Last updated: 2025-08-08
added missing parent-child connection

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, In the First Circle

Overview (from Wikipedia)

In the First Circle is a novel by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, released in 1968. A more complete version of the book was published in English in 2009.

The novel depicts the lives of the occupants of a sharashka (a research and development bureau made of Gulag inmates) located in the Moscow suburbs. This novel is highly autobiographical. Many of the prisoners (zeks) are technicians or academics who have been arrested under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code in Joseph Stalin's purges following the Second World War. Unlike inhabitants of other Gulag labor camps, the sharashka zeks were adequately fed and enjoyed good working conditions; however, if they found disfavor with the authorities, they could be instantly shipped to Siberia.

The title is an allusion to Dante's first circle, or limbo of Hell in The Divine Comedy, wherein the philosophers of Greece, and other virtuous pagans, live in a walled green garden. They are unable to enter Heaven, as they were born before Christ, but enjoy a small space of relative freedom in the heart of Hell.

Character Map

Source: In the First Circle (Kindle) > Cast of Characters

Note: There are over 50 characters, so how to represent them and their relationships is a bit of a challenge

Marfino

Zeks at Marfino sharashka

tryst

spouse

Gleb Vikentievich Nerzhin
Glebka, Glebochka, Gleb Vikentich, Vikentich
Zek; mathematician; assigned to Acoustics Lab; interlocutor of Rubin and Sologdin; the author's alter ego; age 31

Dmitri Aleksandrovich Sologdin
Mitya, Mityai, Dmitri Aleksandrych
Zek; engineer, designer; assigned to Design Office; serving second term and twelfth year of incarceration; Christian; age 36

Lev Grigorievich Rubin
Levka, Lyova, Lyovka, Lyovochka, Lyovushka
Zek; linguist; assigned to Acoustics Lab; steadfast Communist; age 36

Valentin Martynovich Pryanchikov
Val, Valentulya, Valentin Martynych, Pryanchik
Zek; engineer, radio expert; assigned to Acoustics Lab; formerly POW under the Germans; age 31; childish, delights in technical work

Aleksandr Yevdokimovich Bobynin
Zek; senior engineer; assigned to Number Seven Lab; age 42; the man with nothing to lose is free

Spiridon Danilovich Yegorov
Spiridon Danilych, Danilych
Zek; of peasant stock; yardman; age 50

Grigory Borisovich Abramson
Grigory Borisych, Borisych
Zek; serving second consecutive term; engineer; Trotskyist

Serafima Vitalievna
Sima, Simochka
Free worker at Marfino; worked alongside Gleb Nerzhin, developed amorous interest in him

Nadezhda Ilyinichna Nerzhina
Nadya
Wife of Nerzhin; graduate student

Key Characters:
Gleb Nerzhin, Lev Rubin, Dmitri Sologdin, Innokenty Volodin, and Joseph Stalin

With the possible exception of Rubin, the unwavering Marxist, all are richer, fuller characters in the uncensored text, and the two characters who are arguably the most important, Nerzhin and Volodin, undergo the type of change that distinguishes dynamic fictional characters from static ones.

 

Soviet Leadership and Others

Troika of Liars

spouse

daughter

Innokenty Artemievich Volodin
Ini, Ink, Inok
Diplomat, State Counselor Grade Two in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, equivalent in rank to a lieutenant colonel; the story opens with his phone call to the U.S. Embassy; age 30

Dotnara Petrovna Volodina
Dotty, Nara
Wife of Innokenty Volodin; daughter of Pyotr Makarygin

Pyotr Afanasievich Makarygin
Public prosecutor in Moscow; father of Dinera, Dotnara, and Klara

Joseph Stalin
Iosif Vissarionovich Djugashvili
Soso, Koba, Iossarionych

Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov
Colonel General; Minister of State Security; formerly head of SMERSH

Selivanovsky
Deputy Minister of State Security

Foma Guryanovich Oskolupov
Major General; head of Special Technology Department, Ministry of State Security

Anton Nikolaevich Yakonov
Anton Nikolaich
Engineer Colonel; chief engineer, Special Technology Department; head of operations at Marfino