Аннотация:This paper explains the reasons for the painful return of Shalamov to the Muscovite world, and analyses the various conflicts he had to face, regarding both his new and his former, detention, comrades. In this way, we can understand the impact that his first arrest in 1929 had on the construction of his existential model as well as on his aesthetic choices. Among these choices, can be considered his loyalty regarding politics and poetic engagement for the generation of 1920s, as he had interpreted it. On this basis, this paper investigates a number of ways of interpreting literary history made possible by some recent finds concerning the Shalamov’s biography, and analyses the rupture between Shalamov and Solzhenitsyn.