Facts from the life of A. Solzhenitsyn and the audiobook "One Day in Ivan Denisovich". Solzhenitsyn "One day of Ivan Denisovich" - the history of creation and publication One day of Ivan Denisovich

“One Day of Ivan Denisovich” is a story about a prisoner who describes one day of his life in prison, of which there are three thousand five hundred and sixty-four. Summary - below 🙂

The main character of the work, which takes place over the course of one day, is the peasant Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. On the second day after the start of World War II, he went to the front from his native village Temgenevo, where he left a wife and two daughters. Shukhov still had a son, but he died.

In February one thousand nine hundred and forty-two, on the North-Western Front, a group of soldiers, which included Ivan Denisovich, was surrounded by the enemy. It was impossible to help them; from hunger, the soldiers even had to eat the hooves of dead horses soaked in water. Soon Shukhov fell into German captivity, but he, together with four colleagues, managed to escape from there and get to his own. However, the Soviet submachine gunners killed two former prisoners immediately. One died of wounds, and Ivan Denisovich was sent to the NKVD. As a result of a quick investigation, Shukhov was sent to a concentration camp - after all, every person who was captured by the Germans was considered an enemy spy.

Ivan Denisovich has been serving his sentence for the ninth year. For eight years he was in Ust-Izhma, and now he is in a Siberian camp. Over the years, Shukhov has grown a long beard, and his teeth have become half as many. He is dressed in a quilted jacket, on top of which is a pea jacket belted with a string. Ivan Denisovich has wadded trousers and felt boots on his feet, and under them - two pairs of footcloths. On the trousers, just above the knee, there is a patch on which the camp number is embroidered.

The most important task in the camp is to avoid starvation. The prisoners are fed nasty gruel - a chowder of frozen cabbage and small pieces of fish. If you try, you can get an extra portion of such gruel or another ration of bread.

Some prisoners even receive parcels. One of them was Caesar Markovich (either Jew or Greek) - a man of pleasant oriental appearance with a thick, black mustache. The prisoner's mustache was not shaved off, since without them he would not have matched the photograph attached to the case. Once he wanted to become a director, but he didn't manage to shoot anything - he was jailed. Caesar Markovich lives with memories and behaves like a cultured person. He talks about a "political idea" as an excuse for tyranny, and sometimes publicly scolds Stalin, calling him "the mustache dad." Shukhov sees that there is a freer atmosphere in hard labor than in Ust-Izhma. You can talk about anything without fear that this will increase the term. Caesar Markovich, being a practical person, managed to adapt to a convict life: from the parcels sent to him he knows how to "put in the mouth whoever needs it." Thanks to this, he works as an assistant to the normalizer, which was quite an easy task. Caesar Markovich is not greedy and shares food and tobacco from the parcels with many (especially with those who helped him in any way).

Ivan Denisovich nevertheless understands that Caesar Markovich still does not understand anything about the camp order. Before the "shmon", he does not have time to take the package to the storage room. The cunning Shukhov managed to save the goods sent to Caesar, and he did not remain in debt to him.

Most often, Caesar Markovich shared supplies with his neighbor "on the bedside table" Kavtorang - the sea captain of the second rank Buinovsky. He walked around Europe and along the Northern Sea Route. Once Buinovsky, as a communications captain, even accompanied the English admiral. He was impressed by his high professionalism and after the war he sent a keepsake. Because of this premise, the NKVD decided that Buinovsky was an English spy. Kavtorang is in the camp not so long ago and has not yet lost faith in justice. Despite the habit of commanding people, Cavtorang does not shirk from camp work, for which he is respected by all prisoners.

There is also one in the camp whom no one respects. This is the former clerical chief Fetyukov. He does not know how to do anything at all and is only able to carry a stretcher. Fetyukov does not receive any help from home: his wife left him, after which she immediately married another. The former boss is used to eating enough and therefore begs often. This man has long lost his self-esteem. He is constantly offended, and sometimes even beaten. Fetyukov is not in a position to fight back: "he will wipe himself out, cry and go." Shukhov believes that it is impossible for people like Fetyukov to survive in a camp where you need to be able to position yourself correctly. The preservation of self-esteem is necessary only because without it a person loses the will to live and is unlikely to be able to last until the end of the term.

Ivan Denisovich himself does not receive parcels from home, because in his native village they are already starving. He diligently stretches the ration for the whole day so as not to feel hunger. Shukhov does not shy away from the opportunity to “cut off” an extra piece from his superiors.

On the day described in the story, the prisoners work on the construction of a house. Shukhov does not shy away from work. His foreman, dispossessed Andrei Prokofievich Tyurin, at the end of the day writes out "interest" - an extra bread ration. Work helps the prisoners after getting up not to live in painful anticipation of lights out, but to fill the day with some meaning. The joy brought by physical labor especially supports Ivan Denisovich. He is considered the best foreman in his team. Shukhov intelligently distributes his forces, which helps him not to overexert himself and to work effectively throughout the day. Ivan Denisovich works with passion. He's glad he managed to hide a piece of the saw that can be used to make a small knife. With the help of such a homemade knife, it is easy to make money for bread and tobacco. However, the guards regularly search the prisoners. The knife can be taken away when "shmona"; this fact gives the case a kind of excitement.

One of the prisoners is the sectarian Alyosha, who was imprisoned for his faith. Alyosha the Baptist copied half of the Gospel into a notebook and made a cache for her in the wall crack. Never once during a search of Aleshino's treasure was found. In the camp, he did not lose faith. Alyosha tells everyone that they need to pray for the Lord to remove the evil scale from our hearts. In hard labor, they do not forget about religion, or art, or politics: prisoners worry not only about their daily bread.

Before going to bed, Shukhov sums up the day: he was not put in a punishment cell, he was not sent to work on the construction of Sotsgorodok (in a frosty field), he hid a piece of the saw and did not get caught on the "shmon" tobacco ... It looks like an almost happy day at the camp.

And such days for Ivan Denisovich - three thousand five hundred and sixty-four.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1959) is the first work of A. Solzhenitsyn to be published. It was this story, published in more than one hundred thousand copies in the 11th issue of the Novy Mir magazine in 1962, that brought the author not only all-Union, but in fact world fame. In the magazine version "One Day ..." had the genre designation "story". In the book "Butting a Calf with an Oak" (1967-1975), Solzhenitsyn told that the author was offered to call this work a story ("for weight") in the editorial office of Novy Mir. Later, the writer expressed regret that he had succumbed to external pressure: “I shouldn't have given in. In our country, the boundaries between genres are closing and the devaluation of forms occurs. "Ivan Denisovich" is of course a story, albeit a large, loaded one. "

The significance of A. Solzhenitsyn's work is not only that it opened the previously forbidden theme of repression, set a new level of artistic truth, but also that in many respects (in terms of genre originality, narrative and space-time organization, vocabulary, poetic syntax, rhythm, richness of the text with symbolism, etc.) was deeply innovative. "

"THE STRONGEST IMPRESSION OF LAST DAYS - THE MANUSCRIPT OF A. RYAZANSKY"

The story of the publication of the story was complex. After Khrushchev's speech at the XXII Congress of the CPSU, a typewritten copy of the story on November 10, 1961 was transferred by Solzhenitsyn through Raisa Orlova, the wife of Lev Kopelev's camera friend, to the prose department of Novy Mir, Anna Samoilovna Berzer. The author was not listed on the manuscript; at Kopelev's suggestion, Berser wrote on the cover - “A. Ryazansky "(at the place of residence of the author). On December 8, Berser invited the editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, Alexander Tvardovsky, to familiarize himself with the manuscript. Knowing the tastes of her editor, she said: "The camp through the eyes of a man is a very popular thing." On the night of December 8-9, Tvardovsky read and re-read the story. On December 12, in his workbook, he wrote: "The strongest impression of the last days is the manuscript of A. Ryazansky (Solzhenitsyn) ..."

On December 9, Kopelev sent a telegram to Solzhenitsyn: "Alexander Trifonovich is delighted ...". On December 11, Tvardovsky sent a telegram to Solzhenitsyn to come urgently to the editorial office of Novy Mir. On December 12, Solzhenitsyn arrived in Moscow, met with Tvardovsky and his deputies Kondratovich, Zaks, Dementyev at the editorial office of Novy Mir. Kopelev was also present at the meeting. They decided to call the story the story "One Day in Ivan Denisovich".

But Tvardovsky's desire to publish this thing was not enough. As an experienced Soviet editor, he understood perfectly well that it would not be published without the permission of the supreme power. In December 1961, Tvardovsky gave the manuscript of "Ivan Denisovich" for reading to Chukovsky, Marshak, Fedin, Paustovsky, Ehrenburg. At Tvardovsky's request, they wrote their written reviews of the story. Chukovsky called his review "Literary Miracle". On August 6, 1962, Tvardovsky handed over the letter and the manuscript of "Ivan Denisovich" to Khrushchev's assistant Vladimir Lebedev. In September, Lebedev began to read the story to Khrushchev during his leisure hours. Khrushchev liked the story, and he ordered to provide the Central Committee of the CPSU with 23 copies of "Ivan Denisovich" for the leading figures of the CPSU. On September 15, Lebedev told Tvardovsky that the story was approved by Khrushchev. On October 12, 1962, under pressure from Khrushchev, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee decided to publish the story, and on October 20, Khrushchev announced to Tvardovsky about this Presidium's decision. Later, in his memoir book "Butting a Calf with an Oak", Solzhenitsyn admitted that without the participation of Tvardovsky and Khrushchev, the book "One Day in Ivan Denisovich" would not have been published in the USSR. And the fact that she did come out was another “literary miracle”.

"Shch-854. ONE DAY OF ONE CONSUMER "

In 1950, on some long camp winter day, I was carrying a stretcher with my partner and thought: how to describe our whole camp life? In fact, it is enough to describe just one day in detail, in the smallest details, moreover, the day of the simplest workman, and then our whole life will be reflected. And you don’t even need to whip up any horrors, you don’t need it to be some special day, but an ordinary day, that is the day that makes up the years. I conceived this, and this idea remained in my mind, for nine years I did not touch it, and only in 1959, nine years later, I sat down and wrote. I did not write it for long at all, only forty days, less than a month and a half. It always turns out this way if you write from a dense life, the life of which you know too much, and not that you don’t have to guess at something, try to understand something, but only fight off unnecessary material, just so that the excess does not climb , but to accommodate the most necessary. Yes, the title Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky suggested this, the current title, his own. I had "Shch-854. One day of one prisoner. "

From a radio interview with Alexander SolzhenitsynBBCto the 20th anniversary of the release of "One Day of Ivan Denisovich"

AKHMATOVA ABOUT IVAN DENISOVICH AND SOLZHENITSYN

“He is not afraid of fame. Probably does not know how terrible it is and what it entails. "

"DEAR IVAN DENISOVICH ...!" (LETTERS FROM READERS)

“Dear Comrade Solzhenitsyn!<…>I have read your story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and thank you from the bottom of my heart for Mother Truth.<…>I work in a mine. I drive an electric locomotive with coking coal trolleys. Our coal has a thousand-degree heat. Let this warmth, through my respect, warm you. "

“Dear comrade A. Solzhenitsyn (unfortunately, I don’t know the name and patronymic). Accept from distant Chukotka warm congratulations on your first generally recognized literary success - the publication of the story "One Day in Ivan Denisovich". I read it with extraordinary interest. I am delighted with the originality of the language, the deep, embossed, truthful depiction of all the details of camp life. Your story cleans our souls and consciences for all the iniquities and arbitrariness that were perpetrated during the years of the personality cult.<…>Who am I? Was at the front from the battery commander to the PNSh<помощника начальника штаба.>artillery regiment. Due to his injury in the fall of 1943, he did not return to the front. After the war - at party and Soviet work ... ".

“Dear Alexander Isaevich! I have just read your Story (I am writing with a capital letter). I beg your pardon for the incoherence of the letter, I am not a writer and, probably, not even a very literate person, and your Story so excited me and awakened so many sorrowful memories that I have no time for choosing the style and syllable of the letter. You described one day of one prisoner, Ivan Denisovich, it is clear that this is the day of thousands and hundreds of thousands of the same prisoners, and this day is not so bad. Ivan Denisovich, summing up the results of the day, is at least satisfied. But such frosty days, when, for divorce, on watch, the day-watchmen take the dead from the barracks and put them in a pile (but there were also those that did not bring the dead at once, but received rations for them for several days), and we, unfortunate prisoners, 58- I, enveloped in all sorts of imaginable and inconceivable rags, stood in the ranks of five, waited for the withdrawal from the zone, and the accordionist, providing the EHF events<культурно-воспитательной части.>, plays "Katyusha". The shouts of the contractors "I'll put my clothes on in cans, but you will go to work" and so on, so on, so forth. Then 7-8 km into the forest, the harvesting rate is 5 cbm ... ".

“Despite all the horror of this ordinary day<…>it does not even contain one percent of those terrible, inhuman crimes that I saw after spending more than 10 years in the camps. I was a witness when 3,000 "orgsils" (as the prisoners were called) entered the mine in the fall, and by the spring, i.e. after 3-4 months, 200 people remained alive. Shukhov slept on a lining, on a mattress, although filled with sawdust, while we slept on bogs in the rain. And when they pulled up the tents with holes, they made bunks out of uncouth poles for themselves, laid down the needles and so, wet, in everything they went to work, went to bed. In the morning, a neighbor on the left or on the right refused the “Stalinist ration” forever ... ”.

“Dear… (I almost wrote: Ivan Denisovich; unfortunately, I don’t know your name and patronymic) dear writer Solzhenitsyn! I am writing to you because I cannot resist writing. Today I read your story in a magazine and am shocked. Moreover, I am happy. I am happy that such an amazing thing has been written and printed. She is irresistible. She confirms with tremendous power the great truth about the incompatibility of art and lies. After the appearance of such a story, in my opinion, any writer will be ashamed to pour pink water. And no scoundrel can whitewash the irreplaceable. I am convinced that millions of readers will read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich with the deepest gratitude to the author. "

Still from the film "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (1970)

The peasant and front-line soldier Ivan Denisovich Shukhov turned out to be a "state criminal", a "spy" and ended up in one of the Stalinist camps, like millions of Soviet people, convicted without fault during the "personality cult" and mass repressions. He left home on June 23, 1941, on the second day after the start of the war with Nazi Germany, “... in February 1942, their entire army was surrounded on the North-Western [front], and they did not throw anything from the planes, and there were no planes either. We got to the point where they planted the hooves from the horses that had died, soaked that cornea in water and ate, ”that is, the command of the Red Army abandoned its soldiers to perish in the encirclement. Together with a group of fighters, Shukhov ended up in German captivity, fled from the Germans and miraculously reached his own. A careless story about how he was in captivity led him to a Soviet concentration camp, since the state security organs indiscriminately considered all those who escaped from captivity as spies and saboteurs.

The second part of Shukhov's memories and reflections during the long camp work and short rest in the barrack relates to his life in the village. From the fact that his relatives do not send him food (he himself, in a letter to his wife, refused parcels), we understand that in the village there is no less hunger than in the camp. The wife writes to Shukhov that the collective farmers make their living by painting fake carpets and selling them to the townspeople.

Flashbacks and random information about life outside the barbed wire aside, the entire story takes exactly one day. In this short period of time, a panorama of camp life unfolds before us, a kind of "encyclopedia" of life in the camp.

Firstly, a whole gallery of social types and at the same time vivid human characters: Caesar is a metropolitan intellectual, a former filmmaker, who, however, in the camp also leads a "lordly" life in comparison with Shukhov: he receives food parcels, enjoys certain privileges during work ; Kavtorang - repressed naval officer; an old convict who was still in tsarist prisons and hard labor (the old revolutionary guard, who did not find a common language with the policy of Bolshevism in the 30s); Estonians and Latvians - the so-called "bourgeois nationalists"; Baptist Alyosha - the spokesman for the thoughts and way of life of a very heterogeneous religious Russia; Gopchik is a sixteen-year-old teenager whose fate shows that the repression did not distinguish between children and adults. And Shukhov himself is a typical representative of the Russian peasantry with his special business acumen and organic mindset. Against the background of these people who suffered from repression, a figure of a different kind emerges - the head of the Volkov regime, who regulates the life of prisoners and, as it were, symbolizes the ruthless communist regime.

Secondly, a detailed picture of the camp life and work. Life in the camp remains life with its visible and invisible passions and subtlest experiences. They are mainly related to the problem of getting food. They feed little and poorly creepy gruel with frozen cabbage and small fish. A kind of art of life in the camp is to get yourself an extra ration of bread and an extra bowl of gruel, and if you're lucky - some tobacco. For this one has to go to the greatest tricks, currying favor with "authorities" like Caesar and others. At the same time, it is important to preserve your human dignity, not to become a "degraded" beggar, as, for example, Fetyukov (however, there are few of them in the camp). This is important not even out of lofty considerations, but out of necessity: a “degraded” person loses the will to live and necessarily perishes. Thus, the question of preserving the human image in oneself becomes a question of survival. The second vital issue is the attitude towards bonded labor. Prisoners, especially in winter, work hunting, almost competing with each other and the brigade with the brigade, in order not to freeze and in a peculiar way "shorten" the time from sleeping to sleeping, from feeding to feeding. It is on this incentive that the terrible system of collective labor is built. But it nevertheless does not completely destroy the natural joy of physical labor in people: the scene of the construction of a house by the brigade where Shukhov works is one of the most inspired in the story. The ability to work "correctly" (without overstraining, but also without shirking), as well as the ability to get yourself extra rations, is also a high art. As well as the ability to hide from the eyes of the guards a piece of saw that has turned up, from which the camp craftsmen make miniature knives to exchange for food, tobacco, warm clothes ... In relation to the guards who constantly carry out "shmons", Shukhov and the rest of the Prisoners are in the position of wild animals : they should be more cunning and dexterous than armed people who have the right to punish them and even shoot them for retreating from the camp regime. To deceive the guards and the camp authorities is also a high art.

The day the hero narrates about was, in his own opinion, successful - “they didn’t put in a punishment cell, the brigade wasn’t kicked out on Sotsgorodok (work in a bare field in winter - editor's note), at lunchtime he cooked porridge (got an extra portion - Ed.), the foreman closed the interest well (the system for evaluating camp labor - ed.), Shukhov laid the wall cheerfully, he didn’t get caught with a hacksaw, did some work at Caesar’s evening and bought tobacco. And he didn't get sick, he got over it. A day passed, unclouded by anything, almost happy. There were three thousand six hundred fifty-three such days in his period from bell to bell. Because of leap years - three extra days were added ... "

At the end of the story, a short dictionary of thieves' expressions and specific camp terms and abbreviations that are found in the text is given.

Retold

"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (its name was originally "Shch-854") is the first work of A. Solzhenitsyn, which was published and brought the author world fame. According to literary critics and historians, it influenced the entire course of the history of the USSR in subsequent years. The author defines his work as a story, however, according to the decision of the editorial board when published in Novy Mir, "for weight" it was called a story. We invite you to read a short retelling of it. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is definitely a work worthy of your attention. Its main character is a soldier in the past, and now a Soviet prisoner.

Morning

The action of the work covers only one day. Both the work itself and the short retelling presented in this article are devoted to its description. "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" begins as follows.

Shukhov Ivan Denisovich wakes up at 5 o'clock in the morning. He is in Siberia, in a camp for political prisoners. Today Ivan Denisovich is not feeling well. He wants to stay in bed longer. However, the guard, a Tatar, discovers him there and sends him to wash the floor in the guardhouse. Nevertheless, Shukhov is glad that he managed to escape the punishment cell. He goes to the paramedic Vdovushkin to get a release from work. Vdovushkin measures his temperature and reports that it is low. Shukhov then goes to the dining room. Here prisoner Fetyukov kept breakfast for him. Taking it, he again goes to the barracks to hide the rations in the mattress until the roll call.

Roll call, outfit incident (recap)

Solzhenitsyn ("One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich") is further interested in the organizational moments in the camp. Shukhov and other prisoners are sent to the roll call. Our hero buys a pack of tobacco, which is sold by a man nicknamed Caesar. This prisoner is an intellectual from the capital who lives well in the camp, since he receives food parcels from home. Volkov, a brutal lieutenant, sends the guards to find an extra one from the prisoners. She is found at Buinovsky, who was in the camp for only 3 months. Buinovsky is sent to a punishment cell for 10 days.

Letter from Shukhov's wife

The column of prisoners finally leaves for work, accompanied by guards with machine guns. On the way, Shukhov reflects on his wife's letters. Our brief retelling continues with their content. One day of Ivan Denisovich, described by the author, does not in vain include memories of letters. Probably Shukhov thinks about them very often. His wife writes that those who have returned from the war do not want to go to the collective farm, all young people go to work either at the factory or in the city. The peasants do not strive to stay on the collective farm. Many of them trade by stenciling carpets, and this brings good income. Shukhov's wife hopes that her husband will return from the camp and will also engage in this "trade", and finally they will live richly.

The main character's squad works half-heartedly that day. Ivan Denisovich can rest. He takes out the bread hidden in his coat.

Reflection on how Ivan Denisovich ended up in prison

Shukhov reflects on how he ended up in prison. Ivan Denisovich went to war on June 23, 1941. And already in February 1942 he was surrounded. Shukhov was a prisoner of war. He miraculously fled from the Germans and with great difficulty made it to his own. However, due to a careless story about his misadventures, he ended up in a Soviet concentration camp. Now for the security forces Shukhov is a saboteur and a spy.

Dinner

So our brief retelling has come to the description of lunch time. One day of Ivan Denisovich, described by the author, is typical in many ways. And now it is time for dinner, and the whole detachment leaves for the dining room. Our hero is lucky - he gets an extra bowl of food (oatmeal). Caesar and another prisoner argue in the camp about Eisenstein's films. Tyurin talks about his fate. Ivan Denisovich smokes a cigarette with tobacco, which he took from two Estonians. After that, the squad starts to work.

Social types, description of labor and camp life

The author (his photo is presented above) presents the reader with a whole gallery of social types. In particular, he talks about Kavtoranga, who was a naval officer and managed to visit the prisons of the tsarist regime. Other prisoners - Gopchik (a 16-year-old teenager), Alyosha the Baptist, Volkov - a cruel and merciless boss who regulates the life of prisoners.

A description of labor and life in the camp is also presented in the work describing the 1st day of Ivan Denisovich. A brief retelling cannot be composed without saying a few words about them. All human thoughts are focused on getting food. They feed very little and poorly. They give, for example, gruel with small fish and frozen cabbage. The art of living here is to get an extra bowl of porridge or rations.

In the camp, collective work is based on shortening the time from one meal to another as much as possible. In addition, in order not to freeze, you should move. You need to be able to work correctly so as not to overwork. However, even in such difficult conditions of the camp, people do not lose their natural joy from the perfect work. We see this, for example, in the scene when the team is building a house. In order to survive, you have to be more agile, more cunning, smarter than the guards.

Evening

A short retelling of the story "One Day in Ivan Denisovich" is already coming to an end. Prisoners are returning from work. After the evening roll call, Ivan Denisovich smokes cigarettes, and also treats Caesar. He, in turn, gives the main character some sugar, two cookies and a piece of sausage. Ivan Denisovich eats sausage, and gives one cookie to Alyosha. He reads the Bible and wants to convince Shukhov that consolation should be sought in religion. However, Ivan Denisovich cannot find it in the Bible. He just goes back to his bed and before going to bed thinks that this day can be called successful. He still has 3653 days to live in the camp. This concludes the brief retelling. We described one day of Ivan Denisovich, but, of course, our story cannot be compared with the original work. Solzhenitsyn's skill is undeniable.

Almost a third of the prison camp term - from August 1950 to February 1953 - Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn served in the Ekibastuz special camp in the north of Kazakhstan. There, in general work, and on a long winter day, the idea of ​​a story about one day of one prisoner flashed across. “It was just such a camp day, hard work, I was carrying a stretcher with my partner and thought how to describe the whole camp world - in one day,” the author said in a TV interview with Nikita Struve (March 1976). - Of course, you can describe your ten years of the camp, there is the whole history of the camps - but it is enough to collect everything in one day, as if in fragments, it is enough to describe only one day of one average, unremarkable person from morning to evening. And everything will be. "

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The story "One Day in Ivan Denisovich" [see. on our website its full text, summary and literary analysis] was written in Ryazan, where Solzhenitsyn settled in June 1957 and from the new academic year became a teacher of physics and astronomy at secondary school No. 2. Started May 18, 1959, completed 30 June. The work took less than a month and a half. “It always turns out this way if you write from a dense life, the life of which you know too much, and not that you don’t have to guess at something, try to understand something, but only fight off unnecessary material, just so that unnecessary fit, but to accommodate the most necessary, "- said the author in a radio interview for the BBC (June 8, 1982), which was conducted by Barry Holland.

While composing in the camp, Solzhenitsyn, in order to keep what he wrote in secret and with himself, first memorized some verses, and at the end of the term, dialogues in prose and even solid prose. In exile, and then rehabilitated, he could work without destroying passage after passage, but he still had to hide in order to avoid a new arrest. After being typed on a typewriter, the manuscript was burned. The manuscript of the camp story was also burned. And since the typescript had to be hidden, the text was printed on both sides of the sheet, without margins and without spaces between lines.

Only more than two years later, after a sudden and violent attack on Stalin, undertaken by his successor N. S. Khrushchev at the XXII Party Congress (October 17 - 31, 1961), A. S. ventured to offer the story to the press. "Cave typing" (out of caution - without the name of the author) November 10, 1961 was transferred by R.D. Orlova, the wife of A.S.'s prison friend, Lev Kopelev, to the prose department of the Novy Mir magazine, Anna Samoilovna Berzer. The typists rewrote the original, Anna Samoilovna, who came to the editorial office of Lev Kopelev, asked what to name the author, and Kopelev suggested a pseudonym for his place of residence - A. Ryazansky.

On December 8, 1961, as soon as the editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky, appeared in the editorial office after a month's absence, A. S. Berzer asked him to read two difficult-to-pass manuscripts. One did not need a special recommendation, even if she had heard about the author: it was the story of Lydia Chukovskaya "Sofya Petrovna". About the other, Anna Samoilovna said: "The camp through the eyes of a peasant is a very popular thing." It was her that Tvardovsky took with him until morning. On the night of December 8-9, he reads and rereads the story. In the morning, through a chain, he calls up to the same Kopelev, asks about the author, finds out his address and a day later calls him to Moscow by telegram. On December 11, the day of his 43rd birthday, A. S. received this telegram: "I ask you to urgently come to the editorial office of the new world zpt, the costs will be paid = Tvardovsky." And Kopelev already on December 9 telegraphed to Ryazan: "Alexander Trifonovich is delighted with the article" (this is how the former prisoners agreed to encrypt the unsafe story among themselves). For himself, Tvardovsky wrote in his workbook on December 12: "The strongest impression of the last days is the manuscript of A. Ryazansky (Solonzhitsyn), whom I will meet today." Tvardovsky recorded the real surname of the author from voice.

On December 12, Tvardovsky received Solzhenitsyn, summoning the entire head of the editorial board to meet and talk with him. “Tvardovsky warned me,” notes A.S., “that he does not firmly promise the publication (Lord, I was glad that they didn’t give it to the ChKGB!), And he will not give a time limit, but he will not spare the effort.” The editor-in-chief immediately ordered to conclude a contract with the author, as noted by A. S ... "at the highest rate they have accepted (one advance is my two-year salary)." Teaching AS earned then "sixty rubles a month."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One day of Ivan Denisovich. Read by the author. Fragment

The original titles of the story are "Ш-854", "One day of one prisoner". The final title was composed by the editorial staff of Novy Mir on the first visit of the author at the insistence of Tvardovsky, "transferring assumptions over the table with the participation of Kopelev."

In accordance with all the rules of Soviet apparatus games, Tvardovsky began to gradually prepare a multi-move combination in order to ultimately enlist the support of the country's chief apparatchik Khrushchev - the only person who could authorize the publication of the camp story. At Tvardovsky's request, written reviews about "Ivan Denisovich" were written by K. I. Chukovsky (his note was called "Literary Miracle"), S. Ya. Marshak, K. G. Paustovsky, K. M. Simonov ... a short preface to the story and a letter addressed to the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers NS Khrushchev. On August 6, 1962, after nine months of editorial labor, the manuscript of One Day in Ivan Denisovich with a letter from Tvardovsky was sent to Khrushchev's assistant, V.S.

Tvardovsky wrote:

“Dear Nikita Sergeevich!

I would not consider it possible to encroach on your time in a private literary business, if not for this truly exceptional case.

We are talking about the amazingly talented story of A. Solzhenitsyn "One Day in Ivan Denisovich". The name of this author has never been known to anyone, but tomorrow it may become one of the remarkable names of our literature.

This is not only my deep conviction. The voices of other prominent writers and critics, who had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with it in the manuscript, join the unanimous appreciation of this rare literary find by my co-editors for the Novy Mir magazine, including K. Fedin.

But due to the unusual life material covered in the story, I feel an urgent need for your advice and approval.

In a word, dear Nikita Sergeevich, if you find the opportunity to pay attention to this manuscript, I will be happy, as if it were my own work ”.

In parallel with the progress of the story through the supreme labyrinths, the journal went on a routine work with the author on the manuscript. On July 23, a discussion of the story took place at the editorial board. A member of the editorial board, soon the closest employee of Tvardovsky, Vladimir Lakshin, wrote in his diary:

“This is the first time I see Solzhenitsyn. This is a man of about forty, ugly, in a summer suit - canvas trousers and a shirt with an open collar. The appearance is rustic, the eyes are set deep. There is a scar on the forehead. Calm, restrained, but not embarrassed. Speaks well, fluently, clearly, with an exceptional sense of dignity. Laughs openly, showing two rows of large teeth.

Tvardovsky invited him - in the most delicate form, unobtrusively - to think about the remarks of Lebedev and Chernoutsan [an employee of the CPSU Central Committee, to whom Tvardovsky gave Solzhenitsyn's manuscript]. For example, add righteous indignation to the kavtorang, remove the shade of sympathy for the Banderaites, give someone from the camp authorities (at least a warden) in more conciliatory, restrained tones, not all the villains were there.

Dementyev [deputy editor-in-chief of Novy Mir] spoke about the same in a sharper, more straightforward manner. Yaro stood up for Eisenstein, his "Battleship Potemkin". He said that even from an artistic point of view, he was not satisfied with the pages of the conversation with the Baptist. However, it is not the art that confuses him, but the same fears keep him. Dementyev also said (I objected to this) that it is important for the author to think about how the former prisoners who remained staunch communists after the camp would accept his story.

This hurt Solzhenitsyn. He replied that he had not thought about such a special category of readers and did not want to think about. “There is a book, and there is me. Maybe I think about the reader, but this is a reader in general, and not different categories ... Then, all these people were not in common jobs. They, according to their qualifications or former position, usually got a job in the commandant's office, at the bread slicer, etc. And you can understand the position of Ivan Denisovich only by working in general jobs, that is, knowing this from the inside. Even if I were in the same camp, but watched it from the outside, I would not write this. I would not write, I would not understand what kind of salvation is work ... "

There was a dispute about the place of the story, where the author directly speaks about the position of the kavtorang, that he - a finely feeling, thinking person - should turn into a stupid animal. And here Solzhenitsyn did not concede: “This is the most important thing. Anyone who does not become dull in the camp, does not coarse his feelings - dies. I myself was saved only by that. I am scared now to look at the photograph as I came out of there: then I was older than now, about fifteen years old, and I was stupid, clumsy, thought worked awkwardly. And only because of that I was saved. If, as an intellectual, I was inwardly rushing about, getting nervous, experiencing everything that happened, I would surely die. "

In the course of the conversation, Tvardovsky inadvertently mentioned a red pencil, which at the last minute could delete this or that from the story. Solzhenitsyn was alarmed and asked to explain what this meant. Can the editors or censors remove something without showing him the text? “The wholeness of this thing is dearer to me than printing it,” he said.

Solzhenitsyn carefully wrote down all comments and suggestions. He said that he divides them into three categories: those with whom he can agree, even thinks that they are beneficial; those that he will think about are difficult for him; and finally, the impossible - those with whom he does not want to see the thing printed.

Tvardovsky proposed his amendments timidly, almost embarrassedly, and when Solzhenitsyn took the floor, he looked at him with love and immediately agreed if the author's objections were substantiated. "

A.S. also wrote about the same discussion:

“The main thing that Lebedev demanded was to remove all those places in which the Cavto rank appeared to be a comic figure (by Ivan Denisovich's standards), as it was conceived, and to emphasize the Cavto rank's partisanship (you must have a“ positive hero ”!). This seemed to me the least of the casualties. I removed the comic, leaving as if “heroic”, but “insufficiently disclosed,” as critics later found. The protest of the kavtorang at the divorce was now a little swollen (the idea was that the protest was ridiculous), but this, perhaps, did not disturb the picture of the camp. Then it was necessary to use the word "ass" less often to the escorts, I reduced it from seven to three; less often - "bastard" and "bastards" about the authorities (I had a lot); and so that at least not the author, but the Cavto rank would condemn the Banderaites (I gave this phrase to the Cavto rank, but later I threw it out in a separate edition: it was natural for the Cavto rank, but they were too heavily reviled without that). Also, to give the prisoners some kind of hope for freedom (but I could not do that). And, the funniest thing for me, a hater of Stalin, - at least once it was required to name Stalin as the culprit of disasters. (And indeed - he was never mentioned by anyone in the story! It was no coincidence, of course, I succeeded: I saw the Soviet regime, not Stalin alone.) I made this concession: I mentioned the "mustache dad" once ... ".

On September 15, Lebedev told Tvardovsky by phone that “Solzhenitsyn (“ One Day ”) was approved by N [ikita] S [ergeevi] than,” and that in the next few days the chief would invite him for a conversation. However, Khrushchev himself considered it necessary to enlist the support of the party elite. The decision to publish "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" was made on October 12, 1962 at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee under pressure from Khrushchev. And only on October 20 did he receive Tvardovsky in order to report the favorable result of his troubles. About the story itself, Khrushchev remarked: “Yes, the material is unusual, but, I will say, both the style and the language are unusual - it did not suddenly go off. Well, I think the thing is strong, very. And it does not cause, despite such material, feelings of heavy, although there is a lot of bitterness. "

After reading “One Day in Ivan Denisovich” even before publication, in typescript, Anna Akhmatova, who described in “ Requiem"The grief of the" hundred million people "on this side of the prison locks, with pressure she uttered:" This story is about to be read and learned by heart - every citizen out of all two hundred million citizens of the Soviet Union. "

The story, for the sake of weight, named by the editors in the subtitle of the story, was published in the journal Novy Mir (1962, No. 11. P. 8 - 74; signed to print on November 3; a signal copy was delivered to the editor-in-chief on the evening of November 15; according to Vladimir Lakshin's testimony, mailing started on November 17; in the evening of November 19, about 2,000 copies were brought to the Kremlin for the participants in the plenum of the Central Committee) with A. Tvardovsky's note "Instead of a preface." Circulation 96,900 copies. (by permission of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 25,000 were printed additionally). Republished in "Roman-Gazeta" (Moscow: GIHL, 1963. No. 1/277. 47 p. 700,000 copies) and a book (Moscow: Soviet writer, 1963. 144 p. 100,000 copies). On June 11, 1963, Vladimir Lakshin wrote: “Solzhenitsyn presented me with the hastily released“ Soviet Writer ”,“ One Day… ”. The publication is really shameful: a gloomy, colorless cover, gray paper. Aleksandr Isaevich jokes: "They released it in the edition of the GULAG."

Cover of the publication "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" in Roman-Gazeta, 1963

“In order for her [story] to be published in the Soviet Union, it was necessary to have a combination of incredible circumstances and exceptional personalities,” A. Solzhenitsyn noted in a radio interview dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the publication of “One Day in Ivan Denisovich” for the BBC (June 8, 1982 G.). - It is absolutely clear: if it were not for Tvardovsky as the editor-in-chief of the magazine, no, this story would not have been published. But I will add. And if it had not been for Khrushchev at that moment, it would not have been published either. More: if Khrushchev had not attacked Stalin one more time at this very moment, it would not have been published either. The publication of my story in the Soviet Union, in the 62nd year, is like a phenomenon against physical laws, as if, for example, objects began to rise from the ground upward by themselves, or cold stones themselves began to heat up, heat up to fire. It’s impossible, it’s completely impossible. The system was designed this way, and for 45 years it has not released anything - and suddenly there is such a breakthrough. Yes, and Tvardovsky, and Khrushchev, and the moment - all had to come together. Of course, I could later send it abroad and publish it, but now, according to the reaction of the Western socialists, it is clear: if it were published in the West, these very socialists would say: everything is a lie, nothing of this happened, and there were no camps, and there was no destruction, nothing. It was only because everyone was deprived of their languages ​​because it was published with the permission of the Central Committee in Moscow, and this shocked ”.

“If this had not happened [submission of the manuscript to Novy Mir and publication at home], something else would have happened, and worse,” wrote A. Solzhenitsyn fifteen years earlier. , as it was already prepared. I didn’t know that in the most successful version, if it was published and noticed in the West, even a hundredth part of that influence could not have happened ”.

The author's return to work on The Gulag Archipelago is connected with the publication of One Day in Ivan Denisovich. “Even before Ivan Denisovich, I had conceived the Archipelago,” Solzhenitsyn said in a CBS television interview (June 17, 1974) conducted by Walter Cronkite. , and in time how it happened. But my personal experience and the experience of my comrades, no matter how much I asked about the camps, all the fates, all the episodes, all the stories, were not enough for such a thing. And when “Ivan Denisovich” was published, letters to me exploded from all over Russia, and in the letters people wrote what they experienced, what they had. Or they insisted to meet with me and tell me, and I started dating. Everyone asked me, the author of the first camp story, to write more, more, to describe this whole camp world. They did not know my plan and did not know how much I had already written, but they carried and brought me the missing material. " “And so I collected indescribable material, which in the Soviet Union and cannot be collected, - only thanks to“ Ivan Denisovich ”, - summed up A. S. in a radio interview for the BBC on June 8, 1982 - So he became like a pedestal for the "GULAG Archipelago" ".

In December 1963, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was nominated for the Lenin Prize by the editorial board of Novy Mir and the Central State Archives of Literature and Art. According to Pravda (February 19, 1964), selected "for further discussion." Then included in the list for the secret ballot. I did not receive the award. Oles Gonchar for the novel "Tronka" and Vasily Peskov for the book "Steps on the dew" ("Pravda", April 22, 1964) became laureates in the field of literature, journalism and publicism. “Even then, in April 1964, it was rumored in Moscow that this story with the voting was a“ rehearsal for a putsch ”against Nikita: will the apparatus succeed or fail to withdraw the book approved by itself? For 40 years, they have never dared to do this. But now they got bold - and they succeeded. This encouraged them that He Himself is not strong either. "

From the second half of the 60s, "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" was withdrawn from circulation in the USSR along with other publications of A.S. The Glavlit Order No. 10 of February 14, 1974, specially dedicated to Solzhenitsyn, lists the issues of the Novy Mir magazine with the writer's works to be withdrawn from public libraries (No. 11, 1962; No. 1, 7, 1963; No. 1, 1966) and separate editions of One Day in Ivan Denisovich, including a translation into Estonian and a book “For the Blind”. The order is provided with a note: "Foreign publications (including newspapers and magazines) with the works of the specified author are also subject to seizure." The ban was lifted by a note from the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU dated December 31, 1988.

Since 1990 "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" has been published again at home.

Foreign feature film based on "One Day in Ivan Denisovich"

In 1971, an Anglo-Norwegian film was shot based on One Day in Ivan Denisovich (directed by Casper Wrede, with Tom Courtney in the role of Shukhov). For the first time, A. Solzhenitsyn was able to watch it only in 1974. Speaking on French television (March 9, 1976), when asked by the host about this film, he replied:

“I must say that the directors and actors of this film approached the task very honestly, and with great penetration, they themselves did not experience it, did not survive, but they were able to guess this nagging mood and were able to convey this slow pace that fills the life of such a prisoner 10 years, sometimes 25, if, as often happens, he does not die sooner. Well, very small reproaches can be made to the design, this is mostly where the Western imagination simply can no longer imagine the details of such a life. For example, for our eye, for mine, or if my friends could see it, ex-convicts (will they ever see this film?) - for our eye the quilted jackets are too clean, not torn; then, almost all the actors, in general, are dense men, and after all, there in the camp people are on the very brink of death, they have sunken cheeks, they no longer have the strength. According to the film, it is so warm in the barracks that a Latvian with bare legs and hands is sitting there - this is impossible, you will freeze. Well, these are minor remarks, but in general, I must say, I am amazed how the filmmakers could understand this way and sincerely tried to convey our suffering to the Western audience. "

The day described in the story falls on January 1951.

Based on materials from the works of Vladimir Radzishevsky.