One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich - History

History

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had first-hand experience in the Soviet labor camps called the Gulag, having been imprisoned from 1945 to 1953 for writing a derogatory comment 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". He used the epithet "old man whiskers" in his novel, where it is translated as "Old Whiskers" or "Old Man Whiskers". The name was considered offensive and derogatory; however, prisoners were free to call Stalin whatever they liked "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!"

After being released from the exile that followed his imprisonment, Solzhenitsyn began writing One Day in 1957. In 1962, he submitted his manuscript to Novy Mir, a Russian literary magazine. The editor, Aleksandr Tvardovsky, was so impressed with this detailed description of life in the labor camps, that he submitted the manuscript to the Communist Party Central Committee for approval to publish it, because until then Soviet writers had only been allowed to refer to the camps. From there it was sent to the de-Stalinist Khrushchev, 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 subsequently published in November 1962.

The labour camp described in the book was home to Solzhenitsyn for a while as he served his term, located in Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan.