INTERVIEW - The Gulag Archipelago, the book that shook communism

2024-02-23T04:21:35.144Z

Highlights: Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 in the USSR, and grew up “believing in communism” He wanted to become a teacher, but his career was interrupted by the Second World War. “This is where the intention and content of “The Gulag Archipelago” will be forged” says Cécile Vaissié. The book first appeared in France in 1973, before being introduced into the Soviet Union where it circulated clandestinely in "samizdat"

Few works in the 20th century have had such an impact as Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. Through a detailed picture of Soviet camps and repressions, Solzhenitsyn damaged the image of communism, which led to his being expelled from the USSR just 50 years ago. Virginie Girod speaks with Cécile Vaissié, university professor of Russian and Soviet studies at the University of Rennes 2. Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 in the USSR, and grew up “believing in communism”. He wanted to become a teacher, but his career was interrupted by the Second World War, during which he was decorated. “Later, his enemies will say that he is a coward, a Nazi collaborator; it is pure defamation” underlines Cécile Vaissié. At the beginning of 1945, the army's political police found criticism of Stalin in one of his private letters. Arrested, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years in prison. “This is where the intention and content of “The Gulag Archipelago” will be forged. He becomes aware of the extent of the Stalinist purges, which were not talked about in the Soviet Union.” Solzhenitsyn undertakes to draw up in three volumes a history of the Soviet repressive system between the October revolution and 1956. This is where the title of the work comes from, underlines Cécile Vaissié: "Solzhenitsyn shows a map from the first pages of the book. We realize that in the immense Soviet Union, we have thousands and thousands of small points: camps, prisons... Like islands. He will describe this myriad of points where we locked up, tortured and even executed millions of Soviets. Solzhenitsyn implicates not only Stalin, but also Lenin, the founding father of the USSR. Which is still inconceivable in Khrushchev's USSR. Thanks to the de-Stalinization that was taking place, Solzhenitsyn managed to have his first novel about the camps officially published in 1962, One Day by Ivan Denisovitch. The publication of The Gulag Archipelago will be much more complicated. The book first appeared in France in 1973, before being introduced into the Soviet Union where it circulated clandestinely in "samizdat", self-publishing under the cloak: "people photographed it, retyped it on the machine or photocopied it " in order to extend its distribution. “It is a book which, when it appeared, changed the Western view of communism and the Soviet Union (...) It is often said that this book contributed to the fall of communism and the French Communist Party, which was the first party in France at the Liberation" recalls Cécile Vaissié. Topics covered: Communism, USSR, The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn