See also: Archipelago (homonymy)

the Gulag Archipelago (in Russian АрхипелагГУЛаг), probably one of the most famous and outstanding books of its time, draft of the communist prison system set up in the Soviet Union. It is a work (or literary test of investigation as Soljenitsyne said it) in three volumes writes by Alexandre Soljenitsyne starting from testimonys of prisoners as well as its own experience of the camps. It is published in 1973.

Gulag ( G lavnoe or pravlenie ispravitelno-trudovykh Lag erei , or principal Direction of the camps of work ) is a Acronyme used by the Soviet administration to indicate camps of forced labors. The term “archipelago” is used to illustrate the multiplication of the camps and their diffusion in all the country, like a whole of known small islands only of those condemned to populate them, to build them or to connect them. That also referred to Gulag de Solovki, creates in 1923 on the small islands of the sea Mourmansk, by 65° of Northern lattitude.

Soljenitsyne began the drafting of its book in secrecy, after the end of its imprisonment to the Gulag as political prisoner, then made it publish abroad in 1973 after the KGB had confiscated a copy of its manuscript. Soljenitsyne hesitated a long time as for the relevance of this publication, the secret police precipitated its decision.

“the tightened heart, I abstained from, of the years during, to publish this book whereas it was already ready: the duty towards the alive ones weighed heavier than the duty towards deaths. But now that, in any event, the safety of State seized this book, it anything else remains me to make only publish it without delay. ”

The stories told in details in the Gulag Archipelago point out the unjust imprisonments of the enemies of the system, the prostitutes, the criminals, ordinary citizens raids to spread terror and blind obedience in front of the totalitarian administration. Soljenitsyne describes Procès baclés and played in advance, the transport of the prisoners, the mode of oppression going up with the absorption of part of the sedentary apparatus Tsar ist by the Bolchéviques carried out by Lénine to maintain the revolution during the civil war and which intensified under Stalin until in 1956 at totalitarian ends.

External bond

• the original text, available on line:
• Volume I^er
• Volume II^nd
• Volume III^ème