The Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag Archipelago (Russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ) is a book in three volumes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The gulags were the forced labour camps in the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1950s.

The Gulag Archipelago

Italian cover
Author	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Original title	Архипела́г ГУЛА́Г
Translator	Geneviève Johannet, José Johannet, Nikita Struve (French) Thomas P. Whitney (English)
Country	France
Language	Russian
Publisher	Éditions du Seuil
Publication date	1973
Published in English	1974
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	0-06-013914-5
OCLC	802879
Dewey Decimal	365/.45/0947
LC Class	HV9713 .S6413 1974

The narrative relies on accounts from people who experienced the events, including the author himself, who was a prisoner in one of the labour camps. The book was written between 1958 and 1968. It was published in the West in 1973. In the Soviet Union, the book circulated in samizdat until its official publication in 1989.

The word "archipelago" compares the network of labor camps to a vast chain of islands.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Russian Federation, The Gulag Archipelago is included in the high-school curriculum in Russia. It has been compulsory reading for high-school students since 2009.