Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Leonid Rzhevsky

Critical Essay by Leonid Rzhevsky

SOURCE: "Ivan Denisovich—Zotov—Matryona," in Solzhenitsyn: Creator & Heroic Deed, translated by Sonja Miller, University of Alabama Press, 1978, pp. 33-48.

In the following excerpt from a study originally published in Russian in 1972, Rzhevsky looks at the stories One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, "An Incident at Krechetovka Station, " and "Matryona's Home" in order to uncover affinities in their themes and narrative styles.

There will not be, there never was a glittering world!
A foot cloth in the hoar frost, a bandage around your face.
An argument over porridge, the shout of a brigade leader,
Day after day, there's never an end to it.

—A. Solzhenitsyn (6: 307)

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"It is hard to imagine that only one year ago we did not know the name Solzhenitsyn. It seems that he has been alive in our literature for a long time, and without him it would decidedly be incomplete."