Historical Context #3 - Isabel K

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich has a controversial message because of Russia's strict censoring policy. Many of the items in Solzhenitsyn's work were released to the public alarming Russians who were promised absolute efficiency of the system, equality, and the preservation of all basic human rights. Under the Soviet system, and especially under Stalin,there was a great deal of media manipulation. Anything that did not glorify Stalin was erased from public record. This system was distressingly efficient, making almost three generations believe only parts of history Stalin and his followers wanted them to believe. The system included the burning of books, doctoring of pictures and even the jailing of dissenters (King). In One Day In the Life Of Ivan Denisovich, Solzhenitsyn portrays many of these dissenters jailed for their disloyalty to the current government. In order to depict these rebels properly, Solzhenitsyn used many realistic examples of rebellious conduct that Stalin would have detested. 

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Following,One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is controversial because it had not been written through the eyes of an intellectual: Shukhov was poor, uneducated,a peasant, but he could tell a story. Through him the spirit of the Russian man was heard and this was to prove dangerous. In the eyes of the Soviet state Shukhov was a mere peasant. Shukhov could not be destroyed by the legacy of the labor camps because he had encountered the worst of humanity and survived. A reason for it's controversy is because of it's surroundings of the tale, is due to the fact that the figure of Shukhov and his narrative exposed Russia’s betrayal of her own people to the West. Having taken up the peasant’s cause, Solzhenitsyn’s fame increased alongside the weight and import of his work. Fame affected the reception of his work and this was an unavoidable consequence of being published. Solzhenitsyn, like Shukhov had survived the Gulag, but came close to death.

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