“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” : Gulag and Survival

The main character of the novel, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, an ordinary farmer in the Soviet Union, was conscripted during the World WarⅡ and sentenced to 10 years in Gulag for treason while serving in the army. He has spent 8 years in a Soviet concentration camp(Gulag) and is currently in his 9th year. Shukhov is having a hard time fulfilling the given amount of work every day in the harsh cold weather and harsh environment. Most of the prisoners in the camp were classified as political prisoners, but in fact they were innocent people. Shukhov was also accused of treason and classified as a political criminal, but he too was only a victim of Stalin's violent policies. What is the strength that keeps Shukhov enduring life in the camp despite the harsh environment? In this article, we analyzed the theme of ‘Gulag and survival’. First, we looked at the Gulag in the Soviet Union. And we analyzed the prisoner characters including Shukhov held there. The Soviet Gulag originated from the Siberian exile in the 16th centry, and most of the prisoners in the 19th centry were ordinary criminals. Even in Soviet concentration camps(Gulag), political prisoners accounted for only 20% of all prisoners. However, most of the prisoners in the novel “One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich” were set as political prisoners. This seems to be Solzhenitsyn's intentional character setting. It was a way to emphasize the misguided policy of the Soviet Union. Shukhov and Baptist Alyoshka have a conversation about the Russian church and faith at the end of the novel, and here we learn that Shukhov's will to survive in the Gulag was very strong. That is, he has a clear purpose for survival. Also, although his faith was weak, it was confirmed that he had faith as a Russian Orthodox Christian.