A Guide to the Gulag: Characters & Context for One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Historical Background

In 1918, the Soviet Union employed the “Gulag” - forced labor camps that grew under Joseph Stalin’s rule during the 1930s. These labor camps were used to sentence alleged Stalin’s political dissidents, practically any individual that was deemed a critic of the Soviet Union, and arrests occurred on a random basis as well (Anne Applebaum, The Gulag: What We Know Now and Why It Matters).

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn between 1959 and 1962, being published in 1962. Exonerated by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956, Solzhenitsyn began to write, inspired by personal experience in a forced labor camp after an arrest for a criticism of Stalin (Wilson Center, Today In History: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is Born). Given the Soviet government’s temporary approval to publish, Solzhenitsyn's novel was the first time the Russian public was able to read about the immorality of the labor camps. Also smuggled to the West, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was praised worldwide for its honest depiction and received the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Synopsis

A Russian soldier serving during World War II, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov (mainly referred to as “Shukhov”), is wrongfully convicted for treason due to being accused of being a German spy after his escape from a German P.O.W. camp, and is thus sentenced to ten years in a labor camp. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich follows Shukhov through his typical day at the camp, beginning at reveille and ending at night.

(warning: there may be spoilers ahead!!)

Brief Overlook

While I struggled a bit with the beginning of the book as I was unfamiliar with Solzhenitsyn’s writing style and the drag of the camp appeared tedious at first, the dull and terrifying routine of gulag life was precisely what the novel encapsulates. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich quickly grew on me with how Solzhenitsyn was able to connect the reader to the the monotony of the prisoners’ life in the gulag: observing their tribulations of struggling to retain their humanity in such a demeaning state of environment and making them personable. Through its drastic contrast, the simple yet direct prose Solzhenitsyn used only emphasizes the degradation of the human spirit.

Characters (I did not include some, as the ones I chose are whose presence were the most memorable for me)

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov “Shukhov” the main character

“Shukhov never overslept. He was always up at the call. That way he had an hour and a half all to himself before work parade - time for a man who knew his way around to earn a bit on the side.” (p. 1)

Tyurin the foreman

“Cheat anybody you liked as long as you didn’t cheat Tyurin, and you’d get by.” (p. 46)

Pavlo the deputy foreman

“‘Didn’t land in the hole, then, Ivan Denisovich? Still among the living?’ (Western Ukrainians never learn. Even in the camps they speak to people politely)...(the deputy foreman was one of his bosses, and more important to Shukhov than the camp commandant.)” (p. 25)

Buynovsky the naval captain

“Taking a squadron of torpedo boats out into a stormy sea in the pitch dark must have been easier for him than leaving his friends’ company for the icy cell block.” (p. 167)

Tsezar the film director

“Tsezar was a mixture of all nationalities. No knowing whether he was Greek, Jew, or gypsy. He was still young. Used to make films, but they’d put him inside before he finished his first picture.” (p. 31)

Alyoshka the Baptist

“What good is freedom to you? If you’re free, your faith will soon be choked by thorns! Be glad you’re in prison. Here you have time to think about your soul. Remember what the Apostle Paul says, ‘What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’” (p. 177-78).

Kildigs the Latvian

“Kildigs could count on a square meal, he got two parcels every month, he had color in his cheeks and didn’t look like a convict at all. He could afford to see the funny side.” (p. 57)

Fetyukov the scrounger

“The scavenger gave a nasty little snigger-half his teeth were missing-and said: ‘Just you wait, Captain, when you’ve been inside eight years, you’ll be doing the same yourself.’” (p. 52)

“Fetyukov passed down the hut, sobbing. He was bent double. His lips were smeared with blood. He must have been beaten up again for licking out bowls. He walked past the whole team without looking at anybody, not trying to hide his tears, climbed onto his bunk, and buried his face in his mattress” (p. 162-63)

A few favorite quotes

“Just think, though - who benefits from all this overfulfillment of norms? The camp does. The camp rakes in thousands extra from a building job and awards prizes to its lieutenants…All you’ll get is an extra two hundred grams of bread in the evening. But your life can depend on those two hundred grams. Two-hundred-gram portions built the Belomor Canal” (pg. 63).

“The black herd of zeks. One of them, in the same sort of jacket as the rest, Shch-311, had never known life without golden epaulettes, had been pals with a British admiral, and here he was hauling a handbarrow with Fetyukov. You can turn a man upside down, inside out, any way you like.” (p. 127)

“For the moment that ladleful means more to him than freedom, more than his whole past life, more than whatever life is left to him.” (p. 137)

Solzhenitsyn’s characters are defined by more than their prisoner status; they are representative of human endurance. In my analysis, I dive into the significance of Solzhenitsyn’s prose and how its “simplicity” is the driving force behind the aspects that make One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich such a stunning literary work.

[CLICK HERE TO READ MY FULL ANALYSIS]