One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a story by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, originally published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir. It is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, and describes a single day for an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Its appearance was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history - never before had such an account of Stalinist repression been openly distributed. The editor, Alexander Tvardovsky, wrote a short introduction for the issue, titled "Instead of a Foreword," to prepare the journal's readers for what they were about to experience.
At least four English translations have been made. Of those, the 1963 Signet translation by Ralph Parker was the first to be released and remains the easiest to find, followed by the 1963 Bantam (Random House) translation by Ronald Hingley and Max Hayward. The 1970 translation by Gillon Aitken was released as a movie tie-in. The fourth translation, the only one authorized by Solzhenitsyn, was done in 1991 by H.T. Willetts and is generally considered to be the best[citation needed]. Some names differ among the translations; those below are from the Bantam translation.
Plot Summary
Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet gulag system, accused of becoming a spy after being captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II. He is innocent, but is nonetheless punished by the government for being a spy. His sentence is for ten years, but the book indicates that most people never leave the camps. The final paragraph suggests that Shukhov serves exactly ten years – no more and no less – but whether this is merely Shukhov's hope is left for the reader to decide.
The day begins with Shukhov waking up sick. For waking late, he is sent to the guardhouse and forced to clean it – a minor punishment compared to others mentioned in the book. When Shukhov is finally able to leave the guardhouse, he goes to the dispensary to report his illness. Since it is late in the morning by now, the orderly is unable to exempt any more workers and Shukhov must work regardless.
The rest of the day mainly speaks of Shukhov's squad (the 104th, which has 24 members), their allegiance to the squad leader, and the work that the prisoners (zeks) do – for example, at a brutal construction site where the cold freezes the mortar used for bricklaying if not applied quickly enough. Solzhenitsyn also details the methods used by the prisoners for survival; the whole camp lives by the rule of survival of the fittest. Shukhov is one of the hardest workers in the squad and is generally well respected. Rations at the camp are scant, but for Shukhov they are one of the few things to live for. He conserves the food that he receives and is always watchful for any item that he can hide and trade for food at a later date.
At the end of the day, Shukhov is able to provide a few special services for Tsezar (Caesar), an intellectual who is able to get out of manual labor and do office work instead. Tsezar is most notable, however, for receiving packages of food from his family. Shukhov is able to get a considerable share of Tsezar's packages by standing in lines for him. Shukhov's day ends up being productive, even happy: "Shukhov went to sleep fully content. He'd had many strokes of luck that day." (139).
Those in the camps found everyday life a challenge. For example, one rule states that if the thermometer reaches -41 degrees, then the workers are exempt from outdoor labor that day – anything above that was considered bearable. The reader is reminded in passing through Shukov's matter-of-fact thoughts of the harshness of the conditions, worsened by the inadequate bedding and clothing. The boots assigned to the zeks rarely fit, for example, and the thin mittens issued were easily ripped.
The prisoners were assigned numbers for easy identification and in an effort to dehumanize them. Each day the squad leader would receive their assignment of the day and the squad would then be fed according to how they performed. Prisoners in each squad were thus forced to work together and to pressure each other to get their work done. If any prisoner was slacking, the whole squad would be punished. Despite this, Solzhenitsyn shows that a surprising loyalty could exist among the work gang members, with Shukov teaming up with other prisoners to steal felt and extra bowls of soup; even the squad leader defies the authorities by tar papering over the windows at their work site. Indeed, only through such solidarity can the prisoners do anything more than survive from day to day.
Focused on his own survival, Shukhov dedicates himself entirely to every action, taking pleasure in each act he commits. In this manner he finds a sort of happiness, which contrasts with his hellish surroundings. Another man, Alyoshka, takes his pleasure from God, saying that he'd actually rather be in the camps where he can read the Bible and pray than outside the camps where he would not be free to worship as he pleased.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn had first-hand experience in the Soviet prison system. He was imprisoned in the gulag from 1945 to 1953, allegedly for insulting Stalin by calling him "Old Whiskers" in a letter to one of his friends. The novel's understated style (such as Shukhov's oddly normal-sounding interior narration) against the actual horrors of the camp combine to make the book a thorough indictment of Stalin's prisons and the system that sustained them.
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