''November 1916'' (russian: links=no, Ноябрь шестнадцатого) is a novel by famed Russian author

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...

. It is the sequel to ''August 1914'', which concerned Russia's role in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The novel picks up on the brink of the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...

, depicting characters from all walks of life — from

soldiers A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

and

peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...

Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...

Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Pola ...

, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, and

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...

. Unlike the first novel, the book does not revolve around any specific historical events. Instead, the book portrays everyday lives and politics as they were in the period between

Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

's peak and the

February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...

. The novel's original Russian title is ''Oktyabr Shestnadtsatogo'' — ''October 1916''; during the period in which the novel is set, Russia had not yet adopted the

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...

, and so its dates were somewhat out of step with the rest of the world. (And the February Revolution, mentioned above, occurred in late February 1917 according to the calendar then in use, but early March according to the Gregorian calendar.) In ''November 1916'', the literary form of the novel is used as a device to link together what are best described as a series of essays and polemics. Solzhenitsyn uses long and detailed dialogues between characters to present political and philosophical arguments. Several of the fictional characters, especially those engaged in the dialogues, are very thinly disguised historical personages. The dialogue device explores many important controversies in pre-revolutionary Russia. Although Solzhenitysn himself is openly contemptuous of the leftist tendency in Russian political thought and public life in this period, he gives these views full airing along with others more in sympathy with his own views.

References

* Bayley, John.
Invitation to a Revolution
'. ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. February 7, 1999. * Mahoney, Daniel J.
The wheel turns
'' (review of November 1916:The Red Wheel/Knot II). ''The New Criterion''. February 1999. * Seltzer, Richard.

'. Samizdat.com. 1983 novels Novels by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Novels set during World War I Novels set in the Russian Revolution Fiction set in 1916 {{1980s-WWI-novel-stub

See also

References