Problems of anti-humanism and humanism in the life and work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Abstract

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, undoubtedly the greatest Russian writer of today, 'the only living Russian Classic', was born in 1918. In February 1945, as a young captain of the Russian Army, he was arrested by the Soviet armed forces counter-intelligence agency. He was tried for making derogatory comments about Stalin in a letter to a friend. He spent eight years in labor camps and three years in exile. His One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published in Russia in 1962. Two other of his major works The First Circle and Cancer Ward were never published in the Soviet Union. In recent years Solzhenitsyn has openly denounced "the oppression which Russian literature has been enduring from censorship" and he is fighting for basic human liberties for the Russian people. In 1969 he was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers; his works are not published and he lives practically under constant surveillance of Soviet authorities.