Rekindling the Sparks of the Spirit

In her richly evocative tribute to The Gulag Archipelago, the Russian novelist Lydia Chukovskaya perfectly captured the haunting substance and profound moral significance of one of the greatest books of this, or any other, time. Published in Russian by YMCA Press in Paris on December 28, 1973, and within months appearing in most major languages, this book—an incomparable “experiment in literary investigation” as the author chose to call it—masterfully combined a devastating account of Soviet repression and terror between 1918 and 1956, intermixed with an ample account of Solzhenitsyn’s own experience between 1945 and 1956 in prison, camp, and internal exile, with philosophical reflection of the first order. Throughout, we see the author in search of self-knowledge in a manner that he himself calls Socratic. With his back against the wall, but with endless time to reflect on the truth of the soul and the order of things, this “literary investigation” also provides a profound meditation on “the soul and barbed wire.”