<Li> Senka Klevshin, a member of the 104th who became deaf from intense fighting during World War II . He escaped from the Germans three times and was recaptured each time, ending up in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp . </Li> <P> The main themes of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich are totalitarian oppression and camp survival . Specifically discussed are the prison officials' cruelty and spite towards their fellow man . Solzhenitsyn explains through Ivan Denisovich that everything is managed by the camp commandant to the point that time feels unnoticed; the prisoners always have work to do and never have any free time to discuss important issues . </P> <P> Survival is of the utmost importance to prisoners . Attitude is another crucial factor in survival . Since prisoners are each assigned a grade, it is considered good etiquette to obey . This is outlined through the character of Fetiukov, a ministry worker who has let himself into prison and scarcely follows prison etiquette . Another such incident involves Buinovsky, a former naval captain, who is punished for defending himself and others during an early morning frisking . </P> <P> One Day is a sparse, tersely written narrative of a single day of the ten - year labor camp imprisonment of a fictitious Soviet prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov . Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had first - hand experience in the Gulag system, having been imprisoned from 1945 to 1953 for writing derogatory comments in letters to friends about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, whom he referred to by epithets such as "the master" and "the boss". Solzhenitsyn claimed the prisoners wept when news of Stalin's death reached them . He uses the epithet "old man whiskers" in his novel, where it is translated as "Old Whiskers" or "Old Man Whiskers". This title was considered offensive and derogatory, but prisoners were free to call Stalin whatever they liked: "Somebody in the room was bellowing:' Old Man Whiskers won't ever let you go! He wouldn't trust his own brother, let alone a bunch of cretins like you!" Drafts of stories found in Solzhenitsyn's map case were used to incriminate him (Frangsmyr, 1993). </P>

How many pages are in one day in the life of ivan denisovich