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Reception

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was specifically mentioned in the Nobel Prize presentation speech when the Nobel Committee awarded Solzhenitsyn the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.^[1][15][21] With the publication of One Day Solzhenitsyn had also written four more books, three in 1963 and a fourth in 1966^[15] which cataclysmically led to the controversy of his publications.^[15] In 1968 Solzhenitsyn was accused by the Literary Gazette, a Soviet newspaper, of not following Soviet principles. The Gazette's editors also made claims that Solzhenitsyn was opposing the basic principles of the Soviet Union, his style of writing had been controversial with many Soviet literary critics^[15] especially with the publication of "One Day...". This criticism made by the paper gave rise to further accusations that Solzhenitsyn had turned from a Soviet Russian into a Soviet enemy,^[15] therefore he was branded as an enemy of the state, who, according to the Gazette had been supporting non-Soviet ideological stances since 1967,^[15] perhaps even longer. He, in addition, was accused of de-Stalinisation. The reviews were particularly damaging. Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union in 1969.^[15] He was arrested, then deported in 1974.^[15] The novella had sold over 95,000 copies when it was released^[22] throughout the 1960s.

Influence

It was the most powerful indictment of the USSR's gulag ever made, and made it necessary for Western intellectuals to acknowledge their sins of omission in regards to the Soviet record on human rights. A decade later at a US-Soviet summit a human rights agenda was created as a topic of concern.

It was equally revolutionary within the Soviet Union for his demonstration of courage and dedication to preserving the memories of those millions of victims who perished in the camps.