What is the cultural and educational background of the author and how did this background influence the book? In what ways do the events in the books reveal evidence of the author’s world view?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian author, historian and teacher who witnessed the harsh life in Soviet prison labor camps. He spent eight years in those camps. During the war, between 1944 and 1945, Solzhenitsyn had shared his ideology with his school friend Vitkevich, criticizing Stalin but referring to him with other names, like "Khozyain" and "Balabos" (Wikipedia). Nevertheless, Alexandr was arrested. He was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda. He was beaten and interrogated at Lubyanka prison in Moscow, and was sentenced to eight years of hard labor in 1945 (Russiapedia). Spending the next five months at correctional camps near Moscow, he was forced to work on city building projects. In 1946, because of his intelligence and mathematical competence, he was sent to the Scientific Research Institute in Moscow, where he spent four years. In 1950, Solzhenitsyn was sent to yet another camp, Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan, a camp for political prisoners only, to serve the three years remaining in his sentence. There, he would later use his experiences at the camps to write the widely known book,“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”
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Marina,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your blog post! The writing seemed to flow very well and I loved how smoothly you added in a brief summary of the main events of Solzhenitsyn's life and how they might have influenced the book we are currently reading. It was evident that your research was done carefully and that you put in quite a lot of effort into your blog post!
Marina,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your blog post! The writing seemed to flow very well and I loved how smoothly you added in a brief summary of the main events of Solzhenitsyn's life and how they might have influenced the book we are currently reading. It was evident that your research was done carefully and that you put in quite a lot of effort into your blog post!
Marina,
ReplyDeleteI really liked all of the information that you had in your post, it pushed my thinking forward because I learned some things that I have never learned before. I really liked that you did some research to back up your facts. Overall, I thought your post was really good.
Marina,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved your research; it was so detailed. Something specific that I really liked about your post was the last part, giving the examples. Additionally, something that I mentioned in my post as well was that Alexander Solzhenitsyn should have had some kind of life experience that reflected on the One Day in the Life Of Ivan Denisovich character, Ivan. Since, his description of an event was really thorough, for instance the way he described what starving was like or how freezing felt like. Therefore, I can relate to your example, which was well related. Finally, I think your post was very well done and these points could be easily connected.