One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Introduction by John Bayley

Geschreven bij PMC One Day In Life Ivan Denisovich

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (1953-64) allowed this book to appear in 1962. During the Brezhnev presidency other book manuscripts by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (AS; 1918-2008) were smuggled out. In 1970 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Today, old and new readers must admit this debut is a masterpiece, based on first-hand experience. AS spent 8 years (1945-53) in labour camps and three more in internal exile. He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974.

What landed one in a labour camp for 10 or 25 years? AS himself was accused of criticizing Stalin. In this book, characters hailed from every part of the SU. Their crimes? AS hardly bothers to explain, but paranoia played a key role: a Soviet naval liaison officer aboard a British cruiser for a month during WWII was sent a note of thanks by a British admiral: end of career, 10 years labour camp. Others escaped from German POW-camps and branded traitors and spies. Some committed ‘economic’ or ‘cultural’ crimes. Or were Baptists, who received 25-year sentences for ignoring or challenging the Russian Orthodox church. AS comments: "They shed the hardships of camp life like water off a duck's back." [His main work "The Gulag Archipelago" is a massive study of why millions were whisked away to camps and how they were treated.]

In this awesome book AS depicts a very cold day in a tightly-run camp through the eyes of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. The day starts at 5:00, ends at 23:00 hrs. Food rations depend on 20-man work teams meeting set targets. Collective survival strategies require trust and allegiances, punishment for slackers and traitors, and strategic leadership. They mesh to some degree with personal survival strategies. Work starts at -27 C when 463 ill-fed and -clothed prisoners are searched, counted and walked to work. After noon, a balmy -19 C prompts an almost surreal bout of bricklaying by Shukhov and his team. Read on and shiver. Not a word out of place.

Geschreven bij One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Het boek volgt één dag in het leven van een gevangene in een Russisch strafkamp. Het geeft weer hoe zelfs in een dermate extreme situatie het leven alledaags wordt, en de drang om te overleven de regels bepaalt. Meesterlijk geschreven en aangrijpend.

Geschreven bij One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

boek werd snel bezorgd, en is snel uitgelezen. Een mooi geschreven, meeslepend verhaal