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Abstract

This article investigates some socio-cultural characteristics of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) by Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, one of the outstanding Russian writers of the mid-twentieth century. In this novel the writer introduced a new topic into Russian literature, and for the first time pictured the detailed life of prisoners in concentration camps during Stalin's era. Since the writer himself had spent eight years of his own life in those concentration camps, in this novel he describes events and occasions realistically and comprehensively of one day in the life of the main hero of the story, who was one of his own co-prisoners. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is not a mere description of the hard and extremely difficult conditions of concentration camps; in fact, it is a reflection of the hard times in the lives of Russian people. The hero of this novel is also a symbol for an undefeatable character that does not become disappointed in hard social conditions.

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