One Word Against an Empire

In September 1973, the Soviet KGB seized a hidden copy of a manuscript that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had spent nearly a decade writing in secret. His trusted typist, Elizaveta Voronyanskaya, had broken under interrogation and revealed its location. She took her own life days later. The manuscript documented the vast Soviet forced-labor camp system — the suffering of millions — compiled from the testimony of over two hundred witnesses.…