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August 1914 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Books

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August 1914 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Books

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn burst on the literary scene in 1962 with his short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". It depicted an ordinary day in the life of an ordinary inmate in one of the Siberian labor-camps of the Soviet Gulag. Solzhenitsyn's next major novel was published in 1968 under the title "The First Circle". It was a depiction of life in a "sharashka", which stood at the other end of the spectrum of Gulag prisons. A "sharashka" was the slang name by which inmates referred to the research and development laboratories of the Soviet Gulag labor camp system. Scientists, engineers, and mathematicians sent to the Gulag were, if they were lucky, assigned to a sharashka to work on projects that might prove useful to Stalin in his quest for ironclad security and his war with capitalist imperialism. Compared to the Siberian labor-camp of Ivan Denisovich, a sharashka was cushy; to be sure, it too was part of the Gulag, and the Gulag was hell, but a sharashka was, in Dantean terms, "the first circle of hell".

This 741-page novel covers four days (Dec. 24-27, 1949) in a sharashka in Moscow known as Marfino -- 300 prisoners and 50 guards. The novel begins with a Soviet diplomat making an anonymous phone call to the American embassy to alert it of Soviet espionage focused on the atomic bomb. The embassy's phones are bugged and the phone call is recorded, but the Soviet security service doesn't know who the caller was. So inmate engineers and scientists at the Marfino sharashka are assigned the task of identifying the traitor, as quickly as possible.

In the novel, Solzhenitsyn adds considerable depth and detail to the portrayal of the life of zeks (Gulag inmates) furnished in "Ivan Denisovich". He also uses the book to deliver a scathing critique of the Soviet system -- its ideological absurdities, its bureaucratic infighting and inefficiencies, its dishonesty and hypocrisy, and its cruelty. To top it off, the novel contains a devastatingly mocking and chilling portrait of Josef Stalin (see Chapters 19-23). Solzhenitsyn realized that as originally written, the novel was far too critical of the Soviet Union for it to see the light of day (this was in the mid-60's), so he "self-censored" it, excising nine chapters altogether and revising, or softening, those details sure to be most offensive to Soviet sensibilities. That self-censored version was published in 1968 under the English title "The First Circle", but even as expurgated it was not deemed fit for publication within the Soviet Union (and, indeed, that expurgated version contributed to the decision to expel Solzhenitsyn from the Soviet Union in 1974).

This is the original, unexpurgated novel, in a form that Solzhenitsyn continued to tweak and revise. It has been brilliantly translated by Harry T. Willetts, who worked closely with Solzhenitsyn. Distinguishing it from the truncated version is the initial word "in" in the title. IN THE FIRST CIRCLE is the best Russian novel from the twentieth century that I have so far encountered in my ongoing survey of Russian literature in translation. It is a masterpiece.

Though nominally covering only four days in late 1949, the novel contains the back stories of dozens of characters, stretching back to the days of the Bolshevik Revolution. It is superbly plotted. Its characterizations of about two dozen zeks (and their wives) are sensitive and endearing. In addition to the penetrating critique of the Soviet system and the detailed portrayal of the Gulag, the novel also contains many perceptive observations about human beings in general. It is rich in historical detail. And, in the best tradition of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, it is rich in its exploration of moral and philosophical matters.

For the title to this review, I have appropriated lines relating to the diplomat who made the anonymous phone call to the American embassy that triggered the four days of the novel. Heretofore, he had conducted himself according to the law that "we are given only one life", and thus he married well, accumulated the nicest material objects available on his side of the Iron Curtain, and even travelled abroad. He is soon to be posted to New York as part of the Soviet Union's delegation to the United Nations. But he has a spiritual and moral crisis of sorts, as a result of which he becomes aware of another law -- "that we are given only one conscience, too." "A life laid down cannot be reclaimed, nor can a ruined conscience." That's just one of the moral/philosophical conundrums Solzhenitsyn explores in this great novel.


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August 1914 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Books Reviews

Outstanding novel. I had previously read the Glenny translation which contains the Soviet sanitized version. This translation, by Willetts, which includes material from Lenin in Zurich, shows what Solzhenitsyn would have written without the censorship. As others reviewers have mentioned this novel follows the initial battles between the Germans and Russian at the start of WWI. While a novel, Solzhenitsyn, in the manner of Tolstoy describing the battle of Borodino, strives for historical accuracy. Descriptions of military leadership machinations will be familiar to anyone who has worked with the US Federal bureaucracy or the military. While the book is fairly long, it moves quickly and while not a light read keeps your interest. I highly recommend this novel as it is among a few that described the descent of the Russian Empire into the failed experiment of Soviet Russia.
"August 1914" kicks off the epic "Red Wheel" as Solzhenitsyn tries to capture the coming of the Russian Revolution in a series of novels. Another man's book is on Solzhenitsyn's mind; how can a Russian novelist write an epic on war and not confront Tolstoy and "War and Peace"? Tolstoy even makes a brief appearance at the start of the book. Solzhenitsyn guides the reader through the disastrous Russian invasion of East Prussia in August 1914 and unveils a number of characters-some real and some imaginary. There are haunting portraits of General Samsanov and Tsar Nicholas II. There are also descriptions of the battle and Solzhenitsyn's background from World War Two help him a great deal; these are some of the greatest battle scenes I have ever read. He guides the reader through the staff headquarters and to the front lines. He also offers unforgettable characters drawn from all of Russian society a well off family at home, young officers connecting with the men, radical students, gentle peasants serving as troops. While his narrative is excellent, Solzhenitsyn is not as strong when he attempts to mimic the "camera eye" used by John Dos Passos in the USA trilogy. Nor does he quite succeed when he lists a number of headlines from the newspapers or offers detailed history in small print. But these are minor flaws that do not take away from the grand epic.

If you are reading the work in English, make sure you use the version translated by H.T. Willetts that was released in 1989 and FSG published the paperback in 2000. This is the translation included in the . This version, unlike the original, contains a scathing look at Lenin as well as a detailed description of the rise and death of Stolypin, the one Russian statesman who may have been able to lead Tsarist Russia through the chaos it would succumb to during the Great War.

Be warned. This is an epic undertaking. The book is almost a 1,000 pages and I advise you keep notes on characters, events and places. This is not a book for everyone. But it is a great epic and, if not up to the level of "War and Peace", "August 1914" is still in the same ballpark. How many other recent novels can we make that claim about?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn burst on the literary scene in 1962 with his short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". It depicted an ordinary day in the life of an ordinary inmate in one of the Siberian labor-camps of the Soviet Gulag. Solzhenitsyn's next major novel was published in 1968 under the title "The First Circle". It was a depiction of life in a "sharashka", which stood at the other end of the spectrum of Gulag prisons. A "sharashka" was the slang name by which inmates referred to the research and development laboratories of the Soviet Gulag labor camp system. Scientists, engineers, and mathematicians sent to the Gulag were, if they were lucky, assigned to a sharashka to work on projects that might prove useful to Stalin in his quest for ironclad security and his war with capitalist imperialism. Compared to the Siberian labor-camp of Ivan Denisovich, a sharashka was cushy; to be sure, it too was part of the Gulag, and the Gulag was hell, but a sharashka was, in Dantean terms, "the first circle of hell".

This 741-page novel covers four days (Dec. 24-27, 1949) in a sharashka in Moscow known as Marfino -- 300 prisoners and 50 guards. The novel begins with a Soviet diplomat making an anonymous phone call to the American embassy to alert it of Soviet espionage focused on the atomic bomb. The embassy's phones are bugged and the phone call is recorded, but the Soviet security service doesn't know who the caller was. So inmate engineers and scientists at the Marfino sharashka are assigned the task of identifying the traitor, as quickly as possible.

In the novel, Solzhenitsyn adds considerable depth and detail to the portrayal of the life of zeks (Gulag inmates) furnished in "Ivan Denisovich". He also uses the book to deliver a scathing critique of the Soviet system -- its ideological absurdities, its bureaucratic infighting and inefficiencies, its dishonesty and hypocrisy, and its cruelty. To top it off, the novel contains a devastatingly mocking and chilling portrait of Josef Stalin (see Chapters 19-23). Solzhenitsyn realized that as originally written, the novel was far too critical of the Soviet Union for it to see the light of day (this was in the mid-60's), so he "self-censored" it, excising nine chapters altogether and revising, or softening, those details sure to be most offensive to Soviet sensibilities. That self-censored version was published in 1968 under the English title "The First Circle", but even as expurgated it was not deemed fit for publication within the Soviet Union (and, indeed, that expurgated version contributed to the decision to expel Solzhenitsyn from the Soviet Union in 1974).

This is the original, unexpurgated novel, in a form that Solzhenitsyn continued to tweak and revise. It has been brilliantly translated by Harry T. Willetts, who worked closely with Solzhenitsyn. Distinguishing it from the truncated version is the initial word "in" in the title. IN THE FIRST CIRCLE is the best Russian novel from the twentieth century that I have so far encountered in my ongoing survey of Russian literature in translation. It is a masterpiece.

Though nominally covering only four days in late 1949, the novel contains the back stories of dozens of characters, stretching back to the days of the Bolshevik Revolution. It is superbly plotted. Its characterizations of about two dozen zeks (and their wives) are sensitive and endearing. In addition to the penetrating critique of the Soviet system and the detailed portrayal of the Gulag, the novel also contains many perceptive observations about human beings in general. It is rich in historical detail. And, in the best tradition of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, it is rich in its exploration of moral and philosophical matters.

For the title to this review, I have appropriated lines relating to the diplomat who made the anonymous phone call to the American embassy that triggered the four days of the novel. Heretofore, he had conducted himself according to the law that "we are given only one life", and thus he married well, accumulated the nicest material objects available on his side of the Iron Curtain, and even travelled abroad. He is soon to be posted to New York as part of the Soviet Union's delegation to the United Nations. But he has a spiritual and moral crisis of sorts, as a result of which he becomes aware of another law -- "that we are given only one conscience, too." "A life laid down cannot be reclaimed, nor can a ruined conscience." That's just one of the moral/philosophical conundrums Solzhenitsyn explores in this great novel.