The Gulag Archipelago is Solzhenitsyns attempt to compile a literary-historical record of the vast system of prisons and labor camps that came into being shortly after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917 and that underwent an enormous expansion during the rule of Stalin from 1924 to 1953. Various sections of the three volumes describe the arrest, interrogation, conviction, transportation, and imprisonment of the Gulags victims by Soviet authorities over four decades. The work mingles historical exposition and Solzhenitsyns own autobiographical accounts with the voluminous personal testimony of other inmates that he collected and committed to memory during his imprisonment.Upon publication of the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn was immediately attacked in the Soviet press. Despite the intense interest in his fate that was shown in the West, he was arrested and charged with treason on February 12, 1974, and was exiled from the Soviet Union the following day.
- ISBN10 0002712652
- ISBN13 9780002712651
- Publish Date 13 March 1986 (first published 24 June 1974)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 15 August 1996
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint The Harvill Press
- Edition Abridged edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 512
- Language English