Themes[edit]
The main themes of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich are authoritative oppression and camp survival. Specifically discussed are the prison officials' cruelty and spite towards their fellow man.[7][7] Solzhenitsyn explains through Ivan Denisovich that everything is managed by the camp commandant to the point that time feels unnoticed;[8][9] the prisoners always have work to do and never have any free time to discuss important issues.
Survival is of the utmost importance to prisoners. Attitude is another crucial factor in survival.[10] Since prisoners are each assigned a grade,[11] it is considered good etiquette to obey.[11][12] This is outlined through the character of Fetiukov, a ministry worker who has let himself into prison and scarcely follows prison etiquette. Another such incident involves Buinovsky, a former naval captain,[13][14] who is punished for defending himself and others during an early morning frisking.
History[edit]
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had first-hand experience in the Gulag system, having been imprisoned from 1945 to 1953[15] for writing derogatory comments in letters to friends about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, whom he referred to by epithets such as "the master" and "the boss".[16][17] Solzhenitsyn claimed the prisoners wept when news of Stalin's death reached them! He uses the epithet "old man whiskers" in his novel, where it is translated as "Old Whiskers"[15][18] or "Old Man Whiskers".[19] This title was considered offensive and derogatory, but prisoners were free to call Stalin whatever they liked:[19] "Somebody in the room was bellowing: 'Old Man Whiskers won't ever let you go! He wouldn't trust his own brother, let alone a bunch of cretins like you!" Drafts of stories found in Solzhenitsyn's map case were used to incriminate him (Frangsmyr, 1993).
In 1957, after being released from the exile that followed his imprisonment, Solzhenitsyn began writing One Day. In 1962, he submitted his manuscript to Novy Mir, a Russian literary magazine.[15] The editor,Aleksandr Tvardovsky, was so impressed with this detailed description of life in the labor camps that he submitted the manuscript to the Communist Party Central Committee for approval to publish it (until then Soviet writers had only been allowed to refer to the camps). From there it was sent to the de-Stalinist Khrushchev,[20] who, despite the objections of some top party members, ultimately authorized its publication with some censorship of the text. After the novel was sent to the editor, Aleksandr Tvardovsky of Novy Mir, it was subsequently published in November 1962.[15][21]
The labour camp described in the book was one that Solzhenitsyn had served some time at, and was located in Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan.[15]
Reception[edit]
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was specifically mentioned in the Nobel Prize presentation speech when the Nobel Committee awarded Solzhenitsyn the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.[1][15][22] Following the publication of One Day... Solzhenitsyn had also written four more books, three in 1963 and a fourth in 1966[15] which cataclysmically led to the controversy of his publications.[15] In 1968, Solzhenitsyn was accused by the Literary Gazette, a Soviet newspaper, of not following Soviet principles. The Gazette's editors also made claims that Solzhenitsyn was opposing the basic principles of the Soviet Union, his style of writing had been controversial with many Soviet literary critics[15] especially with the publication of One Day.... This criticism made by the paper gave rise to further accusations that Solzhenitsyn had turned from a Soviet Russian into a Soviet enemy,[15] therefore he was branded as an enemy of the state, who, according to the Gazette had been supporting non-Soviet ideological stances since 1967,[15] perhaps even longer. He, in addition, was accused of de-Stalinisation. The reviews were particularly damaging. Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union in 1969.[15] He was arrested, then deported in 1974.[15] The novella had sold over 95,000 copies after it was released[3] and throughout the 1960s.
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