The Gulag Archipelago: Solzhenitsyn takes his biggest risk – archive, 1973
28 December 1973: Perhaps the most politically dangerous of all his books is to be published in Paris today in a Russian edition
November 2022
From the Guardian archive
Life under Stalin: Solzhenitsyn’s story a hit in Russia – archive, 1962
26 November 1962: First published in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich sells out within minutes of appearing on newsstands
June 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 novels told in a single day
From James Joyce and Virginia Woolf to Nicholson Baker, the ‘circadian novel’ can pack lifetimes of experience into 24 hours
May 2021
Nobel archives reveal judges’ safety fears for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Swedish Academy documents reveal debate over naming the dissident writer the 1970 literature laureate, four years before his exile from the Soviet Union
October 2020
From the Guardian archive
Archive, 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wins the Nobel Prize in Literature
9 October 1970: Possibility that if the writer leaves Russia to collect his prize, he might never be allowed in again
November 2019
Top 10s
Top 10 eyewitness accounts of 20th-century history
These stories of a tumultuous era bring to life its intimate passions and accidents as well as its overwhelming scale
December 2018
Books blog
My one day in the life of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Long after he was freed from the gulag, the Russian novelist lived in wilful austerity. As a centenary tribute, could I follow his routines for 24 hours?
October 2017
Happiness is a salty potato – and other life lessons from Russian literature
A look back
From the Observer archive: this week in 1970
August 2017
Solzhenitsyn's Russian Revolution epic to be published in English
First complete translation announced of dissident’s multi-volume historical novel The Red Wheel – his ‘life’s mission’ – after anonymous donor funds project
February 2016
Top 10s
Top 10 books about cancer
Treatment of this cruel disease has advanced hugely in recent years, but writers from Philip Roth to Christopher Hitchens show the awful human cost it still exacts
June 2014
New East network
Why both the left and right have got it wrong on Ukraine – Žižek
There's a historical irony in watching Ukrainians tearing down Lenin’s statues as a sign of their will to break with Soviet domination, says Slavoj Žižek
December 2013
Russian court to review £335m fine given to Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Court's move may cut jail term imposed on fellow Yukos owner Platon Lebedev, who was also sentenced to 10 years in prison
October 2013
Nobel literature prize: odds slashed on Jon Fosse following surge in bets
'Bigger than average' punts on 100/1 Norwegian author forces bookies to suspend betting, writes Liz Bury
August 2013
National Archives: cabinet papers from 1983 – in brief
Cabinet memos, from the Falklands war laser weapon to inky thumbs for Sinn Féin and panda pandering in China
February 2013
From the Guardian archive
From the archive, 13 February 1974: Alexander Solzhenitsyn's arrest causes uproar in literary circles
Originally published in the Guardian on 13 February 1974: "The time has come to make Moscow a literary ghetto," says Graham Greene
June 2012
The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin by Stephen F Cohen – review
10 of the best
John Mullan's 10 of the best: dates in titles
December 2011
Apricot Jam and Other Stories by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – review
A disappointing collection of short works by Solzhenitsyn finds the old dissident by turns nostalgic and doctrinaire, writes Adam Mars-Jones
November 2011
Apricot Jam and Other Stories by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - review
Solzhenitsyn's late stories remind us of his range. By Michael Nicholson
