Архипелаг ГУЛаг : 1918-1956 : опыт художественного исследования

First edition for each of the volumes published from 1973 to 1975, no deluxe issue printed.
Spines slightly wrinkled as usual, first cover of second volume marginally faded.
Photographic softcovers.

Exceptional and extremely rare signed and inscribed copy by Solzhenitsyn dated May 1983 to Sam Yossman, on the first volume of this literary keystone of anti-Soviet resistance.

The work, begun in 1958, was completed "in the greatest secrecy" (Solzhenitsyn 2001, vol. II, p. 718). When, in September 1965, the KGB confiscated his archives, which had been entrusted to a friend in Moscow, Solzhenitsyn managed to keep the completed chapters of Archipelago and his drafts safe. He continued to write, running "from one hiding place to another", without ever being able to have the whole text in front of him. But in 1973, Solzhenitsyn no longer had a choice: the KGB had just got their hands on one of the hidden typescripts of his Archipelago kept in Leningrad by an "invisible" assistant, who had broken the rule of burning old drafts. Released after days of inquisition, his typist was found hanged in her home. Solzhenitsyn immediately gave his friend Nikita Struve, director of YMCA-Press, permission to publish the first volume (comprising the first and second parts) in Paris. It appeared in bookshops on December 28, 1973, and the New York Times published excerpts the very next day; Georges Nivat (Solzhenitsyn et la France, 2021), however, announced publication on December 20, the date of our copy's final printing. The book was immediately translated into English and French, and two months later led to Solzhenitsyn's expulsion from the USSR.
A Jewish émigré journalist and writer, Yossman worked for the BBC's Russian Service for 20 years, under the name Sam Jones. Following Solzhenitsyn's example, he published his own memoirs in the book Šaltojo karo samdinys (Cold War Mercenary), about his childhood marked by poverty and conflict in post-war Vilnius. He is known for introducing Western music and culture to the Soviet people, and in January 1989 hosted Paul McCartney on his rock music show "Babushkin Sunduk" ("Grandma's Trunk"), "which is still remembered by millions of people in the former USSR" (Lithuanian Jewish Community). Yossman is also considered the father of "Russian song", a popular musical genre developed by Soviet émigrés in the United States, which he introduced through his radio show. It was probably during his American trip to interview the great performers of this genre (Willi Tokarev, Shufutinsky, Luba Uspenskaya), that he received this precious copy from Solzhenitsyn, then in exile.

Signed first edition copies of this masterpiece are extremely rare.