Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Love-Girl and The Innocent: A Play | 1969 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Buy |
| 2 | Victory Celebrations: A Comedy in Four Acts | 1983 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Buy |
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote two published plays, both connected to the themes of his prose work. The Love-Girl and The Innocent (1969) is set in a Soviet labor camp and depicts the relationship between two prisoners against the daily brutality of the camp system. The play draws on many of the same observations that informed One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
Victory Celebrations (1983) is subtitled “A Comedy in Four Acts” and is set on the last night of World War II as Soviet officers celebrate their victory. Beneath the celebration runs an undercurrent of the political arrests and purges that would follow. The play was written much earlier than its publication date, as Solzhenitsyn composed it while still a prisoner in the late 1940s.