ABSTRACT
The collision between the two worlds of family and society came to a head for Solzhenitsyn when he was between the ages of eleven and fourteen, coinciding with his puberty. He was at that stage when the bonds of childhood and his ties to the past were in any case certain to be loosened. In his own case, the situation was complicated by his particular psychological needs. The lack of a father had been partially compensated for by a deep love of family and tradition, internalized in the form of loyalty to the past and its values. The young Solzhenitsyn could have been no more than dimly aware of these developments in his early years, except insofar as they were palely reflected in the life of the school—only later did the true pattern of events become clear to him.
