Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Influence On Society

In Alexander Solzhenitysn’s story “Matryona’s Home”, Solzhenitsyn creates a relationship between an out of town visitor, Ignatch and an elderly woman, Matryona. Matryona reluctantly opens up her home to Ignatch, over the course of their housing together they begin to form some sort of a friendship. Ignatch begins to understand Matryona’s way of life that “she illustrates a spirituality that eschews greed and self-interest” (Paloni). Her willingness to help others without expecting anything in return is her main flaw and ends up becoming the death of her. Foreshadowing and irony are used throughout the story to show how society misuses Matryona.

Sofia Petrovna follows the life of Sofia Petrovna, a typist who works at the Leningrad publishing house. After the death of her husband and capture of her son, Sofia goes insane. It’s a type of unhinged that demonstrates itself in mirages minutely dissimilar from the deceits those surrounding her voice to guard themselves. Sofia Petrovna proposes an extraordinary and fundamental account of Stalin's Great Purges through simple fictional story arcs. First, there is the vanishing of seemingly innocent people. Sofia looses several people in her life throughout the duration of the novel with almost no warning or explanation. This provides an effective look into

Throughout historical times, the rule of Josef Stalin has been questioned due to his position as being one of the most popular and contentious leaders. Through the evaluation of his ruling within the Soviet Union, he can be seen as both a positive and negative ruler. His methods of changing the country following World War I were sudden, causing a complete change in societal ways of life in controversial ways. While his changes created one of the most powerful countries the world had ever seen at its’ time, they also caused for massive discontent within the citizens of Soviet Russia.

According to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a Russian novelist, born on December 11, 1918. From an early age, Solzhenitsyn was interested in becoming a writer, and began sending his writings for publication. He received a degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Rostv-na-Donu but had to put his career aside due to World War II. In 1945, Solzhenitsyn was arrest for letters he wrote that criticized Joseph Stalin. This led to him spending eight years in prison and labor camps. Following these events, Solzhenitsyn went on to publish numerous novels: Odin den iz zhizni Ivana Denisovicha (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), V kruge pervom (The First Circle) Rakovy korpus (Cancer Ward) and Arkhipelag Gulag (The Gulag Archipelago). The Gulag Archipelago discusses Solzhenitsyn’s experiences in labor camps and the way the system worked. This led to Solzhenitsyn being brought to court for treason. These works received critical acclaim and he was bestowed with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. In his quote, Solzhenitsyn is saying that human beings are always having internal fights with themselves over good and evil. They always try to overcome one or the other, with most cases being humans try to drive the evil away. No matter how hard human beings try to turn it away, it isn’t possible; humans are inherently evil.

In 1934, the greatest purge in history started in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the Soviet Union, upon the orders of its dictator Joseph Stalin. At first, the purge, later known as the Great Terror, targeted the upper echelons of the Communist party. Some of the greatest revolutionaries in history, including Leon Trotsky, were erased from all records. Either killed or exiled, these enemies of the state would be forgotten within years as books and photographs were ‘fixed’ by the state. Yet, this was not enough for Stalin. By the end of 1939, an estimated twenty million ordinary citizens were killed or sent to gulags, where they would eventually die. Many never committed any real crimes. It is easy to draw parallels between George

The Russian Revolution and the purges of Leninist and Stalinist Russia have spawned a literary output that is as diverse as it is voluminous. Darkness at Noon, a novel detailing the infamous Moscow Show Trials, conducted during the reign of Joseph Stalin is Arthur Koestler’s commentary upon the event that was yet another attempt by Stalin to silence his critics. In the novel, Koestler expounds upon Marxism, and the reason why a movement that had as its aim the “regeneration of mankind, should issue in its enslavement” and how, in spite of its drawbacks, it still held an appeal for intellectuals. It is for this reason that Koestler may have attempted “not to solve but to expose” the shortcomings of this political system and by doing so

It is hard to imagine what living life in constant fear of death and arrest would be like, knowing that any slight slip in actions or speech could result in the end of one’s life as they knew it. Eugenia Ginzburg is an active communist member who finds herself on the wrong side of this situation. Arrested for over exaggerated claims of being a trotskyist terrorist, she is immediately thrust into a spiral of events that will dramatically change her, her ideals, and the entire state of communism. However, while in the prisons and labor camps it is interesting to note how her perceptions of life and reality change, including her affiliation to the state. This naturally begs the question; How do Ginzburg's perceptions of Communism and the Stalinist regime change throughout

Many of Man's struggles are usually the result of societal standards, control, and punishment. These struggles are present in both One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Through setting and internal monologue, both authors depict the effects of the brutalities of communism on Man's spirituality.

Solzhenitsyn envisioned and captured the persona of the Soviet prison labor camp system by describing as a chain of hidden islands amongst the USSR landscape. Solzhenitsyn sees himself lifting the shroud that the Soviet regime tried to hide the gulags behind by telling his story of his time in the gulags. Reading his book gave the reader the sense of reading a forbidden text, something surrounded in secrecy. Solzhenitsyn develops themes throughout the book. These fetid and morbid “islands” would see millions of unfortunate visitors forced to slave away at one of the world’s largest and fastest infrastructure and industrialization builds in the history of mankind perpetuated by the will of Stalin and his secret police the NKVD. In this beautifully and treacherously written story, Alexander Solzhenitsyn goes from his glory filled days as a distinguished officer to just an exhausted instrument of the Soviet state.

Socialism for one country… It was the framework for the political agenda and the political ideology that Joseph Stalin believed in. The culture and atmosphere that filled post revolutionary Russia was one that started with hope, only to be driven further into terror and despair than ever before. Stalin was a master of manipulation, terror, and propaganda, and he used whatever means necessary to further his agenda for over thirty years in Russia. One means of disseminating propaganda was through the use of literature, writers, and the Socialist Realism movement. While the purported intention of Socialist Realism was to free Russian intelligentsia, and writers in particular from their restraints of capitalism, western thinking, and the previous reign of censorship instilled by the Tsarist autocracy. In reality, the era building up to, and then the state mandated law of Socialist Realism and the decades that followed were a movement of propaganda. The intention was to contain the writers of the time period from bearing witness and speaking out against the atrocities the government was committing against it’s people. While literature was used as propaganda by Stalin to further his agenda, it also became a force against him, as writers came out of the shadows to speak against the darkness and oppression of the time period.

The Life of Leon Trotsky Leon Trotsky is well recognised as one of the greatest Marxists that ever lived. After being arrested, sentenced to exile twice and supporting the Mensheviks, Trotsky was deported to New York Citywhere he was to be a peaceful, productive member of society. Following the removal of the Tsar during the Russian Revolution, Trotsky returned to Russia in May 1917. In August 1917, Trotsky joined the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party whose leader was none other than Vladimir Lenin.

At this point, Solzhenitsyn begins his critique of the Western world; his first major point being the West’s “decline in courage” (2). “The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society” (2-3). Solzhenitsyn suggests—years ahead of his time—that the West is growing weary in their opposition of threats to their society, such as the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union. This is what

Finally, Solzhenitsyn's novel expresses one of the most important Christian principles, hope for the future. In Christianity, since Christ paid the price for the sins of the world, there are no lost causes. Christians have faith that Christ will return someday and that there will be a heaven. In the same way, in the midst of the terrible conditions of the prison camp, Shukhov can be pleased at

Revolutions aim to overthrow or change an existing regime and focus on releasing the shackles of oppression that hold them down. In Stalinist Russia those who revolted, or were seen as a threat, would sentenced to imprisonment where there was little to no chance of escape or freedom. Even though the revolutionist may be denied freedom, there is a belief that resonates within; hope. The want for freedom instills hope in individuals who seek to remedy the environment in which they live. Paradoxically, it is the very hope that the individual has that perpetuates the environment of discomfort and pain that drives said individual to leave it. Hope, in its essence, constrains freedom, as seen through Masha during her imprisonment in Vasily Grossman’s

once this was a very silly idea as they would not be able to pull it