The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

In every life there is one particular event that is decisive for the entire person—for his fate, his convictions, his passions. Two years in that camp shook Yuri up once and for all. It is impossible to catch with words or to circumvent with syllogisms what that camp was. That was a camp to die in—and whoever did not die was compelled to reach certain conclusions.