Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE welcomed the team of "Apostrophes" at his home in the United States, in his Vermont property in Cavendish. The writer had a two-storey house built near the family house solely for his work. We see him in his huge library room with his wife Natalia who is also his assistant. It is in this context that Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE explains his very rigorous working method to Bernard PIVOT.
Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE speaks of the birth of his book "The Gulag Archipelago": he tells that after the publication of his book "A day of Ivan Denisovich", he received a "torrent of letters" from all corners of Russia, letters in which the former prisoners of the gulag (the zeks) wanted to meet him to testify. It is thanks to this documentation that he wrote "The Gulag Archipelago". He adds "The documentation is so immense that even many volumes would not be enough to embrace it". "I hope that a time will come when in my homeland, without obstacles, the witnesses will be able to gather...and constitute a history of several volumes".
Interview (in Russian, simultaneous translation) of Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE in his office in Cavendish (Vermont, USA) led by Bernard PIVOT. The writer regrets that critics and public opinion are interested in him as a Soviet dissident, he would have preferred to become famous for his literary work: "I am sad to be famous not for my main activity but for my secondary activity"
Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE describes his work on the Russian language: "Words are the constant breath of the writer. I have been working the Russian language every day for 35 years. At the camp, I spent all my time at this job". He explains that in the gulag, he learned to rework Russian dictionaries, because they were works that went unnoticed by the prison authorities. He speaks of his struggle against the "retraction of the Russian language".
Invited by Bernard PIVOT, the Russian publisher Nikita STRUVE evokes the context of the publication of Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE’s book "The Gulag Archipelago". He recounts in particular how the KGB got hold of the manuscript, which was to be published initially in 1975, as well as the attempts to intimidate SOLJENITSYNE to give up its publication.
Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE answers a question from the telespecters of the "Dossiers de l'écran" concerning the meaning of the title "The Gulag Archipelago". The writer explains that this multitude of islands that are the gulags form an archipelago on Soviet territory. He adds that (implied, following the publication of his book) the term "archipelago" was banned in the Soviet Union.
In conclusion of the program dedicated to him, Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE reads (in Russian subtitled) a prose poem entitled "What happens with our soul during the night".
Invited on the set of Bernard PIVOT for the first time, Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE answers (in Russian, simultaneous translation) a question asked by Jean DANIEL, director of the "Nouvel Observateur", on the influence of industrial production on the state of mind of the Russian people. SOLZHENITSYN explains that this question hurts him because through his work he tries to show that even deprived of material goods and hope of living, men can experience an immense spiritual impulse.
On stage, Jean-François KAHN presents Alexandre SOLJENITSYNE as a "great reactionary writer". He also denounces the scam that consists in making SOLJENITSYNE a character who arranges the West.
Alexander SOLZHENITSYN speaks about the reasons for his condemnation by the Soviet authorities. Arrested for criticizing Stalin, he considered himself less innocent than the thousands of Russians who were deported without reason to the gulag, like him,
Alexander SOLJENITSYNE said he was convinced that he would return to Russia. He declares: "Every man who does not stifle his intuition, who trusts him, sees himself fulfilled in his life not his wishes, not his predictions but his presentiments".
The INA Galaxy 
