My favorite book

One day of one muggle

Aleksandr first thought about writing this novel during serving his sentence in one of the gulags during 1950s in Kazakhstan. First version of the book was published in 1961 but it was banned for very long time and it's author Solzhenitsyn was deported from Russia. He could return back to his home in 1994 after the change of political regime.

Picure of the book - One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich

This book really hit me in the spot. We live in the time when most of us have everything we need to live but we are still not happy with it. Prisoner Shukhov was wrongfully sentenced for many years of hard work but he is still looking for light in the darkness. He does not have a lot but he is happy with what he got and for the small things which can make his life better. Tobacco, piece of cloth to repair his clothes, extra meal for small favor he did for his inmate etc. I think we are often forgeting that we live in a very good times and that history can easily repeat. Times described in this book didn't happen very long time ago. It was times of our grandparents and yet, it seems like we did not learn anything.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian writer, prominent Soviet dissident and outspoken critic of communism. He helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, particularly the Gulag system.

Solzhenitsyn served in Soviet army as a commander and was arrested by Soviets in 1945 for antisoviet propaganda when he mentioned Stalin in several private letters adressed to his friend Nikolai Vitkevich. Under Article 58, paragraph 10 Soviets sentenced him for eight years, which he served in different labour camps. Article 58 was most used sentence at the time and was used for political prisoners

Later he was expeled from Soviet union into any capitalist country willing to take him. He lived in West Germany and USA and many years later, when it was possible, he returned back to Russia.

Picture of the author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

More books by Solzhenitsyn

Cancer Ward

One of the great allegorical masterpieces of world literature, Cancer Ward is both a deeply compassionate study of people facing terminal illness and a brilliant dissection of the “cancerous” Soviet police state.

The Gulag Archipelago

Gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society

In the First Circle

Set in Moscow during a three-day period in December 1949, 'The First Circle' is the story of the prisoner Gleb Nerzhin, a brilliant mathematician.

August 1914

August 1914 is the first volume of Solzhenitsyn's epic, The Red Wheel; the second is November 1916. Each of the subsequent volumes will concentrate on another critical moment or "knot," in the history of the Revolution.

Matryona's House and Other Stories

A new edition of the Russian Nobelist's collection of novellas, short stories, and prose poems Stories and Prose Poems collects twenty-two works of wide-ranging style and character from the Nobel Prize-winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose shorter pieces showcase the extraordinary mastery of language that places him among the greatest Russian prose writers of the twentieth century.

"If you are cold, do not expect any sympathy from someone who is hot."