Why teach One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a Nobel Prize winning novel based on the real-life experience in the Soviet gulags of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The book was released under the premiership of the (relatively) liberal Nikita Khrushchev in an effort to discredit Stalin as part of his “destalinization” efforts in the Soviet Union.
The book is plainly written and remarkable for the fact that the day described, according to the prisoner, is unremarkable – or maybe even good. It is a beautiful, but sad story that allows students to ask questions about the nature of freedom, happiness, and what governs our relationships. Students may be struck by the banality of subject matter that proved to be so controversial.
This book also opens the door to talk about important instances in history of the use of internment and work camps even in Canada. Students are encouraged to ask questions about what allowed those camps to form in our past, and whether it could happen again. And, naturally, an opportunity exists to talk about the role of art in political opposition and social change.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Study Guide
Exercise Sheets
Reveille and morning march: Exercises
Evening march to lights-out: Exercises
Stalin’s purges and personality cults
One Day in context: Solzhenitsyn’s One Day: The book that shook the USSR – BBC News
Video: Stalin’s Purges (History.com)
The Great Purge of Stalinist Russia _ Guided History
Internment and work camps in Canada and the United States
Internment in Canada – The Canadian Encyclopedia
Japanese Internment: Banished and Beyond Tears – The Canadian Encyclopedia
Prisoner of War Camps in Canada – The Canadian Encyclopedia
First World War internment camps a dark chapter in Canadian history _ CTV News
(Video available here.)
Canada’s Concentration Camps – The War Measures Act
Dorothea Lange’s Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps
German Internees in the United States
Dissident Art
The Singing Revolution and the Future of Music in Estonia – The Atlantic
(This story contains videos which you may wish to watch with your class here.)
Sainte-Marie, Cockburn on the return of the protest song and power of music – The Canadian Press
Film: Hammer and Tickle
(contact Moving Picture Institute for info)
Film: The Singing Revolution
(contact Moving Picture Institute for info)
Prison and work camps today
North Korea prison camps very much in working order – Amnesty International
Russian prisons_ Slave labour and criminal cultures – The Economist
The horrific conditions in North Korean labor camps – Business Insider
Graphic image of malnourished child within: Burma’s Rohingya Left to Die in Concentration Camps: Time