num_pages: 674
description: In the First Circle depicts the lives of the occupants of a sharashka (a research and development bureau made of GULAG inmates) located in the Moscow suburbs. This novel is highly autobiographical. Many of the prisoners (zeks) are technicians or academics who have been arrested under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code in Joseph Stalin's purges following the Second World War. Unlike inhabitants of other gulag labor camps, the sharashka zeks were adequately fed and enjoyed good working conditions; however, if they found disfavor with the authorities, they could be instantly shipped to Siberia.The title is an allusion to Dante's first circle, or limbo of Hell in The Divine Comedy, wherein the philosophers of Greece, and other virtuous pagans, live in a walled green garden. They are unable to enter Heaven, as they were born before Christ, but enjoy a small space of relative freedom in the heart of Hell.
language: English
title: The First Circle
titlecomplete: The First Circle
characters: Aleksandr Nikolayevich Poskrebyshev, Mikhail Ryumin, Viktor Abakumov, Joseph Stalin
genres: 20th Century, Russia, Historical Fiction, Philosophy, Politics, Novels, Literature, Russian Literature, Classics, Fiction
ratings_count: 7912
places: U.S.S.R.
awards: awardedAt: -63129600000
name: Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
category: Roman
publisher: Bantam