Solzhenitsyn’s book that changed the world

Legend has it that Aleksandr Tvardovsky, the poet and editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Novy Mir (New World), always read manuscripts submitted to him for publication at night. He would return from his office, eat a light meal, then change into his pyjamas and get into bed surrounded by typescripts. One night in 1960, he picked up a manuscript from the pile and began to read. After a few pages, he paused, rose from his bed and dressed, putting on a collar and tie. The reason was that he believed the book he was reading deserved the greatest respect. And so, formally attired, seated in an armchair, he read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by an unknown author, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.

That momentous event fortunately occurred when Nikita Krushchev was First Secretary of

the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and shortly before he was ousted from power. In 1956 he had made his so-called Secret Speech denouncing Stalin and so a mild thaw in repression and censorship allowed Tvardovsky, with Krushchev's tacit consent, to publish the novel. And so the world became aware of a writer in the great tradition of Russian literature, a giant to stand beside Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. He died on August 3 at the age of 90.

When his first novel was published Solzhenitsyn was in his early forties. He had trained as a mathematician, fought in World War II, and had been sentenced to an eight-year term in a labour camp for criticising Stalin's conduct of the war and for insulting the Generalissimo whom he called, among other things, 'balabos', Odessa Yiddish for 'boss'. He served his sentence