» Original Beginning of Solzhenitsyn’s The First Circle

John Miller at the Corner just discovered The New Yorker's publication of the original beginning of Solzhenitsyn’s The First Circle. Here is the lead-in.

Although the complete text of Solzhenitsyn’s first full-length novel, “The First Circle,” has been published in Russia, the only version available in English so far is an abbreviated text that Solzhenitsyn “lightened” in the vain hope of getting it past Soviet censors. The “lightened” version opens in December, 1949, as Innokentii Volodin, a Soviet diplomat, tries to caution a doctor he knows against sharing an experimental drug with Westerners. In Solzhenitsyn’s original opening, which follows in its first English translation, Volodin has learned that a Soviet spy in New York is about to be given classified information on atomic-bomb technology. An insider, no longer able to deny that he operates within a totalitarian regime, Volodin faces a moral dilemma: should he warn the U.S. Ambassador?

Read the rest here.