Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

In 1973, he married Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova, a mathematician. The couple had three sons who are all US citizens.

Solzhenitsyn’s adopted son, Demitri Turin died on March 18, 1994.

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, Russia, on December 11, 1918.

His father, Isaakiy Solzhenitsyn died before he was born. Solzhenitsyn was brought up by his widowed mother, Taisiya Solzhenitsyn in Russian Orthodox faith.

Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics at Rostov State University. Simultaneously, he took correspondence courses from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History.

In 1945, he was involved in major action in World War II and served as a commander of a sound-ranging battery in the Red Army.

On February 1945, Solzhenitsyn was arrested for writing insulting comments in private letters to a friend about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin.

In 1962, Solzhenitsyn’s first major novel ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ was published in the ‘Novyi Mir’ magazine.

In 1964, Nikita Krushchev fell from power and Solzhenitsyn’s works were intensely criticized. By 1965, he became a non-person and his manuscripts were seized.

However, his international reputation was unflagging and foreign publications released his ‘The First Circle’ (1968) and ‘Cancer Ward’ (1968).

His first historical novel, ‘August, 1914’ was also published outside the Soviet Union in the year 1971.

In December 1973, the first parts of ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ were published in installments in Paris.

‘The Gulag Archipelago’ (1973) is Solzhenitsyn’s most important work and has sold over thirty million copies in thirty-five languages. The same work led to his exile from the Soviet Union.

His ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ (1962), an account of the Stalinist repression, appeared on the ‘Independent’ newspaper's poll of the Top 100 books. The book also formed a part of school curriculum in the Soviet Union.