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Author | Eli Schechtman |
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Original title | Yiddish: אפן שיידוועג |
Language | Yiddish |
Publisher | Melukhe-farlag fun Ukraine |
Publication date | 1930 |
Publication place | Soviet Union |
Afn_Sheidveg (Yiddish: אפן שיידוועג) first published in November 19333 in the Soviet literary magazine The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s and describes a single day in the life of ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.
Translations
editAt least five English translations have been made. Of those, Ralph Parker's translation (New York: Dutton, 1963) was the first to be published,[1][2] followed by Ronald Hingley and Max Hayward's (New York: Praeger, 1963), Bela Von Block's (New York: Lancer 1963), and Gillon Aitken's (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1971). The fifth translation, by H.T. Willetts (New York: Noonday/Farrar Straus Giroux, 1991), is the only one that is based on the canonical Russian text[3] and the only one authorized by Solzhenitsyn.[4] The English spelling of some character names differs slightly among the translations.
Plot
editunknown
Main characters
editThe story have 5 person
- 1
- 2
Themes
editThe main themes
History
editOne Day is a sparse, tersely written narrative of a single day of the ten-year labor camp imprisonment of a fictitious Soviet prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.[5] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had first-hand experience in the Gulag system, having been imprisoned from 1945 to 1953[6] for writing derogatory comments in letters to friends about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, whom he referred to by epithets such as "the master" and "the boss".[7][8] Drafts of stories found in Solzhenitsyn's map case had been used to incriminate him (Frangsmyr, 1993). Solzhenitsyn claimed the prisoners wept when news of Stalin's death reached them. He uses the epithet batka usaty (Russian: батька усатый) in his novel, which translates to "Old Whiskers"[6][9] or "Old Man Whiskers".[10] This title was considered offensive and derogatory, but prisoners were free to call Stalin whatever they liked:[10] "Somebody in the room was bellowing: 'Old Man Whiskers won't ever let you go! He wouldn't trust his own brother, let alone a bunch of cretins like you!"
In 1957, after being released from the exile that followed his imprisonment, Solzhenitsyn began writing One Day. In 1962, he submitted his manuscript to Novy Mir, a Russian literary magazine.[6] The editor, Aleksandr Tvardovsky, was so impressed with the detailed description of life in the labor camps that he submitted the manuscript to the Communist Party Central Committee for approval to publish it--until then Soviet writers had not been allowed to refer to the camps. From there it was sent to the de-Stalinist Nikita Khrushchev,[11] who, despite the objections of some top party members, ultimately authorized its publication with some censorship of the text. After the novel was sent to the editor, Aleksandr Tvardovsky of Novy Mir, it was published in November 1962.[6][12]
The labor camp described in the book was one that Solzhenitsyn had served some time at, and was located in Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan.[6]
Reception
editOne Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was specifically mentioned in the Nobel Prize presentation speech when the Nobel Committee awarded Solzhenitsyn the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.[13][6][14] Following the publication of One Day... Solzhenitsyn wrote four more books, three in 1963 and a fourth in 1966[6] which cataclysmically led to the controversy of his publications.[6] In 1968, Solzhenitsyn was accused by the Literary Gazette, a Soviet newspaper, of not following Soviet principles. The Gazette's editors also made claims that Solzhenitsyn was opposing the basic principles of the Soviet Union, his style of writing had been controversial with many Soviet literary critics[6] especially with the publication of One Day ... . This criticism made by the paper gave rise to further accusations that Solzhenitsyn had turned from a Soviet Russian into a Soviet enemy,[6] therefore he was branded as an enemy of the state, who, according to the Gazette, had been supporting non-Soviet ideological stances since 1967,[6] perhaps even longer. He, in addition, was accused of de-Stalinisation. The reviews were particularly damaging. Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union in 1969.[6] He was arrested, then deported in 1974.[6] The novella had sold over 95,000 copies after it was released[2] and throughout the 1960s. While Solzhenitsyn and his work were originally received negatively, under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, the book's mass publication was allowed in order to undermine the influence of Josef Stalin on the Soviet Union. However, critics of this action argue that this action unleashed liberalization that would cause the publication of more radical works and eventually the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[15]
Influence
editOften considered the most powerful indictment of the USSR's gulag ever made. It appeared on the Independent newspaper's poll of the Top 100 books, which surveyed more than 25,000 people.
Vitaly Korotich declared: "The Soviet Union was destroyed by information - and this wave started from Solzhenitsyn's One Day".[16]
Film
editA one-hour dramatization for television, made for NBC in 1963, starred Jason Robards Jr. in the title role and was broadcast on November 8, 1963. A 1970 film adaptation based on the novella starred British actor Tom Courtenay in the title role. Finland banned the film from public view,[17] fearing that it could hurt external relations with its eastern neighbor.[18]
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963. (Penguin Books ; 2053) 0816
- ^ a b Salisbury 1963.
- ^ Klimoff 1997
- ^ One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux. 1991. pp. backcover. ISBN 978-0-00-271607-9.
- ^ Mckie, Andrew (2011). "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich". Nurse Education Today. 31 (6): 539–540. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2011.04.004. PMID 21546138 – via sciencedirect.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Parker translation, p. 2 of introduction
- ^ Moody, Christopher J. (1973). Solzhenitsyn. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-05-002600-7.
- ^ Scammell, Michael (1986). Solzhenitsyn. London: Paladin. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-586-08538-7.
- ^ Parker translation, p. 126. In a footnote, Parker says this refers to Stalin.
- ^ a b Willetts translation, p. 139
- ^ "Soviet dissident writer Solzhenitsyn dies at 89". Reuters. August 3, 2008.
- ^ John Bayley's introduction and the chronology in the Knopf edition of the Willetts translation.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Britannica
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1970 Presentation Speech" by Karl Ragnar Gierow. The Nobel citation is "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did not personally receive the Prize until 1974 after he had been deported from the Soviet Union.
- ^ Rosenberg, Steve (2012-11-20). "The book which shook the Soviet Union". BBC News.
- ^ Rosenberg, Steve (19 November 2012). "Solzhenitsyn's One Day: The book that shook the USSR". BBC. Moscow. Retrieved 19 November 2012.
- ^ One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1963) at IMDb
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1970) at IMDb - ^ "Mass Media". Finland: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress. 1988.
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Sources
edit- Feuer, Kathryn (Ed). Solzhenitsyn: A collection of Critical Essays. (1976). Spectrum Books, ISBN 0-13-822619-9
- Moody, Christopher. Solzhenitsyn. (1973). Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh ISBN 0-05-002600-3
- Labedz, Leopold. Solzhenitsyn: A documentary record. (1970). Penguin ISBN 0-14-003395-5
- Scammell, Michael. Solzhenitsyn. (1986). Paladin. ISBN 0-586-08538-6
- Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. Invisible Allies. (Translated by Alexis Klimoff and Michael Nicholson). (1995). The Harvill Press ISBN 1-86046-259-6
- Grazzini, Giovanni. Solzhenitsyn. (Translated by Eric Mosbacher) (1971). Michael Joseph, ISBN 0-7181-1068-4
- Burg, David; Feifer, George. Solzhenitsyn: A Biography. (1972). ISBN 0-340-16593-6
- Medvedev, Zhores. 10 Years After Ivan Denisovich. (1973). Knopf, ISBN 0394490266
- Rothberg, Abraham. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Major Novels. (1971). Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-0668-4
- Klimoff, Alexis (1997). One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: A Critical Companion. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-8101-1214-8.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) (preview) - Salisbury, Harrison E. (January 22, 1963). "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (review)". New York Times.
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(help)(registration required) - Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr (1980). The Oak and the Calf: Sketches of Literary Life in the Soviet Union. Harry Willetts (trans.). New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-014014-4.. In the early chapters, Solzhenitsyn describes how One Day came to be written and published.
- Nobel Lectures, Literature 1968-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993.
- Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr (1995). One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. H. T. Willetts (trans.), John Bayley (intro.). New York: Knopf, Everyman's Library. ISBN 978-0-679-44464-0.
- Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr (2000). One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Ralph Parker (trans. and intro.). Penguin Modern Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-118474-6.
External links
edit- Text of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich translated by H.T. Willets (in English)
- Text of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (in Russian)
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1970) at IMDb
- Audiobook (in Russian)