Russian culture abroad: Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s archive presented in New York

Archive of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, famous writer and Nobel Prize winner, was first presented June 5, 2012 in New York in the framework of BookExpo America.

The author's widow, Natalia Solzhenitsyna, introduced to the American public the slides of unique exhibits of the archive, which started to develop two years after the death of the outstanding cultural and political figure of Russia in 2008. At its core is Solzhenitsyn family archive, manuscripts of books, diaries, photographs, personal belongings and correspondence.

In her opinion, one of the most important items is the manuscript of the novel "The Gulag Archipelago." Friends of the family, in spite of danger of possible persecution, had kept for twenty years handwritten pages by the writer at his homeland. The manuscript was returned to Solzhenitsyn in 1994, when he returned to Russia from America.

"I think that sooner or later, all written by hand of Solzhenitsyn, that he personally had not destroyed, will be published. And it does not depend on my will, nor of the will of our family," said Natalya Solzhenitsyna.