Gulag: Life And Death Inside the Soviet Concentration Camps
by Tomasz Kizny
On This Page
Description
A historic photographic record of the Soviet Gulag and its legacy. The Gulag was a network of labor camps and penal colonies run by the Soviet security organizations. While forced labor and internal exile had a long history in Russia, the Gulag evolved into a devastating tool of political suppression and massive industrial production. From the early years of the Revolution to the final years of the USSR, millions labored and perished within this system. Gulag covers the history of the Gulag show more with incredible essays and firsthand narratives by former prisoners. The text is accompanied by photographs provided by the prisoners, survivor groups and state archives as well as contemporary photographs that show the camps as they look now. Each chapter covers a key camp or work project of the Soviet penal-industrial complex: Solovki, the monastery that was the birthplace of the Gulag system The White Sea Canal Vaigach, the doomed humane camp The Theater in the Gulag Kolyma, the deadly Siberian gold rush Vorkuta, coal mining above the Arctic Circle The Railroad of Death Each chapter has: A concise introductory essay Formerly banned and previously unpublished archival photographs Detailed chronology of the camp Prisoners' accounts of life and death in the camps and colonies Contemporary photographs Accounts of survivors some of whom still live near their former camp or colony. Gulag is a remarkable pictorial history of a harrowing era of the twentieth century. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
A visual testament of a system that devoured its own.
As its legacy has not been resolved, it is bound to repeat itself, either in the same but most likely in another form.
A past, that they still need to confront.
As its legacy has not been resolved, it is bound to repeat itself, either in the same but most likely in another form.
A past, that they still need to confront.
A heart breaking photograph album of the gulags, the executed and the monsters who ran the gulags.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
3 Works 54 Members
Some Editions
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Gulag: Life And Death Inside the Soviet Concentration Camps
- Important places
- Solovetsky Islands, White Sea, USSR; The White Sea Channel; Kolyma; Vorkuta; Vaigach Island
- Epigraph
- What I saw, no man should see or even know about,
But once he has seen it, better that he die quickly.
Varlam Shalamov, Kolyma Tales
Translated by John Glad - Quotations
- The one picture that is missing and that, in the pre-flash era, could not be easily taken concerns a regular sight in all of the camps of the Gulag. It would show huge stacks of emaciated corpses, frozen solid, piled high and... (show all) wrapped in rags, awaiting the end of the Arctic night and the brief chance of the thaw and of anonymous burial.
The Gulag is not a closed chapter in history, above all because to this day we do not know the whole truth about it.
The slave mentality still persists in Russia because the Soviet system was never brought to trial. There was no equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials in our country.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Politics and Government, Art & Design
- DDC/MDS
- 365.45 — Society, government, & culture Social problems and social services Punishment Institutions for specific classes of inmates Institutions for political prisoners and related groups of people
- LCC
- DK267 .K53513 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics – Poland History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics History Soviet regime, 1918-1991
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 50
- Popularity
- 605,989
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.63)
- Languages
- 6 — English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 7
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 2
