About the book: 2007 / The story was conceived by the author in the Ekibastuz special camp in the winter of 1950/51. Written in 1959 in Ryazan, where A.I. Solzhenitsyn was then a physics and astronomy teacher at school. In 1961 he was sent to the “New World”. The decision to publish was made by the Politburo in October 1962 under personal pressure from Khrushchev. Published in Novy Mir, 1962, No. 11; then it was published as separate books in “Soviet Writer” and in “Roman-Gazeta”. But since 1971, all three editions of the story were removed from libraries and destroyed according to secret instructions from the Party Central Committee. Since 1990, the story has been published again in his homeland. The image of Ivan Denisovich was formed from the appearance and habits of the soldier Shukhov, who fought in the battery of A.I. Solzhenitsyn during the Soviet-German war (but never imprisoned), from the general experience of the post-war flow of “prisoners” and the author’s personal experience in the Special Camp as a bricklayer. The rest of the characters in the story are all taken from camp life, with their true biographies.