August 1914

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Penguin, 1974 - Fiction - 655 pages

In his monumental narrative of the outbreak of the First World War and the ill-fated Russian offensive into East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn has written what Nina Krushcheva, in "The Nation," calls "a dramatically new interpretation of Russian history." The assassination of tsarist prime minister Pyotr Stolypin, a crucial event in the years leading up to the Revolution of 1917, is reconstructed from the alienating viewpoints of historical witnesses. The sole voice of reason among the advisers to Tsar Nikolai II, Stolypin died at the hands of the anarchist Mordko Bogrov, and with him perished Russia's last hope for reform. Translated by H.T. Willetts."August 1914" is the first volume of Solzhenitsyn's epic, "The Red Wheel; "the second is "November 1916." Each of the subsequent volumes will concentrate on another critical moment or "knot," in the history of the Revolution. Translated by H.T. Willetts.

Contents

• Section 1: 5
• Section 2: 6
• Section 3: 59

About the author

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11, 1918 in Kislovodsk in the northern Caucusus Mountains. He received a degree in physics and math from Rostov University in 1941. He served in the Russian army during World War II but was arrested in 1945 for writing a letter criticizing Stalin. He spent the next decade in prisons and labor camps and, later, exile, before being allowed to return to central Russia, where he worked as a high school science teacher. His first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, was published in 1962. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1974, he was arrested for treason and exiled following the publication of The Gulag Archipelago. He moved to Switzerland and later the U. S. where he continued to write fiction and history. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he returned to his homeland. His other works include The First Circle and The Cancer Ward. He died due to a heart ailment on August 3, 2008 at the age of 89.

Bibliographic information

• Title: August 1914; Penguin Books; Volume 1 of The Red Wheel Series
• Author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Penguin, 1974
• ISBN: 014003739X, 9780140037395
• Length: 655 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Historical / 20th Century / World War I; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / War & Military; Literary Criticism / Russian & Soviet