The Gulag Archipelago (Russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ) is a book by Aleksanr Solzhenitsyn based on the Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system. It is a massive narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, as well as the author's own experiences as a prisoner in a Gulag labor camp. Written between 1958 and 1968 (dates given at the end of the book) it was published in the West in 1973, thereafter circulating in samizdat (underground publication) form in the Soviet Union until its official publication in 1989.