August 1914, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
August 1914, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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August 1914
A Novel

Author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, H.T. Willetts

Narrator: Rich Miller

Unabridged: 43 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/14/2026

Synopsis

In his monumental narrative of the outbreak of the First World War and the ill-fated Russian offensive into East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn has written what Nina Krushcheva, in The Nation, calls "a dramatically new interpretation of Russian history." The assassination of tsarist prime minister Pyotr Stolypin, a crucial event in the years leading up to the Revolution of 1917, is reconstructed from the alienating viewpoints of historical witnesses. The sole voice of reason among the advisers to Tsar Nikolai II, Stolypin died at the hands of the anarchist Mordko Bogrov, and with him perished Russia's last hope for reform. Translated by H.T. Willetts.

August 1914 is the first volume of Solzhenitsyn's epic, The Red Wheel; the second is November 1916. Each of the subsequent volumes will concentrate on another critical moment or "knot," in the history of the Revolution. Translated by H.T. Willetts.

About Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

After serving as a decorated captain in the Soviet Army during World War II, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was sentenced to prison for eight years for criticizing Stalin and the Soviet government in private letters. Solzhenitsyn vaulted from unknown schoolteacher to internationally famous writer in 1962 with the publication of his novella One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. The writer's increasingly vocal opposition to the regime resulted in another arrest, a charge of treason, and expulsion from the USSR in 1974, the year The Gulag Archipelago, his epic history of the Soviet prison system, first appeared in the West. For eighteen years, he and his family lived in Vermont. In 1994 he returned to Russia. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died at his home in Moscow in 2008.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul on August 22, 2025

August of 1914 was truly a calamitous month. The First World War broke out on the fourth day of August; and by the end of that month, the imperial Russian Army had suffered one of the most catastrophic defeats in military history. At the Battle of Tannenberg in East Prussia, virtually all of Russia’......more

Goodreads review by Capsguy on May 12, 2011

Ever wanted to smack someone in the face because of their insistent incompetency and blatant disregard for others just because of their own self-interests? Then you're going to have a lot of sympathy for the Russian soldiers who lost their lives in Russia's opening campaign in World War I. As always......more

Goodreads review by Katia on October 12, 2017

2.5/5 On a purely literary merit it is a big and tiresome slog. It is designed to be 10 volumes' chronicles devoted to the events which has lead to the Revolution of 1917. So the parts about the fictional characters are alternated by the parts about real historic figures and events. The construction......more

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