# The First Circle

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/the-first-circle/9781448128617

![The First Circle](https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage-digital/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/the-first-circle_978-14-4812-861-7-ed97bd74.webp?v=2026-10-05%2003%3A59%3A16)

- Book: [The First Circle](https://www.bookquiver.com/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/the-first-circle) ([The First Circle.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/the-first-circle.md))
- Authors: [Alexandre Soljénitsyne](https://www.bookquiver.com/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn)
- Publisher: vintage_digital
- Medium: ebook
- ISBN: 978-14-4812-861-7
- Published: 2011-11-30
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: E-book

## Description

At the height of Stalin's postwar terror, Innokenty, a young diplomat and scion of a corrupt ruling class, discovers an earlier and more spiritual tradition than that adopted by the October Revolution, the beginning of a process which is Solzhenitsyn's basic theme: the individual's experience of acquiring an immortal soul. Unwisely but generously, Innokenty helps a friend in danger of arrest, only to be arrested himself and sent to a special prison. This, the archetype of the Gulag, is described with masterful psychological insight. There are no heroes and hardly any villains; oppressors are no less victims then the oppressed. In the great tradition of the Russian novel, The First Circle is both a brooding account of human nature and a scrupulously exact description of a historical period.