Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Solzhenitsyn in 1974
Born	Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-12-11)11 December 1918 Kislovodsk, Russian SFSR
Died	3 August 2008(2008-08-03) (aged 89) Moscow, Russia
Occupation	Novelist essayist
Ethnicity	Russian-Ukrainian
Citizenship	Soviet Russia (1918–1922) Soviet Union (1922–1974) Stateless (1974–1990) Soviet Union (1990–1991) Russia (1991–2008)
Alma mater	Rostov State University
Notable works	One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich The First Circle Cancer Ward The Gulag Archipelago Two Hundred Years Together The Red Wheel
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Literature (1970) Templeton Prize (1983) Lomonosov Gold Medal (1998) State Prize of the Russian Federation (2007) International Botev Prize (2008)
Spouse	Natalia Alekseyevna Reshetovskaya (married 1940–52 and 1957–72) Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova (married 1973–2008, his death)
Children	Yermolai Solzhenitsyn (born 1970) Ignat Solzhenitsyn (born 1972) Stepan Solzhenitsyn (born 1973) (all with Natalia Svetlova)
Website
www.solzhenitsyn.ru

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (/ˌsoʊlʒəˈniːtsɪn, ˌsɔːl-/;Russian: Алекса́ндр Иса́евич Солжени́цын, pronounced [ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɪˈsaɪvʲɪtɕ səlʐɨˈnʲitsɨn]; 11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) (often Romanized to Alexandr or Alexander) was a Russian novelist, historian, and short story writer. He was an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union and communism and helped to raise global awareness of its Gulag forced labor camp system. He was allowed to publish only one work in the Soviet Union, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), in the periodical Novy Mir. After this he had to publish in the West, most notably Cancer Ward (1968), August 1914 (1971), and The Gulag Archipelago (1973). Solzhenitsyn was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature". Solzhenitsyn was afraid to go to to receive his award for fear that he would not be allowed to reenter. He was eventually expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974, but returned to Russia in 1994 after the state's dissolution.