The Relevance of "One Day in the Life" to Covid-19

While Cavendish can recognize the writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as the town’s expert on social distancing, they may not be aware that his first novella One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a “how to” manual for surviving challenging situations.

Growing up listening to and reading stories of the Holocaust and other atrocities of World War II, I often wondered how people survived such situations. As a teenager, I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and found myself saying, “I get it.”

What struck me was the importance of living the moment you are in as well as not obsessing over things you have no control over.  Basically it was my first look at what today is called “mindfulness,” with a bit of Stoic philosophy thrown in.

In the midst of the worst sort of misery-a gulag in the dead of winter-this prisoner achieves a level of contentment that many wouldn’t have thought possible. Laying a brick, carefully and deliberately not only keeps him warm but keeps him focused, engaged and mindful.

I hadn’t re read the book until I started working on the Solzhenitsyn project for the Cavendish Historical Society (CHS). When I revisited it, I was blown away when I read the last few paragraphs of the book.

Having described in detail the challenges of being in a labor camp as a political prisoner, Solzhenitsyn describes what his character does before falling asleep. "Shukhov felt pleased with life as he went to sleep.  A lot of good things had happened that day.  He hadn't been thrown in the hole. The gang hadn't been dragged off to Sotsgorodok.  He'd swiped the extra gruel at dinnertime.  The foreman had got a good rate for the job.  He'd enjoyed working on the wall.  He hadn't been caught with the blade at the search point.  He'd earned a bit from Tsezar that evening.  He’d bought his tobacco.  And he hadn’t taken sick, had got over it.

Today there is a fair amount of research  in the field of positive psychology that support an association between gratitude and an individual's well-being. In part, it helps to create and sustain hope. Interestingly there is research that indicates that those who count their blessings before going to bed actually sleep better.

As it turns out, a very successful and highly practiced form of psychotherapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), has its roots in Stoic philosophy. Since one of the most famous Stoic’s was Epictetus, who was born into slavery, it’s not surprising that Solzhenitsyn would have drawn some similar conclusions. We may not have control over our circumstances, but we can control how we interpret them and how we respond to them.

In the midst of our “stay at home” order, “One Day in the Life” is definitely worth a read. It’s short, can be read in one sitting and can help reframe this time of Covid-19 by reminding us that we do have control over how we respond as well as there are positive things happening all around us that we can be grateful for.

There are six English translations of the book, with the one by H.T. Willetts (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991) being the version recommended by the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center.