Talk:The Gulag Archipelago
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Why is its Nobel Prize credentials not listed in the article?
Because it wasn't yet published or even known when Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Prize in 1970. The Academy had no idea of the existence of the book, nor had any of his Western publishers. The credentials do stress, however, S' sense of moral and human mission in his writing ("the ethical force with which he has rekindled the priceless heritage of Russian literature")Strausszek August 24, 2006 13:50 (CET)
"Gulag" is the Russian word for prison, and an archipelago is, of course, a chain of islands. The idea behind this is that the Soviet concentration camp system under Lenin and Stalin were like an island of prisons spread all over the Soviet Union.
the acronym is derived from
G GLAVNOE = PRINCIPAL
U UPRAVLENIE RULE for DIRECTORATE
LAG LAGEREI CONCENTRATION CAMP from germ LAGER
ISPRAVITELNO RECTIFY
TRUDOVYKH TRUD = LABOR
as if the point was REFORM WORK
Would anyone be opposed to a mention of two comments that Solzhenitsyn made to Bertrand Russell within this book somewhere in this article? We're looking for a place to put a snippet of important content that got placed into another article that may or may not belong there. Thanks. KC9CQJ 06:05, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Solzh made four comments in total, two to Bertrand Russell, two to Russell Tribunal.--nobs
- If I am following this correctly, I assume you refer to comments made to the spirit of Russell? He had already passed away before those comments were written, and long before they were published. Important content is always welcome, of course, and needs no permission prior to insertion -- providing it is appropriate to the article. 165.247.222.122 02:48, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- That would be correct, following your associated comments at Russell Tribunal. We're trying to figure out where the Solzhenitsyn material should go, whether it should be mentioned at Russell Tribunal, within Bertrand Russell, or within Gulag Archipelago. My comment above was intended to provoke thought and encourage comment. I'd like to see these quotes go somewhere relevant, wherever that may be. KC9CQJ 10:18, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Contents |
[edit] Russell Tribunal
The Gulag Archipelago contains two reference spoken dirently to the Russell War Crimes Tribunal. They belong on the Russell Tribunal page. Any assisitance readers of this page can give on the Russell Talk page will would be appreciated.
- Directly to the Tribunal? The Tribunal had long been disbanded before these comments were published; the Tribunal never saw them. Your statement that these footnotes from The Gulag Archipelago belong on the Russell Tribunal page is incorrect. They add nothing of value to that article. Perhaps you can use them here, in The Gulag Archipelago article, to illustrate Solzhenitsyn's frustration at the lack of similar Tribunals examining the crimes of the Soviet Gulag system. -Rob 16:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Like Bertrand Russell in 1950, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was recognized Nobel Laureate in Literature for 1974 after the The Gulag Archipelago had been published in the West. The following two passages were written contemporaneously to the Russell tribunal proceedings.
English translation (by Harry Willetts, Harper & Row 1976):
"Say there, Bertrand Russell's War Crimes Tribunal! Why don’t you use this bit of material? Or doesn’t it suit you?" Vol. I, Part I, chap. 2, p. 537.
"Attention, Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre, with your War Crimes Tribunal! Attention, philosophers, here's material for you! Why not hold a session? They can't hear me...." Vol. III, Part V, chap. 12, p. 328.
Russian text:
"Эй, "Трибунал Военных Преступлений" Бертрана Рассела! Что же вы, что ж вы материальчик не берете?! Аль вам не подходит?".
"Эй, "Трибунал Военных Преступлений" Бертрана Рассела и Жана Поля Сартра! Эй, философы! Матерьял-то какой! Отчего не заседаете? Не слышат..."
- I would STRONGLY advise any 'concerned' users that nobs is referring to above hold their comments until the Russell Tribunal discussion page is cleaned up and an appropriate Request for comment on the article is issued. Please see User_talk:Kc9cqj/Russell Tribunal for further details. KC9CQJ 05:36, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] NPOV issue
"Tenno declined, and probably for the better. It is Solzhenitsyn's tightly focused, highly emotional prose, which moves this book from point to point smoothly and unifies the work as a whole. The impact of the book is not in any way diminished by translation, a testament to its writer's literary skills."
This seems to be straying from 'pedia style to book review style, advocating the book directly. Is there any documentary support for the statement that the translation doesn't diminish the impact? Who, exactly, thinks that it's better that Tenno declined? -- Vonfraginoff 06:51, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] "Slave Labor Economy"
It says early on that Lenin paved the way for a 'slave labor economy'. This is totally untrue (if you've ever read Lenin).
- Theory expressed in writings is one thing, the reality another. I doubt if Stalin's writings openly promote slavery.--Constanz - Talk 14:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "One third of the population of Leningrad was sent to Gulag"
The sentence removed until sources presented.--Nixer 06:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "Not finished"?
The article claims that the Archipelago was still a work-in-progress when published. I don't think this is true, the book was finished in 1968 - it ends with two brief postscripts dated 1967 and 1968, and after that Solzhenitsyn seems to have regarded it as definitely finished. He had made an effort in 1966-67 to get it finished and also to establish a clear and coherently edited structure and text (not easy when you're writing a book in utter secrecy and can't keep a full script at your house). This finishing-off let him turn to other projects, notably the novel cycle The Red Wheel. He had microfilms of the script smuggled out to his legal representative/agent Dr Heeb in Switzerland, and finally it was published in the West in December, 1973, which in turn triggered Sasha's arrest and banishment.
I've read the work in full and a number of others of S's works, and I think one can also see there are traces of different layers of the working process in it; for example the final chapter of Part 1, Tiurzak, about state prisons, as opposed to camps, seems to have been finished relatively early. Strausszek August 22, 2006 13:25 (CET)
As most people here on the talk page (or who have read the entry closely) seem to be aware, this is not the most brilliant article of Wikipedia. I added some needed corrections and modified the view that this would be the first or only work up to 1974 that exposed the Soviet camp system - there had been many books before, and it's not true at all that most writers in the West saw the purges and the camps as just a Stalin aberration until Sasha came along - though this is a popular idea.
Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) makes about the same claims on Soviet totalitarianism as the latter part of the current article, and Koestler probably comes close too. Of course the view that Solzhenitsyn "proves indisputably" that the GULag system was rooted in the policies and free decisions of Lenin is a POV (I modified that into writing he "sets out to prove" this, still leaves the POV argument clear -edit August 27) but as it is, the viewpoints and perspectives stand inside the article and illuminate the different sides of the work. Strausszek August 23, 2006 21:30 (CET)
[edit] Revision of latter part
I've just revised mainly the latter part, about the influence and, in particular, the circumstances in which the Archipelago was published (new section). There's been a lot of unreliable or fake detail hanging around since this spring, some of it had been cleared out already, like the insane claim that the city censuses of Leningrad in the 1930s became top secret documents because half the population had dropped out (sent to Gulag or killed) by 1939, but the bits about the structure and publication of the book had a lot to do. Sources are Solzhenitsyn's own autobiography and writings by some people who helped him by bringing manuscripts out etc. i've tried reasonably to avoid POVs here. Strausszek August 27, 2006 19:02 (CET)
- Actually, Melanie Ilic of the University of Gloucestershire, in her article "The Great Terror: Leningrad--A Quantitative Analysis," published in Europe-Asia Studies (Vol. 52, No. 8 (Dec., 2000), pp. 1515-1534) discusses the drop-off of the Leningrad population by about a third. In that same article, in passim, she confirms the suppression of the 1937 Leningrad census, ref'd above. The suppression of the '37 census is common knowledge in Soviet studies, and amply documented.--TallulahBelle 01:55, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Book Length
The article claims the book is around 1800 pages long, but editions on amazon are rarly above around 600. Am I to believe these are only sections of the complete work, or there is no complete published edition? Robinoke 15:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
1800 pages is just about correct. The English paperback editions are split as follows:
- Vol. I sections 1-2
- Vol. II sections 3-4
- Vol. III sections 5-7
Each of these around 600 pages. Probably the same with hardcover, since paperbacks most often are reprints of a hardcover edition and have the same paging and typeface. I read the work in the Swedish translation, an excellent one. Strausszek September 2, 2006 22:50 (CET)
- Ah, that explains it. Thanks! Robinoke 12:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
