Gulag Voices: An Anthology

by Anne Applebaum, Jane Ann Miller

Overview

Anne Applebaum wields her considerable knowledge of a dark chapter in human history and presents a collection of the writings of survivors of the Gulag, the Soviet concentration camps. Although the opening of the Soviet archives to scholars has made it possible to write the history of this notorious concentration camp system, documents tell only one side of the story. Gulag Voices now fills in the other half.

 

The backgrounds of the writers reflect the extraordinary diversity of the Gulag itself. Here are the personal stories of such figures  as Dmitri Likhachev, a renowned literary scholar; Anatoly Marchenko, the son of illiterate laborers; and Alexander Dolgun, an American citizen. These remembrances—many of them appearing in English for the first time, each chosen for both literary and historical value—collectively spotlight the strange moral universe of the camps, as well as the relationships that prisoners had with one another, with their guards, and with professional criminals who lived beside them.

 

A vital addition to the literature of this era,annotated for a generation that no longer remembers the Soviet Union, Gulag Voices will inform, interest, and inspire, offering a source for reflection on human nature itself.

 

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300160123
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	01/25/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Anne Applebaum is Director of Political Studies at the Legatum Institute. Her book Gulag: A History won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction as well as numerous other awards. She lives in Warsaw, Poland.

Hometown:

Poland

Date of Birth:

July 25, 1964

Place of Birth:

Washington, D.C.

Education:

B.A., Yale University, 1986; M.Sc., London School of Economics, 1987; St. Antony¿s College, Oxford

Website:

http://www.anneapplebaum.com

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

1 Arrest Dmitry S. Likhachev 1

2 Interrogation Alexander Dolgun 13

3 The Kolyma Tram Elena Glinka 39

4 A Day in Labor Corrective Camp No. 21 Kazimierz Zarod 49

5 On Work Anatoly Zhigulin 57

6 On Faith Nina Gagen-Torn 69

7 Promotion Isaak Filshtinsky 83

8 My Child Hava Volovich 95

9 The House of Meetings Gustav Herling 105

10 Informers Lev Kopelev 125

11 Jailers Lev Razgon 143

12 The Cooler Anatoly Marchenko 169

13 Liberation K. Petrus 181

Acknowledgments 193

Editorial Reviews

The power of Gulag Voices is not only to remind us of the horrors of the Soviet Union’s corrective labour institutions and to honour those who were incarcerated there. It is also to illuminate the human consequences that ensue when any state’s legal system fails to recognise the human rights of prisoners.”—Wendy Slater, Times Literary Supplement

Times Literary Supplement - Wendey Slater

"'A journey into an incredibly rich and sharp recollection of feelings and emotions… The memoirs of these authors take the reader far beyond the duty of memory towards the dead, into the depths of the human heart where, as Solzhenitsyn disclosed when he wrote The Gulag Archipelago, 'the line separating good and evil passes.'" The Global Journal, June 2012

The Global Journal

[Gulag Voices] will inform a generation fortunate enough to be living in different times.”—Mary Dejevsky, The Independent

The Independent - Mary Dejevsky

A shocking mosaic of misery, of courage and of just about unimaginable resilience – this anthology brings together first-hand accounts of what it took men and women to survive. A disturbing and yet, in its way, inspiring book.” Michael Kerrigan, The Scotsman, 19th March 2011

The Scotsman - Michael Kerrigan

"Anne Applebaum, who had plumbed the archives to great effect in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Gulag: A History (2003), persuasively argues in the introduction to Gulag Voices that the profoundly personal perspective of Gulag memoirists . . . mean[s] that their works—valuable as both 'literature and testimony'—serve a 'moral and didactic' purpose as well as an historical one. . . . Works such as Gulag Voices encourage historical understanding and moral catharsis and should be welcomed by Russians and Westerners alike."—Daniel J. Mahoney, The New Criterion

The New Criterion - Daniel J. Mahoney

…Applebaum has performed an invaluable service…. She has put together a marvellous collection of memoirs, stories and reminiscences written by surviving Gulag inmates ranging from the 1920’s when Lenin opened camps in the first days after the Revolution, to the late 1970’s, a time when most Westerners, as well as Russians, presumed that such places no longer existed.”—Victor Sebestyen, The Spectator

The Spectator - Victor Sebestyen

Applebaum….is the ideal editor, providing introductions to each account, as well as a general explanation of the Gulag system. Her selection, each depicting a different aspect of Gulag life, leaves an unforgettable impression.”—Anthony Beevor, The Mail on Sunday

The Mail on Sunday - Anthony Beevor

"[T]he perfect companion for college courses on Soviet history. . . . This book, along with several similar books more or less simultaneously published, should be read widely."—Timothy J. Colton, Journal of Cold War Studies

Journal of Cold War Studies - Timothy J. Colton

"A book that weaves together chilling official history and personal stories of suffering and survival."—Contemporary Review

Contemporary Review

"[T]he perfect companion for college courses on Soviet history. . . . This book, along with several similar books more or less simultaneously published, should be read widely."—Timothy J. Colton, Journal of Cold War Studies

— Timothy J. Colton

Journal of Cold War Studies

"Anne Applebaum, who had plumbed the archives to great effect in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Gulag: A History (2003), persuasively argues in the introduction to Gulag Voices that the profoundly personal perspective of Gulag memoirists . . . mean[s] that their works—valuable as both 'literature and testimony'—serve a 'moral and didactic' purpose as well as an historical one. . . . Works such as Gulag Voices encourage historical understanding and moral catharsis and should be welcomed by Russians and Westerners alike."—Daniel J. Mahoney, The New Criterion

— Daniel J. Mahoney

The New Criterion

The term gulag, derived from the Russian acronym for "chief administration of corrective labor camps," has been seared on the conscience of a generation of world residents raised in the shadow of Communism and the Cold War. The horrors of the Gulag have been chronicled in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago and Applebaum's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag: A History, for which she used newly opened archives to corroborate statistics and facts. Here she has collected a wide variety of pieces—some excerpts from longer works, some pieces in their entirety, and some, by former zeks (prisoners), newly translated into English, describing subtler aspects of Gulag life. The mixture as a whole balances hard facts with literary nonfiction. The results form a living history of the human story, including the strange camp morality, relationships among inmates, and insights into the psychological conditions of prisoners. VERDICT The Gulag experience is not a fashionable topic in Russia today, but this work will provide the English-reading audience with Gulag experiences that resonate. Recommended for Russian history readers and historians wanting to learn more about the subtleties of Gulag life.—Harry Willems, Central Kansas Lib. Syst., Great Bend

Library Journal