SOURCE: "Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Russian Literary Tradition," in Russian Review, Vol. 26, No. 1, April, 1967, pp. 176-84.

In the following essay, Koehler studies use of language in Solzhenitsyn's short fiction and contends that the author "has in terms of the Russian literary tradition broken through a barrier as an interpreter of the 'popular' mind."

The first novel of A. Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, swept into the world like a gust of fresh wind. Sufficient time has elapsed since to make clear that the purely literary qualities of the novel far outweigh the political sensationalism that inevitably accompanies the appearance of any out of the ordinary Soviet work of art. The newness and originality have worn off; in the wake of Solzhenitsyn's book several timid exposés of life in prison camps have appeared, but One Day still stands unique and unchallenged. The present-day generation of...