The Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

Author	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Original title	Архипелаг ГУЛАГ
Translator	Geneviève Johannet, José Johannet, Nikita Struve (French) Thomas P. Whitney (English) Tian Dawei (Chinese) Francisco Augusto Ferreira, Maria Llistó, and José Augusto Seabra (Portuguese)
Country	France
Language	Russian
Publisher	YMCA Press
Publication date	1973
Published in English	1974
Media type	Print (hardback and paperback)
ISBN	0-06-013914-5
OCLC	802879
Dewey Decimal	365/.45/0947
LC Class	HV9713 .S6413 1974

The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, romanized: Arkhipelag GULAG) is a three-volume non-fiction series written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident. It was first published in 1973 by the Parisian publisher YMCA-Press,^[1][2] and it was translated into English and French the following year. It explores a vision of life in what is often known as the Gulag, the Soviet labour camp system. Solzhenitsyn constructed his highly detailed narrative from various sources including reports, interviews, statements, diaries, legal documents, and his own experience as a Gulag prisoner.

Following its publication, the book was initially circulated in the Soviet Union by samizdat underground publication. It was not widely published there until 1989. It appeared that year in the literary journal Novy Mir; a third of the work was published in three issues.^[3] Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, The Gulag Archipelago has been officially published in Russia.