Welcome to Russian History Retold, Episode 241, Alexander Solgenitsin, telling the

story of life in the USSR.

Last time we discussed the life of the first person to win a Nobel Prize in literature,

Ivan Boonen.

Today we will discuss another giant literary figure, Alexander Solgenitsin, this time in

the Soviet Union.

Alexander, say of it, Solgenitsin, was born on December 11, 1918 in Kislovotsk, Soviet

Russia, to Izaki, Semyonovich Solgenitsin, who was of Russian descent, and his mother,

Tysia Zakorovna, who was of Ukrainian descent.

When Alexander was only six months old, his father was killed in a hunting accident.

Alexander's father had built himself and his family up from poor peasants to wealthy

landowners and farmers.

Of course, with the Bolsheviks taking control of the government, their large farm was converted

into a collective one.

His mother, Tysia, and his aunt would raise Alexander under trying conditions.

One thing though, his mother did stress, and she was reasonably well educated, was that

education was essential.

This would guide the young man for the rest of his life.

His mother would die in 1944, never having remarried.

She also raised her son in the Russian Orthodox faith, which, as you might imagine, was

quite dangerous then.

Solgenitsin was eighteen when began to develop the characters and the scenes for his first

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