Editing Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (section)

=== Later years in the Soviet Union ===
{{quote box | width = 22em | align = right
| quote = Every time when we speak about Solzhenitsyn as the enemy of the Soviet regime, this just happens to coincide with some important [international] events and we postpone the decision.
| source = — [[Andrei Kirilenko (politician)|Andrei Kirilenko]], a [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] member
}}
Solzhenitsyn made an unsuccessful attempt, with the help of Tvardovsky, to have his novel ''Cancer Ward'' legally published in the Soviet Union. This required the approval of the [[USSR Union of Writers|Union of Writers]]. Though some there appreciated it, the work was ultimately denied publication unless it was to be revised and cleaned of suspect statements and [[Anti-Sovietism|anti-Soviet]] insinuations.<ref>{{Citation | title = The Oak and the Calf| title-link = The Oak and the Calf}}</ref>

After Khrushchev's removal in 1964, the cultural climate again became more repressive. Publishing of Solzhenitsyn's work quickly stopped; as a writer, he became a non-person, and, by 1965, the [[KGB]] had seized some of his papers, including the manuscript of [[In the First Circle|''In The First Circle'']]. Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn continued to secretly and feverishly work on the most well-known of his writings, ''The Gulag Archipelago''. The seizing of his novel manuscript first made him desperate and frightened, but gradually he realized that it had set him free from the pretenses and trappings of being an "officially acclaimed" writer, a status which had become familiar but which was becoming increasingly irrelevant.

After the KGB had confiscated Solzhenitsyn's materials in Moscow, in the years 1965 to 1967, the preparatory drafts of ''[[The Gulag Archipelago]]'' were turned into finished typescript in hiding at his friends' homes in [[Soviet Estonia]]. Solzhenitsyn had befriended [[Arnold Susi]], a lawyer and former Minister of Education of [[Estonia]] in a [[Lubyanka Building]] prison cell. After completion, Solzhenitsyn's original handwritten script was kept hidden from the [[KGB]] in Estonia by Arnold Susi's daughter [[Heli Susi]] until the collapse of the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite book|title=Art of the Baltics: The Struggle for Freedom of Artistic Expression Under the Soviets, 1945–1991|last1 =Rosenfeld|first1 =Alla| first2=Norton T | last2 = Dodge|year= 2001 | publisher = Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-3042-0|pages=55, 134 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=r73fmcC5itkC}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| title = Invisible Allies| last = Solzhenitsyn| first = Aleksandr I| year = 1995| publisher = Basic Books| isbn = 978-1-887178-42-6| pages = 46–64| chapter = The Estonians| chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5yYBZ35HPo4C}}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

In 1969, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Union of Writers. In 1970, he was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]]. He could not receive the prize personally in [[Stockholm]] at that time, since he was afraid he would not be let back into the Soviet Union. Instead, it was suggested he should receive the prize in a special ceremony at the Swedish embassy in Moscow.  The Swedish government refused to accept this solution because such a ceremony and the ensuing media coverage might upset the Soviet Union and damage Swedish-Soviet relations. Instead, Solzhenitsyn received his prize at the 1974 ceremony after he had been expelled from the Soviet Union. In 1973, another manuscript written by Solzhenitsyn was confiscated by the KGB after his friend Elizaveta Voronyanskaya was questioned non-stop for five days until she revealed its location, according to a statement by Solzhenitsyn to Western reporters on September 6, 1973. According to Solzhenitsyn, "When she returned home, she hanged herself."<ref>"Woman Kills Self After Telling Police of Solzhenitsyn's Script", ''Los Angeles Times'', by Murray Seeger, September 6, 1973, p. I-1</ref>

''The Gulag Archipelago'' was composed from 1958 to 1967, and has sold over thirty million copies in thirty-five languages. It was a three-volume, seven-part work on the Soviet prison camp system, which drew from Solzhenitsyn's experiences and the testimony of 256<ref>{{citation | title = The Gulag Archipelago | chapter = Ekaterinburg: U-Faktoriia}}</ref> former prisoners and Solzhenitsyn's own research into the history of the Russian penal system.  It discusses the system's origins from the founding of the Communist regime, with [[Vladimir Lenin]] having responsibility, detailing interrogation procedures, prisoner transports, prison camp culture, prisoner uprisings and revolts such as the [[Kengir uprising]], and the practice of internal [[exile]]. [[Soviet and Communist studies]] historian and archival researcher [[Stephen G. Wheatcroft]] wrote that the book was essentially a "literary and political work", and "never claimed to place the camps in a historical or social-scientific quantitative perspective" but that in the case of qualitative estimates, Solzhenitsyn gave his high estimate as he wanted to challenge the Soviet authorities to show that "the scale of the camps was less than this."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wheatcroft|first=Stephen|author-link=Stephen G. Wheatcroft|year=1996|title=The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-German_Soviet.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-German_Soviet.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume=48|issue=8|pages=1330|doi=10.1080/09668139608412415|jstor=152781|quote=When Solzhenitsyn wrote and distributed his Gulag Archipelago it had enormous political significance and greatly increased popular understanding of part of the repression system. But this was a literary and political work; it never claimed to place the camps in a historical or social-scientific quantitative perspective, Solzhenitsyn cited a figure of 12–15 million in the camps. But this was a figure that he hurled at the authorities as a challenge for them to show that the scale of the camps was less than this.}}</ref> Historian [[J. Arch Getty]] wrote of Solzhenitsyn's methodology that "such documentation is methodically unacceptable in other fields of history",<ref>Getty, A. ''Origins of the Great Purges''. Cambridge, N.Y.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, p. 211 {{ISBN?}}</ref> which gives priority to vague hearsay and leads towards selective bias.<ref>Getty, J. Arch (1981). ''Origins of the Great Purges''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 211.</ref> According to journalist [[Anne Applebaum]], who has made extensive research on the Gulag, ''The Gulag Archipelago'''s rich and varied authorial voice, its unique weaving together of personal testimony, philosophical analysis, and historical investigation, and its unrelenting indictment of Communist ideology made it one of the most influential books of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite book | first = Anne | last = Applebaum | year = 2007 | contribution = Foreword | publisher = Harper | series = Perennial Modern Classics | title = The Gulag Archipelago}}</ref>

[[File:RIAN archive 6624 Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Mstislav Rostropovich.jpg|thumb|Solzhenitsyn (right) and his long-time friend [[Mstislav Rostropovich]] (left) at the celebration of Solzhenitsyn's 80th birthday]]
On 8 August 1971, the KGB allegedly attempted to assassinate Solzhenitsyn using an unknown chemical agent (most likely [[ricin]]) with an experimental gel-based delivery method.<ref>{{cite book |title = The First Directorate |last = Kalugin |first = Oleg |year = 1994 |publisher = Diane |page = [https://archive.org/details/firstdirectorate00kalu/page/180 180] |isbn = 978-0-312-11426-8 |url = https://archive.org/details/firstdirectorate00kalu/page/180 }}</ref><ref>{{cite tech report | last = Carus | first = Seth | year = 1998 | title= Bioterrorism and Biocrimes | url = https://fas.org/irp/threat/cbw/carus.pdf | publisher = Federation of American Scientists |page=84 | format = PDF}}</ref> The attempt left him seriously ill, but he survived.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Toxic Politics: The Secret History of the Kremlin's Poison Laboratory – from the Special Cabinet to the Death of Litvinenko |last=Vaksberg |first=Arkadiĭ|date=2011|publisher=Praeger|isbn=978-0-313-38747-0|location=Santa Barbara, Calif|pages=130–131}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book| edition = Rev. and updated| publisher = Ignatius Press| isbn = 978-1-58617-496-5| last = Pearce| first = Joseph| title = Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile| location = San Francisco| date = 2011|page=57}}</ref>

Although ''The Gulag Archipelago'' was not published in the Soviet Union, it was extensively criticized by the Party-controlled Soviet press. An editorial in ''[[Pravda]]'' on 14 January 1974 accused Solzhenitsyn of supporting "Hitlerites" and making "excuses for the crimes of the [[Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia|Vlasovites]] and [[Banderite|Bandera gangs]]." According to the editorial, Solzhenitsyn was "choking with pathological hatred for the country where he was born and grew up, for the socialist system, and for Soviet people."<ref>{{Citation | title = Current Digest of the Soviet Press | volume = 26 | number = 2 | year = 1974 | page = 2}}</ref>

During this period, he was sheltered by the cellist [[Mstislav Rostropovich]], who suffered considerably for his support of Solzhenitsyn and was eventually forced into exile himself.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Morrison|first=S.|date=1 February 2010|title=Rostropovich's Recollections|journal=Music and Letters|language=en|volume=91|issue=1|pages=83–90|doi=10.1093/ml/gcp066|s2cid=191621525|issn=0027-4224}}</ref>