The First Circle
 |
|
| Author | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn |
|---|---|
| Original title | В круге первом |
| Translator | H. T. Willetts |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Language | Russian |
| Genre | semi-autobiographical novel |
| Publisher | Harper Perennial (Eng. edition) |
|
Publication date
|
2009 |
| Media type | Print Paperback) |
| Pages | 741 pp. |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 37011369 |
| 891.73/44 21 | |
| LC Class | PG3488.O4 V23 1997 |
In the First Circle (Russian: В круге первом, V kruge pervom; also published as The First Circle) is a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn released in 1968. A more complete version of the book was published in English in 2009.
The novel depicts the lives of the occupants of a sharashka (a research and development bureau made of gulag inmates) located in the Moscow suburbs. This novel is highly autobiographical. Many of the prisoners (zeks) are technicians or academics who have been arrested under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code in Joseph Stalin's purges following the Second World War. Unlike inhabitants of other gulag labor camps, the sharashka zeks were adequately fed and enjoy good working conditions; however, if they found disfavor with the authorities, they could be instantly shipped to Siberia.
The title is an allusion to Dante's first circle of Hell in The Divine Comedy, wherein the philosophers of Greece, and other non-Christians, live in a walled green garden. They are unable to enter Heaven, as they were born before Christ, but enjoy a small space of relative freedom in the heart of Hell.
Innokentii Volodin, a diplomat, makes a telephone call he feels obliged by conscience to make, even though he knows he could be arrested. His call is taped and the NKVD seek to identify who has made the call.
The sharashka prisoners, or zeks, work on technical projects to assist state security agencies and generally pander to Stalin's increasing paranoia. While most are aware of how much better off they are than "regular" gulag prisoners (some of them having come from gulags themselves), some are also conscious of the overwhelming moral dilemma of working to aid a system that is the cause of so much suffering. As Lev Rubin is given the task of identifying the voice in the recorded phone call, he examines printed spectrographs of the voice and compares them with recordings of Volodin and five other suspects. He narrows it down to Volodin and one other suspect, both of whom are arrested.
...
Wikipedia