Editing In the First Circle (section)

{{Short description|Novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn}}
{{Other uses|First Circle (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name         = In the First Circle
| title_orig   = В круге первом
| translator   = H. T. Willetts
| image        = File:In_the_First_Circle.jpg
| caption = First edition
| author       = [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]
| cover_artist = 
| country      = [[Soviet Union]]
| language     = Russian
| genre        = [[Autobiographical novel|semi-autobiographical novel]]
| publisher    = [[Harper & Row]] (Eng. edition)
| release_date = 1968 (In the West), 1990 [[USSR]]
| media_type   = Print ([[paperback]])
| pages        = 741 pp.
| isbn         = 0-06-147901-2
| dewey= 891.73/44 21
| congress= PG3488.O4 V23 1997
| oclc= 37011369
}}

'''''In the First Circle''''' ({{langx|ru|link=no|italics=yes|В круге первом|V kruge pervom}}; also published as '''''The First Circle''''') is a novel by Russian writer [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], released in 1968. A more complete version of the book was published in English in 2009.

The novel depicts the lives of the occupants of a [[sharashka]] (a research and development bureau made of [[Gulag]] inmates) located in the Moscow suburbs. This novel is highly autobiographical. Many of the prisoners ([[Gulag#Terminology|zeks]]) are technicians or academics who have been arrested under [[Article 58]] of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code in [[Joseph Stalin]]'s [[Joseph Stalin#Purges and deportations|purges]] following the [[Second World War]]. Unlike inhabitants of other Gulag [[labor camp]]s, the sharashka zeks were adequately fed and enjoyed good working conditions; however, if they found disfavor with the authorities, they could be instantly shipped to Siberia.

The title is an allusion to [[Dante]]'s [[first circle of hell|first circle]], or [[limbo]] of Hell in ''[[The Divine Comedy]]'', wherein the philosophers of Greece, and other [[virtuous pagan]]s, live in a walled green garden. They are unable to enter Heaven, as they were born before Christ, but enjoy a small space of relative freedom in the heart of Hell.