THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO BY ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN BOOK REVIEW

THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO BY ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN BOOK REVIEW
Solzhenitsyn risked his life for this book. This isn’t a story, it’s a history. One which we should all read...
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10/10
Huge thanks to these people for all their help :
@LanaExLibris
@bookishtopics
Booker Boy Book Club Choice - / One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn
Архипелаг ГУЛАГ - Александр Солженицын
#booktube #bookreview #russianliterature #bookreviewer #classics #classicscommunity
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO BY ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN BOOK REVIEW

[@LanaExLibris]

Woah You did an incredible job! May or may not have teared up a bit.

[@KDbooks]

☺️☺️☺️

[@drawyourbook876]

That sounds like a hard hitting book... To be fair, we did not learn anything about Russian history in our education system, we did not even properly learn about the world wars...

[@voycodin5042]

American public education system is an absolute disgrace. For a rich country in both absolute and relative terms, we churn out legions of morons year after year after year. It explains a lot of the problems we have in society today.

[@Edvard_Limonov]

К сожалению история - это предмет пропаганды и реальную историю вам не расскажут. В принципе как и русским людям не расскажут ничего ценного про США. Что говорить, если России и США пытаются присвоить себе победы во Второй мировой и убрать из памяти людей победу Антигитлеровской коалиции, в которой сражались СССР, Англия и США.

[@ryster2220]

This book changed my life, I’m now nearly done with the first volume of the unabridged and the stories are incredible and eye opening. This book should be a prerequisite to anyone who wants to have a discussion about oppressive governments or communism.

[@Emivioricomex]

Can a 17 yr old who loves to read, read the original? Im thinking of my daughter.. I'm from Communist country so it might be more appealing for her because of that. I don't know if I should get the 3 volumes or the compacted book

[@ryster2220]

@@Emivioricomex the unabridged is very readable but quite long as there are several anecdotes to prove the same point. If your daughter is an avid reader and the scholarly type, definitely possible. A good way to test it out is to have her listen to the first chapter or 2 of the unabridged on KZbin, which is easy enough to find.

[@sharatainx3990]

@@ryster2220 Communism or specifically stalinism, leninism etc? Big difference between communism (in general) and something like leninism and stalinism. It's their own variation of something. Where does communism as an idea in general include mass deportation, ethnic cleansing, the country having to be a totalitarian police state? Stalin for example were doing the opposite of what traditional communist ideas were at the time. Stalinism is totalitarian and communism in general in it's core is democratic. Think what you want about communism as a political/economics idea but it's important to be honest about what we're talking about. This book is not a great source of understanding communism. It's a good book to read in general and a good way to read about peoples experiences and consequences of when someone like Stalin and Lenin rules with their own version of something. Just as well as we can read books on how other political ideologies have created the same type of sick treatment of people (like national socialism, fascism etc) If anyone wants to have a discussion about commuinism then they should read books on communism and all their forms and their history.

[@FreshlyReadBooks]

First sentence and I'm ready to be like, "Yeah, I'll get to it one day" 2 minutes into the video and it's in my Amazon cart. Great job with this video. I'm definitely convinced that I need to read this.

[@noelletubridy3015]

Brilliant review Kieran, I remember a slight mention of the gulags when I was in school in Ireland. But I mean it was a tiny sliver of info 🤷‍♀️ I'm a resource teacher which includes teaching some history now and not much has changed. May push Solzhenitsyn on my students 😅

[@KDbooks]

It would be great for them to learn about Solzhenitsyn! “One Day” would be a great introduction to Gulag and his works ☺️ That would make my day to know that it’ll create a small change

[@Paromita_M]

This was such a powerful review about a very important book. I read part of this book and couldn't go on beyond a point, it was too much. But as you said, it happened. We must read it, if only to resolve repeatedly 'Never again'.

[@jeanchampollin9906]

What a time of fear and paranoia while being monitored constantly much less the atrocities I'll be picking up this book soon great review.

[@KDbooks]

It’s unimaginable to think this was a day-to-day experience for some people for over a decade 😔

[@ItsPapaEddy]

Definitely ordering this book soon. In the US school systems we were taught the gulags were simply just work camps for political dissidents

[@fildefaite2449]

An outstanding summary!

[@traceymills1628]

I read One Day in the Life in High School. I remember it really affecting me but this sounds a whole other level. Your review is wonderful and I will now read this too.

[@KDbooks]

I finished Ivan Denisovich yesterday and it is a gut punch of a novel. Hopefully will fill a review for that soon 😊 Thanks for watching and glad you want to pick this important book up

[@nathimaus]

Incredible review. I am scared, but can’t wait to read this. Will be getting a copy asap.

[@KDbooks]

Thanks 😊 The scariest thing is that it happened for decades! Cannot wait for your thoughts ♥️

[@nathimaus]

@@KDbooks for sure. Only this review and your comments already made my skin crawl. It is preposterous that this is not AT ALL aknowledged. If you think you learned little about this time in history imagine what we learn in Brazil. I really can’t understand it! Will have a lot of thoughts about this one, I am sure!

[@KDbooks]

@@nathimaus 💯- we’ll never fully understand but we can educate ourselves to the best of our resources and abilities ♥️

[@karisamullen4279]

Finally a true heartfelt review.

[@whatchapterareyouon6294]

I'm going to be honest, I've always wanted to read The Gulag Archipelago but also I couldn't bring myself to read a two thousand page long volume about the subject, knowing how deeply it would affect me.. but after watching this, I feel it my responsibility to read all these people's life stories. All we learned about in school was nothing but the smallest of fractions of what it really was.. I can't believe how superficially we treat such subjects!

[@Ramon-gg3bd]

Fully agree with your last statement. Even when realizing this, it doesn't easily sink in because we've been given a very different view of history for years.

[@GG-Wolfhound]

Great job man. PLease inform your watchers of "who" the leaders of the Regime were.

[@lacanian1500]

who were they?

[@fildefaite2449]

@@lacanian1500 Those who rule over you but are prohibited to name

[@lacanian1500]

@@fildefaite2449 children with cancer

[@georgepantzikis7988]

I think, for all the value this book has a cautionary tale against oppression, arbitrary punishment, and for promoting the value of human life, we should keep in mind that it is by no means a reliable historical document. I'm not going to get into Solzhenitsyn as a person - but if you wish to do the research you will find that essentially everyone of importance mentioned in the book who was still alive after its publication has contradicted Solzhenitsyn's account. That aside though, modern historians consider this book to be a mixture of fiction, biography, and anti-Soviet propaganda. The real parts are those concerning the author himself (incidentally, if you read only the sections where he narrates his first hand experience, you will find that there is nothing remarkable about it, he was treated rather well, especially compared to the stories he mentions when it comes to other people), the passages talking about other people's horrendous experiences are now thought to be mostly fictional and/or wildly exaggerated. His methodology for gathering these stories was basically to collect rumours. It was very much a "A guy I met at another camp told me he heard about someone who was tortured in such and such a way" kind of thing. From certain accounts of people mentioned in the book, we know that Solzhenitsyn purposely altered certain stories to make the government of the time seem worse. Also, literally all the figures and statistics used in this book are made up. He did not have access to any archives to do proper research, so when he presents a number keep in mind that he either estimating (which, given how little information he had, is not a complete shot in the dark but pretty close) or he is referencing a statistic he thinks he remembers having read prior to his arrest. The 60 million dead, for example, is a case of a misattributed statistic. He uses the number of people someone estimated to have passed through the Gulags and claims it was the death count. It's a good book and there are many lessons to be learnt from it, but keep in mind that a good 60%-70% of the book either never happened or it didn't happen as Solzhenitsyn depicts it.

[@inbetweenutube]

Came across this book via Dr Jordan Peterson honestly I don't think I have the mental capacity. I fear ill loose faith in my fellow man.

[@Ramon-gg3bd]

One page at a time

[@bookishtopics]

This is a really well-done review! 👍 I think you've done the book justice. I didn't read this book in school, they introduced it into the school program after I graduated. So now you made me want to read it 📚

[@KDbooks]

Thanks Tanya for watching and for answering all my questions 😃 Maybe after Cancer Ward we can delve in? I would happily reread this

[@bookishtopics]

@@KDbooks Or we could read in the first circle too, up to you. I'd be happy to read either

[@KDbooks]

I’m up for that 🙌🙌🙌

[@KDbooks]

We’re gonna read all his books aren’t we 😂 Maybe one of his for the big book club? August 1917 looks interesting

[@bookishtopics]

@@KDbooks It's huge, but if we finish it I'll be proud of myself. :D I'll suggest it after we finish In the first circle if you won't be tired of Solzhenitsyn by then :D

[@CartonManetteDarnay]

I came to see how you were pronouncing archipelago but got distracted by all that gulag stuff 😉. But seriously, this is such a powerful review! It is striking how in this country history seems to be taught in such a sanitized way in our curriculums. It definitely does a disservice to the people who lived these experiences, and especially those who risked so much to tell us about them like Solzhenitsyn and his associates did.

[@Ramon-gg3bd]

I'm quite appalled at not having been given the opportunity in high school to discover this work (one can always blame oneself, but at a certain age you require more guidance). It almost seemed as if they skipped over this part of history, perhaps after having briefly mentioned it.

[@TH3F4LC0Nx]

I think a large part of why this book is not widely read and is not mandatory reading for Western schools is because Solzhenitsyn, in addition to highlighting the barbarity of the actual gulags, also takes an impassioned stance against the system of thought which made such things possible (communism). Disturbingly, Marxist theories and doctrine are nowadays being largely championed by many Left-leaning institutions, meaning that books such as The Gulag Archipelago which preach against the ideology would be sidelined and downplayed. Jordan Peterson calls this book the most important of the 20th century, because it revealed just how depraved communism really is. But, alas, it would appear that Solzhenitsyn's message is being fast forgotten.

[@Nastya-uj9bg]

awesome Ж sound!

[@KDbooks]

You have no idea how much that means to me ♥️

[@Nastya-uj9bg]

@@KDbooks in Ukrainian we have an additional "dzh" sound that is different to 'd+zh' sound that we use in compound words where they connect. even Russians struggle with that one 😆

[@KDbooks]

😂 With ж under my belt the world is my oyster

[@dennislafferty5214]

Attending high school in the 70’s I was very familiar with this work and its importance to mankind. It is in my view the most important literary work of the 20th century. There is a very real reason Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire”. This book documents pure evil. The great lesson in this book for me is the complicity of the Soviet population. All of this did not have to happen but it did. Fast forward to today and it is easy limit our condemnation to Stalin. But this exposition does much more than that. The author lays blame on Lenin, Stalin, Communism in its entirety; and, most importantly, on the very complicit Soviet population. He also calls out China as being worse than the Soviet. So, where are we today? We’re definitely not like the Soviet Union. Could we become that way? The author said he never could have imagined this happening to Russia. But it absolutely did. We must be certain it doesn’t happen to our countries wherever we live. History does repeat itself and the unthinkable does happen. A separate note - Russian high school students in 2009 read excerpts of the book but Stalin is once again praised.

[@minamiryanova]

Even though I was born in a communist country, I feel utterly unqualified and miserably incapable of commenting. ...... Sometimes, there are necessary punches to push us out of our own comfortable ignorance. ..All my words here seem so daft...... .. . Thank you for talking about this!

[@KDbooks]

♥️

[@alb0zfinest]

Letters from Russian Prisons is fantastic and what I would recommend. The focus is genuine left revolutionaries and the treatment they got from the Bolsheviks. Some of the stories will stay with me forever.

[@KDbooks]

Will check this out, thanks for the recommendation

[@fildefaite2449]

Is it a book.

[@heatherandrews7768]

I'm currently reading this book...my mind and heart keep breaking but I keep going back bc I need to understand what happened in Russia in the last 100 years....

[@Emivioricomex]

Can a 17 yr old who loves to read, read the original? Im thinking of my daughter.. I'm from Communist country so it might be more appealing for because of that

[@KDbooks]

It’s pretty harrowing, but you know your daughter better than myself. If you think she could manage it, then yes. Maybe read the first part yourself and then assess?

[@Emivioricomex]

@@KDbooks so the 3 volumes is way more harrowing than the compact version? The more harrowing the better I think! Ppl NEED TO KNOW. They are too pampered these days! I'm worried more about the difficulty of understanding.. Is it just as easy to understand the 3 volumes as the compact version?

[@laurasalo6160]

It's Abu Ghraib done to one in 5 Soviet citizens, whether 17 or 70 - millions of people, for any frivolous reason....but who needs a reason...? You show me a guilty man and I'll find you a crime... Maybe read it simultaneously, cuz one NEEDS to talk about it. It's endlessly tragic, horrifying, suffocating, hopeless, BLEAK, maddening and you need to vent, to cry, to have someone else understand what you're learning alongside you. Its very hard to not talk about it. It's like nothing else. And the writing - so beautiful around all the horror - so striking, I often had to stop to just appreciate it. I think you should grab a pencil and some tabs to note the incredible passages that you won't want to forget... there is much you wont want to forget, and so much you won't be able to forget. It's a warning. As Peterson says - a 2000 page SCREAM !!!

[@laurasalo6160]

I have the audiobooks on my channel playlist. I've got the book title written in Russian on my channel but the audiobook is in english. It's the top two on my playlists, both the full and abridged versions are there. I don't think the abridged one is complete tho, yet. I'm all over the comment sections of the full 7-part audiobook. I am reading it again now, i got the physical books and im annoting. I love to talk about it, and I share my favorite quotes if anyone wants.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

:(

[@KDbooks]

I would recommend you guys read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. 150 pages and a gut punch

[@husnainjabbar6064]

Are you suffering from Flu 🤧..

[@KDbooks]

No… that’s just my voice

[@husnainjabbar6064]

@@KDbooks sorry. It was a lame effort to be funny. You are doing great work. Admirable ♥️

[@davidhillier2627]

You put all that effort into pronouncing his name correctly but you can't pronounce archipelago...

[@KDbooks]

I’m glad you focused on the important part of this review...

[@davidhillier2627]

@@KDbooks the title is pretty important bro

[@KDbooks]

@@davidhillier2627 I’m sorry my dialect and accent has butchered archipelago.

[@johnalbert5786]

@@davidhillier2627 ~🦍💨