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A fully documented history of the Soviet camp system, from its origins in the Russian Revolution to its collapse in the era of glasnost. Anne Applebaum first lays out the chronological history of the camps and the logic behind their creation, enlargement, and maintenance. Applebaum also examines how life was lived within this shadow country: how prisoners worked, how they ate, where they lived, how they died, how they survived. She examines their guards and their jailers, the horrors of transportation in empty cattle cars, the strange nature of Soviet arrests and trials, the impact of World War II, the relations between different national and religious groups, and the escapes, as well as the extraordinary rebellions that took place in the 1950s. She concludes by examining the disturbing question why the Gulag has remained relatively obscure, in the historical memory of both the former Soviet Union and the West.… (more)
rebeccanyc: Harden's book describes life within one specific slave labor camp in North Korea, and Applebaum's explores the Soviet Gulag in depth, making use of Soviet archives and prisoners' writings.
Extremely thoroughly researched, documented, organized and structured (though I disliked the chosen structure - on themes rather than chronologically, because it leads to reiterations of the same periods). But dry and often boring, failing to capture the most important element of the Gulag: the scope of individual human suffering, lost here in a too ”from above”, too large and statistical picture. PS: I recommend you avoid the Penguin Books edition, it is printed in tiny-tiny crowded letters, on very thin paper, with ink that gets on the fingers. ( )
Rannsókn Anne Appelbaum á sovéska Gúlaginu er ítarleg og hún miðlar henni vel. Hún segir frá fyrstu markmiðum ráðamanna í Sovétríkjunum varðandi fangabúðirnar og ringulreiðinni sem oft á tíðum ríkti í starfsemi þeirra. Skeytingarleysi fangabúðastjóra og fangavarða sem kostuðu þúsundir mannslífa og miskunnarleysi ráðamanna sem voru staðráðnir í því að láta þrælkunarbúðirnar skila efnahagslegum gróða. Maður er hreinlega miður sín yfir mannfallinu og miskunnarleysinu sem viðgekkst. Þetta er margverðlaunuð bók og nauðsynleg lesning hverjum sem vill kynna sér aðstæður í Sovétríkjunum á síðustu öld. ( )
nonfiction (history of soviet gulags). takes into account recently surfaced documents providing a more complete story of the prison camps than has been told before. ( )
Excellent! Very well written book on a topic and time that needs to be discussed. It is also, at times, a painful book to read. It staggers the imagination to see the evil that mankind inflicts on itself. ( )
Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History is the first volume that attempts to give a detailed and fairly comprehensive narrative of the origin, purpose, workings, and reality of the system based both on the memoirs of those who lived through and survived the camps and on the now-available archive documents in Russia.
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Dans les années terribles de la « Iéjovchtchina », j’ai passé dix-sept mois à faire la queue devant les prisons de Leningrad. Un jour, quelqu’un a cru m’y reconnaître. Alors une femme aux lèvres bleuâtres, qui était derrière moi et à qui mon nom ne disait rien, sortit de cette torpeur qui nous était coutumière et me demanda à l’oreille (là-bas, on ne parlait qu’en chuchotant) : – Et cela, pourriez-vous le décrire ? Et je répondis : – Oui, je le peux. Alors, une espèce de sourire glissa sur ce qui avait été jadis son visage.
Anna Akhmatova, « En guise de préface », Requiem, 1935-1940 (trad. Paul Valet)
(Chapitre 1 : Débuts bolcheviques)
Mais tes reins ont été brisés Ma belle ère pitoyable Et, avec un sourire vide de pensée, Tu regardes, cruelle et faible, Pareille à une bête qui fut souple jadis, La trace de tes propres pattes.
(Ossip Mandelstam, « Vek ».)
(Chapitre 1 : Débuts bolcheviques)
L’un de mes objectifs est de détruire le mythe suivant lequel l’ère de répression la plus cruelle commença en 1936-1937. A l’avenir, je crois, les statistiques montreront que la vague d’arrestations, de condamnations et d’exil avait commencé dès le début de 1918, avant même la proclamation officielle, cet automne-là, de la « Terreur Rouge ». Dès lors, la vague ne fit que s’amplifier, jusqu’à la mort de Staline...
(Dimitri Likhatchev, « Vospominaniya».)
Dedication
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Ce livre est dédié à ceux qui ont raconté ce qui est arrivé
First words
This is a history of the Gulag: a history of the vast network of labour camps that were once scattered across the length and breadth of the Soviet Union, from the islands of the White Sea to the shores of the Black Sea, from the Arctic Circle to the plains of central Asia, from Murmansk to Vorkuta to Kazakhstan, from central Moscow to the Leningrad suburbs.
Quotations
Last words
Without them, we will wake up one day and realize that we do not know who we are.
A fully documented history of the Soviet camp system, from its origins in the Russian Revolution to its collapse in the era of glasnost. Anne Applebaum first lays out the chronological history of the camps and the logic behind their creation, enlargement, and maintenance. Applebaum also examines how life was lived within this shadow country: how prisoners worked, how they ate, where they lived, how they died, how they survived. She examines their guards and their jailers, the horrors of transportation in empty cattle cars, the strange nature of Soviet arrests and trials, the impact of World War II, the relations between different national and religious groups, and the escapes, as well as the extraordinary rebellions that took place in the 1950s. She concludes by examining the disturbing question why the Gulag has remained relatively obscure, in the historical memory of both the former Soviet Union and the West.
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(4.15)
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But dry and often boring, failing to capture the most important element of the Gulag: the scope of individual human suffering, lost here in a too ”from above”, too large and statistical picture.
PS: I recommend you avoid the Penguin Books edition, it is printed in tiny-tiny crowded letters, on very thin paper, with ink that gets on the fingers. (