Saved from the Gulag by pretending to be a nuclear scientist

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In 1945, the Russian writer and mathematician Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment under the notorious Article 58 of the Soviet penal code. After a spell in Moscow jails, he was transferred to the Marfino secret research prison, even though most convicts were sent straight to labour camps where terrible living conditions prevailed. Solzhenitsyn scholar Dr. Elisa Kriza from Bamberg University explains how this came about. Photo: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn during his years of incarceration. (Laski Collection/Getty Images)