“THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO” (The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation)—a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (three volumes, totaling over 2,000 pages)—is a large-scale documentary and literary investigation into the history of political repression and the prison and camp system in the USSR. The author, in particular, speaks positively of the role of Ukrainian insurgents (soldiers of the UPA) in the struggle for human rights in captivity. He drew upon the accounts of many Ukrainian political prisoners, including N. SUROVTSOVA.
In late December 1973, the first volume was published in Paris; simultaneously, fragments were published in massive print runs in European and American magazines in many of the world’s languages. From 1974 to 1976, the second and third volumes of “T.G.A.” were published abroad. The author, by then exiled from the country, donated his royalties from the publication to the Fund for Aid to Political Prisoners and Their Families.
In the USSR, “T.G.A.” was circulated in manuscript copies; many people were convicted on charges of reproducing and distributing the work, including the well-known dissidents Sergei KOVALYOV (Moscow), Zviad Gamsakhurdia (Georgia), and Vyacheslav Igrunov (Odesa).
The first legal publication of the book in the USSR took place in 1990. A Ukrainian translation does not exist.
The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group—based on materials from the Moscow “Memorial”