The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

An Experiment in Literary Investigation

De: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Narrado por: Ignat Solzhenitsyn

“BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY.” —Time

“It is impossible to name a book that had a greater effect on the political and moral consciousness of the late twentieth century.” —David Remnick, The New Yorker

The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.

Drawing on his own experiences before, during and after his eleven years of incarceration and exile, on evidence provided by more than 200 fellow prisoners, and on Soviet archives, Solzhenitsyn reveals with torrential narrative and dramatic power the entire apparatus of Soviet repression, the state within the state that once ruled all-powerfully with its creation by Lenin in 1918. Through truly Shakespearean portraits of its victims-this man, that woman, that child-we encounter the secret police operations, the labor camps and prisons, the uprooting or extermination of whole populations, the “welcome” that awaited Russian soldiers who had been German prisoners of war. Yet we also witness astounding moral courage, the incorruptibility with which the occasional individual or a few scattered groups, all defenseless, endured brutality and degradation. And Solzhenitsyn’s genius has transmuted this grisly indictment into a literary miracle.

“The greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever leveled in modern times.” —George F. Kennan

“Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece. . . . The Gulag Archipelago helped create the world we live in today.” —Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History, from the foreword

Amazing

Instant mind blow from beginning to end. Unspeakable horrors, yet we have so much to learn from their stories.

This book should be required reading for all US high schoolers, as I heard it is in much of Russia today.

Americans could learn a lot and save ourselves great suffering if we heed the final words of Solzhenitsyn.

RUN Don't Walk

"The Gulag Archipelago" is more than required reading. It shouldn't even be a question. Read it. Now. There is no more time. We are out of time in the west. Of course, the unabridged option is always preferred, but this unabridged version is spectacular. It doesn't take away from the unabridged volumes. Knowing the Ignat Solzhenitsyn is reading this makes the reader feel closer to Aleksandr. His reading is absolutely spellbinding. Thank you Ignat. Now if some wonderful volunteer, like Ignat, would redo the unabridged audio it would be perfect. But the unabridged versions available now are incredible. We the reader are ecstatic to get what we can get.

To read this is to understand something, be it just in writing, about what it is like in a communist concentration camp. It is not facts, though there are many, it is the all encompassing drama of real human beings that lived it. To read it is to have the upmost respect for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn for his incredibly bravery, heart, and steadfastness in getting this story on paper. And out to all of us. Just in the nick of time as the sun sets on the free west. THANK YOU!!

A necessary work about a terrible reality

This book will repulse you. You will hate to listen to it, but you would hate even more to turn it away. It is a necessary work which gives only a glimpse of the past which so easily could become our future. Listen to it. Hang on every word. Never forget what has happened, and ask yourself why you haven't heard of it before.

History Repeats Itself

One of the greatest works describing a part of history already forgotten. Read , share, learn.

Mandatory reading/listening

Great listen! Ordered the unabridged paperbacks to read chapters left out. America avoid communism!!