after the war to restore the so-called “Leninist” norms. The letters aroused suspicion of military censorship, and in February 1945 Solzhenitsyn and Vitkevich were arrested

“The black emka delivered Captain Solzhenitsyn to headquarters,” according to the memoirs of Natalya Reshetovskaya. “You are under arrest.”

Moscow. Lubyanka. “Eight years of forced labor camps under articles 58-10 and 58-11, according to the resolution of the OSO NKVD of July 7, 1945.”

In June 1946, he was demanded into the special prison system of the 4th Special Department of the NKVD, in September he was sent to a special institute for prisoners (“sharashka”) at the aircraft engine plant in Rybinsk, five months later - to the “sharashka” in Zagorsk, in July 1947 - to a similar establishment in Marfino (near Moscow). He worked in his specialty as a mathematician.

In May 1950, due to a disagreement with the leadership of the Sharashka, Solzhenitsyn was transferred to Butyrki, and in August he was sent to Steplag, a special camp in Ekibastuz. Alexander Isaevich served almost a third of his prison camp term - from August 1950 to February 1953 - in the north of Kazakhstan. In the camp I worked in “general” work, for some time as a foreman, and took part in a strike.

These experiences greatly undermine Alexander's health. In the winter of 1952, Solzhenitsyn was diagnosed with cancer and was operated on in the camp. But he does not despair, because the end of his sentence, the end of his torment is soon. Released on February 13, 1953.

And here he is, the martyr son.

Lord, what Solzhenitsyn had to go through over the years! Everything: the number Shch-262, and the 3653 days of martyrdom, and the bullying of the guards, and the contempt of his relatives, and the divorce from his beloved wife - he will never forget. In conclusion, Solzhenitsyn became completely disillusioned with Marxism, over time he believed in God and leaned toward Orthodox patriotic ideas.

In August 1956, Solzhenitsyn returned from exile to Central Russia. Lives in the village of Miltsevo (Kurlovsky district, Vladimir region), where for two years he teaches mathematics at a village school and lives in the house of the peasant woman Matryona Zakharova, about whom he later wrote famous story"Matrenin's yard"

The author's title of the story is “A village is not worth it without a righteous man” - based on a Russian proverb. The story began at the end of July - beginning of August 1959 in the village of Chernomorskoye in western Crimea, where Solzhenitsyn was invited by friends through exile in Kazakhstan. The story was completed in December of the same year, and in 1963 it was published in the New World magazine. This story, as the author himself noted, is “completely autobiographical and reliable,” the narrator’s patronymic, Ignatich, is consonant with Solzhenitsyn’s patronymic, Isaevich.

Andrei Sinyavsky called this work the “fundamental thing” of all Russian “village” literature.

“In the summer of 1956, I was returning from the dusty hot desert - just to Russia. I just wanted to middle lane– without heat, with the leafy roar of the forest. I wanted to worm my way around and get lost in the most visceral Russia - if such a thing existed somewhere, lived,” - this is how Solzhenitsyn recalls his most long-awaited moments in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor.”

Who to give yourself to? What should I dedicate myself to? And then such a “interior Russia” was found - this is Matrenin’s yard.

Solzhenitsyn did not stay here long - only one academic year, but was able to see the whole life of Matryona Vasilyevna Zakharova, disfigured and crippled by power. I was able to comprehend the holiness of the soul that makes Matryona a person of the future.

Russia is rich not only in boundless open spaces, fertile lands, orchards, but also in extraordinary people, righteous people, gifted with pure, divine energy. They look at us with clear, deep eyes, as if they are looking into our souls, so much so that you can’t hide anything from them. The righteous sacrifice many of life's delights for the sake of purity of soul, and joyfully help those around them to overcome all adversity with dignity, emerge victorious from the struggle with themselves, and become spiritually cleansed. And no matter what they say about them, no matter how much one is surprised at their unpretentiousness, there will always be a place for such people on Russian soil, for they preach the truth.

Solzhenitsyn’s Matryona is the embodiment of the ideal of the Russian peasant woman. She resembles the biblical heroine Mary. Her appearance is like an icon, her life is like the life of a saint. Her house is pass-through symbolic image story - like the ark of the biblical righteous Noah, in which he is saved from the flood along with his family and pairs of all earthly animals in order to continue the human race. Matryona is a righteous woman. But her fellow villagers do not know about her hidden holiness; they consider the woman simply stupid, although it is she who preserves the highest features of Russian spirituality. Matryona did not complain about her life, she did not bother God, because he already knows what she needs. The life of a saint must end with a happy death, uniting her with God. However, the death of the heroine is bitterly absurd.

The death of the heroine symbolizes the cruelty and meaninglessness of the world in which she lived. The righteous peasant woman lived surrounded by unfriendly and selfish collective farmers. Their miserable and unhappy fate was not much different from the existence of camp prisoners. They lived according to traditional customs.

The story “Matrenin's Dvor” is impossible to read without tears. This sad story of a righteous peasant woman is not the author’s fiction. Solzhenitsyn trusts life and its creator - God - more than fiction. That is why the story is read with such empathy and pride: after all, there are still righteous people left on Russian land, without whom neither a village, nor a city, nor our entire land would stand.

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova spoke about “Matryona’s Yard” as follows:

“Yes, it’s an amazing thing. It’s amazing how they could publish it. It’s worse than “Ivan Denisovich.” There you can blame everything on a cult of personality, but here it’s not Matryona, but the whole Russian village that was hit by a steam locomotive and to pieces. The little things are also amazing. Remember - the old man’s black eyebrows, like two bridges meeting each other?. Have you noticed: his benches and stools are either alive or dead? And are the cockroaches rustling under the wallpaper? Do you remember? Like the distant sound of the ocean! and the wallpaper moves in waves. And what a wonderful page when he suddenly sees Matryona young and sees the whole village young, that is, as it was before the general ruin.”

As in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor”, in “Zakhara-Kalita” an important problem is raised: people do not feel like masters, the system turns a person into a “cog”. No power is needed, only the power of conscience. And although Zakhar is sometimes grumpy, distrustful, and sees a pest in everyone he meets, he does his job honestly, his soul cares for a place that is sacred to the Russian people, the memory of which every generation must pass on to its descendants.

What does he get for it?

“Twenty-seven rubles,” when “the minimum is thirty.”

Wow, what Russia has come to!

And Solzhenitsyn is still tormented because he is unable to open people’s eyes to what is happening in Russia

The era of Stalinism became one of the most terrible periods in the history of our country. The totalitarian regime subjugated the will, feelings, freedom and even life common man. Our Motherland was imprisoned in one large camp, where innocent people languished and suffered. The system of human suppression turned the inhabitants of a great country into cogs in a merciless Stalinist machine.

Solzhenitsyn reveals the entire essence of the totalitarian system in the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” about the life of the Gulag. It was conceived for general works in the Ekibastuz special camp in the winter of 1950-1951.

“In 1950, on one long winter camp day, I was carrying a stretcher with my partner and thought: how to describe our whole camp life? In fact, it is enough to describe just one day in detail, in the smallest detail, moreover, the day of the simplest worker, and our whole life will be reflected here. And there is no need to intensify any horrors, it is not necessary for this to be some kind of special day, but an ordinary one, this is the very day from which years are formed. I thought like this, and this idea remained in my mind; I didn’t touch it for nine years, and only in 1959, nine years later, did I sit down and write. I didn’t write it for long, just about forty days, less than a month and a half. It always turns out this way if you write from a dense life, the way of life of which you know too much, and not only that you don’t have to guess at something, try to understand something, but you just fight off unnecessary material, just so that the unnecessary stuff doesn’t creep in , but to accommodate the most necessary things,” recalls Solzhenitsyn. The author believes that it is necessary to show one day of one unremarkable prisoner. “And everything will be,” adds Solzhenitsyn.

The story was written in 1959 in Ryazan, where he was then a teacher of physics and astronomy at school and was actively involved in creativity.

The image of Ivan Denisovich was formed from the appearance and habits of the soldier Shukhov, who fought in Solzhenitsyn’s battery during the Soviet-German war (but was never imprisoned), from the general experience of the post-war flow of “prisoners” and personal experience the author in the Special Camp as a mason. The rest of the characters in the story are all taken from camp life, with their true biographies.

In his work, Solzhenitsyn reveals the horror of the totalitarian system using the example of the most ordinary camp, which does not stand out among others. Main character story - Shukhov is also a typical camp inmate; with the same typical fate. But this simplicity and routine makes the picture depicted by Solzhenitsyn become extremely realistic and scary. The story recreates the tragedy of an entire country, all of whose peoples experience the cruelty of totalitarianism. In the camp there are Estonian fishermen, a Latvian mason, a Ukrainian peasant, a resident Russian outback Shukhov. Solzhenitsyn is keen to emphasize that this tragedy affected all levels of society. In one barrack live the Moscow film director Tsezar Markovich, captain of the second rank Buinovsky, director of a large enterprise Fetyukov, peasant Shukhov, and bricklayer Kildigs. The system is merciless to everyone without exception.

In the Gulag there is a sophisticated system of suppressing everything human in people. It is impossible to calmly read about how much abuse each prisoner endures. A person’s life under a camp regime often depends only on the mood of the guard. Prisoners are deprived of the most basic rights; they are trying to turn them into a faceless gray mass. A person in a camp is deprived of the right even to proper name and last name. Instead, each camp inmate has a number. The number is a mark that any one of those who ended up in Stalin’s camps has. The prisoner here waits every second for something terrible, disastrous for himself. Not everyone can withstand this, many break, but most try to stay in the camp human face. What bitter but courageous words the first foreman of Ivan Denisovich speaks: “Here, guys, the law is the taiga. But people live here too.” That’s why they hate so much in the camp the informers who buy their right to life at the cost of the suffering of others. People like Fetyukov, who licks bowls in the dining room, are surrounded with contempt. People are deliberately turned into a herd, but people resist. He knows that no one has ever left the camp walls. When a prisoner's sentence expired, he was given a new one. However, people cannot live without hope, without faith in themselves.

The heroes of Solzhenitsyn’s story do not deserve even a thousandth of what the totalitarian regime does to them. It is enough to remember with what passion Ivan Denisovich and Kildigs carry out the laying of a working man. They were simply not used to working poorly, but at first such workers all over the country pulled wire to fence off the place of future work. This is exactly what the prisoners do when they build the Social Town in the snowy taiga. This is the kind of “socialism” the totalitarian system has prepared for the people!

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov lived that day happily. Such is the fate of a person in a state where happiness is an extra portion of gruel and a little tobacco. Shukhov went to work sick, but did not die; he could have ended up in a punishment cell, but he did not. Solzhenitsyn writes: “Shukhov fell asleep completely satisfied. He had a lot of luck today.” Ivan Denisovich’s luck cannot be understood by thinking about that time from the perspective today. You need to feel the terrible meaning of the phrase: “The day passed, unclouded, almost happy.” Nothing terrible or cruel happened to the person, so the day can be called happy. One day in Shukhov’s life is the embodiment of the fate of the entire unfortunate country in the era of totalitarianism.

Solzhenitsyn's story is deeply true. It's written by a man, okay those who know life The Gulag, which shared the common tragedy of the entire people. The inhuman totalitarian system is revealed to us in all its barbarity.

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky called “Ivan Denisovich” a “literary miracle” in his internal review: “With this story a very strong, original and mature writer entered literature”; "a wonderful depiction of camp life under Stalin."

And indeed, it was not only Word and Deed. The story, published in the magazine “New World” in 1962, brought him worldwide fame and was a sensational success. Soon after the story was published, Solzhenitsyn was accepted into the USSR Writers' Union. All Soviet newspapers published laudatory reviews for several months, comparing the writer with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. And even his book was nominated for the Lenin Prize for 1964 (as a result of a vote of the Prize Committee, the proposal was rejected). But that’s where the writer’s official success, which began so quickly, ended. Seeing the effect produced by “Ivan Denisovich” among the people, the authorities began to urgently call the quits. The danger for the authorities was in the scale of the writer’s talent, in the moral impact of “Ivan Denisovich” on readers. The image of a rural Russian peasant rose from the pages of the story as a generalized image of the people and, without letting go, appealed to human conscience, to responsibility for the great crime and to repentance.

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, after reading the story, said to Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya: “Every citizen of all two hundred million citizens of the Soviet Union must read and memorize this story.” Yes, this story is truly a great literary heritage!

Solzhenitsyn's stories stood out sharply against the background of the works of that time for their artistic merit and civic courage. This was emphasized by many at that time, including writers and poets.

The fact is that in Russia Solzhenitsyn could not be just a man with his own worldview, living according to the laws of his God. No, he is obliged to expel Him from his soul, and into the resulting void, move Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, like into a communal apartment, and turn them into his religion. And he couldn't do that.

“So the circle is closed? And there really is no way out?” But the author believes that “the simplest, most accessible key to our liberation is personal non-participation in lies! Let the lie cover everything, let the lie control everything, but at the very beginning we will be stubborn: let it rule not through me.”

He believes, but with every step he feels the day of expulsion from the Writers' Union approaching. And he knows that after this there will come powerlessness and defenselessness. Indeed, in 1969 Solzhenitsyn was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The prize was not awarded to him, but soon after that he was expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR. After his expulsion, Solzhenitsyn began to openly declare his Orthodox patriotic beliefs and sharply criticize the authorities.

Reading into the memoirs of Galina Vishnevskaya: “I go into the house on the bed in the bedroom, there is some kind of knot lying. What kind of knot is this? It turns out that this is an old black padded jacket, quilted like a camp jacket, worn to holes.”

Is this really how Alexander Isaevich carries his precious property from place to place, never parting with it, and, having gone through his hard labor, does not allow himself to forget it?

His past path was immediately clearly imagined, and aching pity for this great man filled his soul.

God grant, even like Solzhenitsyn, to be a martyr, but to remain a persistent man, the son of a not always just Russia, because Alexander Isaevich “can be brought to his knees, like Ivan Denisovich, but it is difficult to humiliate.”

It’s difficult, but they tried! They tried to “kick him out” from Russian literature, they tried to shut his mouth, but he found a way out. A way out that helped Solzhenitsyn continue his activities. He emigrated. And there - a warm welcome, recognition and the Nobel Prize, which was awarded to him in 1970 “for the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature” (proposed by Francois Mauriac).

He was also awarded the Templeton Prize in 1983 “for progress in the development of religion.”

In April 1976, he and his family moved to the United States and settled in the town of Cavendish (Vermont). He continued to engage in creative work and rarely communicated with representatives of the press and the public, which is why he was known as a “Vermont recluse.”

But it’s a shame for Russia. Because his works appeared for the first time there, abroad.

Russia, why? Why are you doing this to your son? For what? He was just trying to open people's eyes. I tried and I succeeded. I was able to, but far from the Motherland, far from us. And now lines from his works “The Gulag Archipelago”, “In the First Circle”, “Cancer Ward” reach us, like lines from life:

What does this mean – standing for the truth!

Sit for the truth!

And finally, Russia realized her mistake, she realized that she had committed stupidity by rejecting her son, the great son of Russia.

With the advent of perestroika, the official attitude in the USSR towards Solzhenitsyn’s work and activities began to change, and many of his works were published.

On September 18, 1990, simultaneously in “ Literary newspaper" And " Komsomolskaya Pravda“An article by Solzhenitsyn was published about the ways of reviving the country, about the reasonable, in his opinion, foundations for building the life of the people and the state - “How can we develop Russia? Strong considerations." The article developed Solzhenitsyn’s long-standing thoughts, expressed earlier in his “Letter to the Leaders of the Soviet Union,” the article “Repentance and Self-Restraint as Categories of National Life,” and other prose and journalistic works. Solzhenitsyn donated the royalties for this article to the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. The article caused huge amount responses.

In 1990, Solzhenitsyn was restored to Soviet citizenship.

Together with his family, he returned to his homeland on May 27, 1994, flying from the USA to Vladivostok, traveling by train across the country and ending the trip in the capital. Performed in State Duma RF. In 1997 he was elected a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Russia tried to return Solzhenitsyn to his homeland, restore his good name and present him with a high award, but Solzhenitsyn refused all honors. Thus, in 1998 he was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called - for outstanding services to the Fatherland and great contribution to world literature, however, he refused the award: “I cannot accept the award from the supreme power that brought Russia to its current disastrous state.” This is his greatness, the greatness of one for whom fame is not important, but understanding and love are important. This is what Russia needs too.

He was also awarded the Great Gold Medal named after M.V. Lomonosov of the Russian Academy of Sciences - for his outstanding contribution to the development of Russian literature, the Russian language and Russian history (1998).

Awarded the Grand Prize of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (2000), the Order of St. Sava, 1st degree (the highest award of the Serbian Orthodox Church; awarded on November 16, 2004), State Prize of the Russian Federation for outstanding achievements in the field of humanitarian activities (2006).

On June 12, 2007, President Vladimir Putin visited Solzhenitsyn and congratulated him on being awarded the State Prize.

Awarded the Zivko and Milica Topalović Foundation Prize (Serbia) 2007 (presented on March 7, 2008): “to the great writer and humanist whose Christian truthfulness gives us courage and consolation”, Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania (2008, posthumously).

Soon after the writer returned to the country, an annual literary prize Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose laureates were famous scientists, writers, filmmakers, “whose work has high artistic merit, contributes to self-knowledge of Russia, and makes a significant contribution to the preservation and careful development of the traditions of Russian literature.”

He spent the last years of his life in Moscow and at a dacha near Moscow. Shortly before his death, he was ill, but continued to engage in creative activities. Together with his wife Natalya Dmitrievna, president of the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Foundation, he worked on the preparation and publication of his most complete 30-volume collected works. After a major operation he underwent, only his right hand was functional.

“One defeated hero was lying face down on the top of his head - native land, dropping the daring head on her, scattering his arms and legs in oblique fathoms. There was sorrow in his proneness.” This is a wonderful image of the great son of Russia.

So who is it? Eternal Zakhar-Kalita? Or maybe the eternal Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, from whom they could not take away the immortality to which he is doomed?

The enormous significance of Solzhenitsyn as a writer and person in history Russian state, respect and sincere love for him are confirmed in various reviews, assessments of the writer’s creativity and activities.

Literary critic Lev Anninsky: “In the place of the writer, it’s not enough to say - a historian, but also a prophet, and also political practitioner: the essay was launched like a battering ram into totalitarian state. And if so, then the responsibility is different. Tolstoy pierced Russia " Caucasian prisoner", but he was not responsible for the outcome Caucasian War. The author of the Gulag, who by all accounts almost single-handedly overthrew the System, had to answer. For the collapse of a great state. For the collapse of the Union. For the rampant passions that led to this. How to answer when you yourself are horrified by this collapse, and also by Western democracy, according to whose patterns all this was cut. Give advice? He gave - elementary in essence and difficult to implement in the practice of a crazy age: to live not by lies, to equip the country from below, to change the geopolitical vector from the southwest to the northeast and, moreover, to save the people, instilling in them self-restraint. The country politely listened to the prophet - both the exiled one and the one who returned, greeted with delight, but the country could not get rid of that inescapable spiritual “revelry”, after which the ruins have to be rebuilt anew.”

Valentin Rasputin: “He was a truly powerful figure. Both in literature and in public life he was one of the most powerful figures in the entire history of Russia. Now that he is gone, this is understood especially. One man challenged a huge system - and won. No one, be it the most famous personalities in art, science and politics, there was no such enormous lifetime fame and popularity as Alexander Isaevich. These days the whole world should gasp in sorrow - a great moralist, fair man, and talent is gone.”

Mikhail Gorbachev, first president of the USSR: “His books - “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, “The Gulag Archipelago” - these are the books that helped people see what this regime really meant. We should be grateful to Alexander Isaevich for his contribution to making our country free and democratic. Alexander Solzhenitsyn - great man, who was one of the first to raise his voice against the Stalinist regime in defense of the people who were its victims. Few can compare with him in what he accomplished in his life.”

Yuri Lyubimov, director: “Solzhenitsyn was the criterion of our life, he was our Homer. The entire biography of Alexander Isaevich speaks of his extraordinary courage. Having gone through camps and terrible trials, he did not lose hope and faith in a better fate for Russia. Until the end, he maintained clarity of mind and, despite a serious illness, until the last minute he continued to think, compose and write about “how to better develop Russia.”

In conclusion, I came to certain conclusions.

Alexander Isaevich in his works told us the cruel truth about the history of the state in which we live. There are no works left in either Russian or world literature that would pose a great danger to the Soviet regime. These books revealed his entire essence. The veil of lies and self-deception that still obscured the eyes of many of our fellow citizens was subsiding.

The twentieth century has come to its end. It was probably the most rapid and unique century in the entire history of mankind. The writer showed us all the instability and complexity of the relationship between man and the state. But the man managed to survive and gain hope for the future.

Why does Solzhenitsyn’s work attract me? Insight, truthfulness, expressed in the boundless filial love for the Motherland, in the way his soul aches for everything that happens in Russia. A writer, a historian, he always warns us: don’t get lost in history. “They will tell us: what can literature do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? And let’s not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: ​​it is certainly intertwined with lies,” wrote Solzhenitsyn, “but we need to take a simple step: do not participate in lies. Let this come into the world and even reign in the world, but not through me. More is available to writers and artists: defeat lies! I believe that Solzhenitsyn was the kind of writer who defeated lies.

Alexander Isaevich valued time very much. He often repeated: “Every day you must imprint your actions on the path of life.” His actions, his imprints on life path ran across the entire planet. The national Russian writer has long become a planetary writer, whose surname echoes the name Russia in all parts of the globe.