‘Cancer Ward’ Considered; Works Assail Stalinism : Soviets May Publish Solzhenitsyn Novel

In a development that would extend the limits of the Soviet Union’s drive toward liberalization, a leading Soviet publisher said Monday that he is negotiating to publish a novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was expelled from the Soviet Union 14 years ago for his powerful writings about the horrors of the Soviet system.

Editors of the prestigious literary journal Novy Mir said they are negotiating to publish Solzhenitsyn’s “Cancer Ward,” a novel set in a Soviet hospital in Tashkent in the time of Josef Stalin.

“Everything should be clear in about a week or 10 days,” Novy Mir Editor Sergei P. Zalygin said.

Another member of the Novy Mir staff said that publication of another Solzhenitsyn novel, “First Circle,” is also under consideration.

However, according to a report from New York, Solzhenitsyn has not been contacted about possible publication of any of his works in the Soviet Union.

His publisher, Roger Straus of Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc., said that in a call to the author in Vermont, Solzhenitsyn told him that “he has not been asked, nor have any of his representatives been asked, for permission to do ‘Cancer Ward.’ ”

Any decision to publish Solzhenitsyn’s works would constitute a major reversal of a longstanding ban of his works, viewed as among the most extensive, vivid condemnations of the repression that characterized the Stalinist era.

Chance of Return Hinted

Vladimir G. Karpov, first secretary of the official Soviet Writers Union, told a news conference Monday that he believes it is “possible that Solzhenitsyn will be published.” He even hinted that Solzhenitsyn would be allowed to return to the Soviet Union, although he doubted that an official invitation would be extended.

“Maybe Solzhenitsyn and others who were labeled dissidents will simply want to come back,” Karpov said. “If Solzhenitsyn wants to come back and help, then he is welcome. But if a person has lied and slandered our country from abroad and wants to come back to do it from here, then there is no place for him.”

Novy Mir has a long tradition of publishing controversial works. It published some of Solzhenitsyn’s early writings in the 1960s, including “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” but it failed in its efforts to publish others.

Since Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to power three years ago, Novy Mir has published several previously banned writers, including Boris Pasternak, the author of “Dr. Zhivago.” Beginning this year, works by writers who left the Soviet Union under the rule of the late Leonid I. Brezhnev have also been published, including poetry by Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky and the late Alexander Galich.

Last year, Zalygin, Novy Mir’s chief editor, told a Danish newspaper that “Cancer Ward” and “The Gulag Archipelago” would be published soon, but Soviet officials said otherwise.

The current negotiations to publish Solzhenitsyn’s works unfold against a backdrop of increasing criticism of the Stalinist era, including, for the first time, questions about his conduct during World War II, when an estimated 20 million Soviets were killed.

Estate in Vermont

Solzhenitsyn, who has lived for the past decade on a 50-acre estate in Vermont, came to prominence in the 1960s with publication of “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” a description of the harsh conditions in the labor camps. In “The Gulag Archipelago,” he expanded on the theme of state repression.

Solzhenitsyn was arrested in 1945, while serving as an army captain on the German front, and was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp for criticizing Stalin in a letter to a friend. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Four years later, he was expelled to West Germany, where he lived for a time before moving to Switzerland and then on to the United States.