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He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970 and was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974.
Born in Kislovodsk, Russia, Solzhenitsyn fought in the Red Army during World War II. He became a captain before he was arrested in 1945 for criticizing Joseph StalinIosif (Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin ( Russian: Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin , original name Ioseb Jughashvili ( Georgian: Russian: Iosif Dzhugashvili see Other names section ( December 21 [ December 9, Old Style], 1879 1 March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik rev in letters to his brother-in-law. He was imprisoned for eight years, from 1945 to 1952Summary of notable events in 1952 . Events January events January 8 West Germany has 8 million refugees inside its borders. January 24 Sudden heavy snowfall in Algeria. January 24 Vincent Massey sworn in as first Canada-born Governor-General of Canada., under the draconian Article 58 law. He spent time in a sharashkaSharashka (sometimes Sharaga or Sharazhka Russian: #x301 was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system. Etymologically, the word sharashka is derived from a Russian slang expression sharashkina, a white-collar prison labor compound. He wrote about this in The First CircleThe First Circle is a novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the title of which is based on a quotation from Dante. It describes three or so days in the life of the Mavrino prison camp along with its occupants, most of whom are scientists or other academics who.
He also spent time at hard manual work in labor camps of the GulagGulag (from the Russian — G lavnoye U pravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lag erey", "The Chief Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps") was the branch of the Soviet internal police and security service that operated the penal system of forced labor camps. system. He wrote about this in One Day in the Life of Ivan DenisovichOne Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, set in a Russian work camp in the 1950s. The novel describes a single day for Ivan Denisovich most commonly referred to as Shukhov . The novel was originally written in Russian, and The Gulag Archipelago.
Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union for his book The Gulag Archipelago. The novel about Ivan Denisovich brought the Soviet system of forced labor to the attention of the West, but it was his monumental history of the massive Soviet concentration camps for both criminal and political prisoners that made it impossible for either the West or the Soviet Union to ignore the realities of the Communist regime. No longer was this an issue for anti-communists only; all Western democracies had to confront it.
In 1974, Solzhenitsyn was exiled, after the KGB had found the manuscript for the first part of " The Gulag Archipelago". He first settled in Zürich, Switzerland, and later in Vermont, USA. In 1990 his Soviet citizenship was restored, and in 1994 he returned to Russia.
Despite an enthusiastic welcome on his first arrival in America, followed by respect for his privacy, he had never been comfortable outside his homeland. However radical he might have been in the USSR, outside that context he appeared to some to be a reactionary, particularly in his Russian nationalism and his religious orthodoxy. At any rate, he was hardly the " Cold War prize" some had thought him.
He is very much considered a radical outsider, as he frequently blames Jews, Georgians, Latvians and other minorities for the mishaps that befell Russia in the 20th century.
In May 1997, Solzhenitsyn was elected full member (academician) of the Russian Academy of Science. In 1997 he established his own prize in literature ($25,000).
Alexander Solzhenitsyn met with President Boris Yeltsin in 1994 and President Vladimir Putin in 2000.