Solzhenitsyn

American  

[sohl-zhuh-neet-sin, sawl-, suhl-zhi-nyee-tsin] / ˌsoʊl ʒəˈnit sɪn, ˌsɔl-, səl ʒɪˈnyi tsɪn /

noun

1. Alexander or Aleksandr (Isayevich) 1918–2008, Russian novelist: Nobel Prize 1970; in the U.S. 1974–94.

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Solzhenitsyn British  

/ ˌsɒlʒəˈnɪtsɪn, səlʒəˈnitsin /

noun

1. Alexander Isayevich (alɪkˈsandr iˈsajɪvitʃ). 1918–2008, Russian novelist. His books include One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), The First Circle (1968), Cancer Ward (1968), August 1914 (1971), The Gulag Archipelago (1974), and October 1916 (1985). His works criticize the Soviet regime and he was imprisoned (1945–53) and exiled to Siberia (1953–56). He was deported to the West from the Soviet Union in 1974; all charges against him were dropped in 1991 and he returned to Russia in 1994. Nobel prize for literature 1970

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Example Sentences

“The Bloody Crossroads,” published in 1987, isn’t the kind of book you expect a journalist to write: a collection of perceptive, thoroughgoing literary essays on important writers from Henry Adams to Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 26, 2025

They don’t read like Solzhenitsyn or Koestler, but they wouldn’t be convincing if they did.

From Slate • May 4, 2024

His career took a dive after he and a friend wrote a letter in 1974 defending Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the dissident writer who had been expelled from the Soviet Union.

From Reuters • Jul. 26, 2023

He also compared himself to the Soviet-era dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and to the beleaguered main character in Kafka novel “The Trial.”

From New York Times • May 25, 2023

“We would prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren’t any,” writes Solzhenitsyn.

From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates