Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Isayevich (Isaakievich) Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer, playwright, publicist, poet, and public and political figure who lived and worked in the USSR, Switzerland, the United States, and Russia. A dissident who, for several decades (the 1960s–1980s), actively spoke out against communist ideas, the political system of the USSR, and the policies of its authorities.

In addition to fictional literary works, which usually addressed pressing sociopolitical issues, he gained wide recognition for his literary and journalistic works on the history of Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries.

1918 — born in Kislovodsk on December 11
1936 — graduated from school in Rostov-on-Don, entered the physics and mathematics faculty of Rostov University
1939 — enrolled in the external program of the art history faculty of the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History (MIFLI)
1941 — received a diploma with honors from the physics and mathematics faculty of Rostov University
1941–1945 — served in the army, rising from private to captain
1945 — arrested at the front in East Prussia on February 9; sentenced on July 7
1953 — sent “for life” into exile in the aul of Kok-Terek, Jambyl Region, Kazakh SSR
1953–1956 — taught mathematics and physics at the secondary school in Kok-Terek;
treated in the Tashkent “cancer ward”
1956 — in April the exile under Article 58 was lifted; in June he leaves for Russia
1956–1957 — taught at the Mezhenovskaya secondary school in Vladimir Oblast
1957 — on February 6 rehabilitated by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR
1957–1962 — taught in Ryazan, at School No. 2
1959 — wrote “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in May–June
1961 — in November the story was taken to Tvardovsky’s Novy Mir
1962 — “One Day...” was published in the November issue of Novy Mir
1963 — the stories “