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. 081333294x the Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956 : Three Volume Set
- ISBN10 0813332893
- ISBN13 9780813332895
- Publish Date 30 January 1997 (first published 31 December 1973)
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 12 March 2008
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Inc
- Imprint Westview Press Inc
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 672
- Language English