
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
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Narrated by:
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Frank Muller
About this listen
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s startling book led, almost 30 years later, to Glasnost, Perestroika, and the "Fall of the Wall". One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich brilliantly portrays a single day, any day, in the life of a single Russian soldier who was captured by the Germans in 1945 and who managed to escape a few days later. Along with millions of others, this soldier was charged with some sort of political crime, and since it was easier to confess than deny it and die, Ivan Denisovich "confessed" to "high treason" and received a sentence of 10 years in a Siberian labor camp.
<[>In 1962, the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir published a short novel by an unknown writer named Solzhenitsyn. Within 24 hours, all 95,000 copies of the magazine containing this story were sold out. Within a week, Solzhenitsyn was no longer an obscure math teacher, but an international celebrity. Publication of the book split the Communist hierarchy, and it was Premier Khrushchev himself who read the book and personally allowed its publication. ©1963 E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. (P)1982 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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The Gulag - a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners - was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
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Nice compliment to Solzhenitsyn
- By Thucydides on 08-03-17
By: Anne Applebaum
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The Great Terror
- A Reassessment
- By: Robert Conquest
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 30 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive work on Stalin's purges, The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. While the original volume had relied heavily on unofficial sources, later developments within the Soviet Union provided an avalanche of new material, which Conquest has mined to write this revised and updated edition of his classic work.
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Compelling and Devestating
- By A Midwesterner in Jersey on 07-01-09
By: Robert Conquest
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A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
- By: Sebastien Falletti, Eunsun Kim
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child, Eunsun loved her country...despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the countrywide famine escalated. By the time she was 11 years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun too was in danger of starving. Finally her mother decided to escape North Korea with Eunsun and her sister.
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Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
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Doctor Zhivago
- By: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
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Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
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The Leo Tolstoy Complete Collection
- War and Peace; Anna Karenina; Resurrection; Short Stories; Novellas; and Non-Fiction
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble, Malk Williams, Emma Gregory
- Length: 186 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Collection includes unabridged recordings of Leo Tolstoy's 3 timeless novels; all his major novellas and short stories; and 4 renowned works of non-fiction in one audiobook, all read by Audie Award-winning narrators.
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Legendary author, flawless narrations.
- By Kindle Customer on 06-07-24
By: Leo Tolstoy
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Stalingrad
- By: Vasily Grossman, Robert Chandler - translator, Elizabeth Chandler - translator
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh, Elliot Levey
- Length: 37 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The story told in Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad unfolds across the length and breadth of Russia and Europe. At the heart of the novel is the Shaposhnikov family. Even as the Germans advance, the matriarch, Alexandra Vladimirovna, refuses to leave Stalingrad. Far from the front, her eldest daughter, Ludmila, is unhappily married to the Jewish physicist Viktor Shtrum. Viktor's research may be of crucial military importance, but he is distracted by thoughts of his mother in the Ukraine, lost behind German lines.
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war and peace
- By L. Kerr on 12-19-24
By: Vasily Grossman, and others
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First They Killed My Father
- A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
- By: Loung Ung
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.
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Brutal, Heartbreaking
- By Gillian on 01-27-15
By: Loung Ung
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Darkness at Noon
- By: Arthur Koestler
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A fictional portrayal of an aging revolutionary, this novel is a powerful commentary on the nightmare politics of the troubled 20th century. Born in Hungary in 1905, a defector from the Communist Party in 1938, and then arrested in both Spain and France for his political views, Arthur Koestler writes from a wealth of personal experience.
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Literature as the ‘living memory’ of nations
- By ESK on 01-23-13
By: Arthur Koestler
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The Master and Margarita
- By: Mikhail Bulgakov
- Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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The Master and Margarita is one of the most famous and best-selling Russian novels of the 20th century, despite its surreal environment of talking cats, Satan and mysterious happenings. Naxos AudioBooks presents this careful abridgement of a new translation in an imaginative reading by the charismatic Julian Rhind-Tutt. With War and Peace and Crime and Punishment among the Naxos AudioBooks best-sellers, this too promises to be a front title.
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Very vivid and amazing writing style
- By Sina Beni on 05-04-22
By: Mikhail Bulgakov
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I, Claudius
- By: Robert Graves
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is one of the best historical novels ever written. Lame, stammering Claudius, once a major embarrassment to the imperial family and now emperor of Rome, writes an eyewitness account of the reign of the first four Caesars: the noble Augustus and his cunning wife, Livia; the reptilian Tiberius; the monstrous Caligula; and finally old Claudius himself. Filled with poisonings, betrayal, and shocking excesses, I Claudius is history that rivals the most exciting contemporary fiction.
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Unsurpassed, addictive brilliance
- By Chris on 06-09-09
By: Robert Graves
Frank Muller is excellent, really embodying the mood and tone of Gulag life.
Excellent narration of a haunting tale
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Hard times
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This will wake you up
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Ivan often talks about God throughout the book, and you can sense the frustration of a quasi-theistic soviet: he has been told that belief in God is stupid but at the same time is shown that belief in man is more stupid. He sees the joy and content of the Baptist prisoner, and wonders how such a man could keep his faith and love in such a hell as the gulag. Towards the end Ivan and the Baptist try to convert one another: Ivan talks about a materialistic agnosticism where God exists but that man is only a temporary being in creation; while the Baptist argues for a eternal providence where God uses all things (good and bad) for the salvation and nurturing of his beloved children (while citing many examples for imprisonment and suffering as the paths to holiness and conforming one’s self to Christ).
Sadly, Ivan rejects the Baptist’s pleas for the embracing of one’s cross in suffering. He has been hardened through surviving the Eastern front, being taken prisoner by the Germans, and being sent to gulag by the Soviets for having been a German prisoner. He looks through his life and can not accept that is was all ordained by God, but rather the cruelty and stupidity of man. Yet he still believes in God, even while he rebels in his wounded state.
TL;DR:
It’s a great book, and will make you think about the fate of countless millions like Ivan who suffered by the hands of Godless socialist governments.
Brutal and yet human depiction of the gulags
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I think it may be more important historically than valuable literarily. The author gets into Ivan’s inner life a bit. I wanted him to do that more.
But, in the end, I recommend both the book and the performance. It’s both a key piece of Soviet history and yet another glimpse into the tyranny of the 20th century.
An Important Book
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Must read
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As of October 2, 2018 :
I did however experience 2 - 3 very noticeable glitches in the playback of the book. I rewound thinking maybe it was my computer but they were there the second time around...Just a heads up.
Hope they'll fix it soon.
Audio Quality
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Ivan's day, almost a happy day.
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The narrator is excellent.
A captivating window into the life of a Zek
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Loved it!
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