Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag Archipelago (Russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, Arkhipelag GULAG) is a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn based on the Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system. The three-volume book is a massive narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, as well as the author's own experiences as a prisoner in a Gulag labor camp. Written between 1958 and 1968 (dates given at the end of the book), it was published in the West in 1973, thereafter circulating in samizdat (underground publication) form in the Soviet Union until its official publication in 1989.

"GULag" is an acronym for the Russian term "Gulág", Glavnoye Upravleniye ispravitelno-trudovyh Lagerey, Russian for "Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps" (Главное Управление Исправительно Трудовых Лагерей), the bureaucratic name of the Soviet concentration camp main governing board, and by metonymy, the camp system itself. The original Russian title of the book is "Arkhipelag GULag", the rhyme supporting the underlying metaphor deployed throughout the work. The word archipelago compares the system of labor camps spread across the Soviet Union with a vast "chain of islands", known only to those who were fated to visit them.

Since the Soviet Union's collapse and the formation of the Russian Federation, "The Gulag Archipelago" is included in the high school program in Russia as mandatory reading.