Gulag Voices: Oral Histories of Soviet Incarceration and Exile (Palgrave Studies in Oral History)

This volume brings the powerful voices of Gulag survivors to an English-speaking audience for the first time through oral histories, rather than written memoirs. Annotation "In this volume, the powerful voices of Gulag survivors will become accessible to English-speaking audiences for the first time through oral histories, rather than written memoirs. It brings together interviews with men and women, members of the working class and intelligentsia, people who live in the major cities and those from the "provinces," and from an array of corrective hard labor camps and prisons across the former Soviet Union. Its aims are threefold: 1) to give a sense of the range of the Gulag experience and its consequences for Russian society; 2) to make the Gulag relevant to English-speaking readers by offering comparisons to historical catastrophes they are likely to know more about, such as the Holocaust; and 3) to discuss issues of oral history and memory in the cultural context of Soviet and post-Soviet society"--Provided by publisher & Quot;In this volume, the powerful voices of Gulag survivors will become accessible to English-speaking audiences for the first time through oral histories, rather than written memoirs. It brings together interviews with men and women, members of the working class and intelligentsia, people who live in the major cities and those from the "provinces," and from an array of corrective hard labor camps and prisons across the former Soviet Union. Its aims are threefold: 1) to give a sense of the range of the Gulag experience and its consequences for Russian society; 2) to make the Gulag relevant to English-speaking readers by offering comparisons to historical catastrophes they are likely to know more about, such as the Holocaust; and 3) to discuss issues of oral history and memory in the cultural context of Soviet and post-Soviet society"--Provided by publisher The first collection of oral histories of Gulag survivors to appear in English, Gulag Voices is a groundbreaking and long-overdue addition to the history of the Stalin era. The interviews assembled here represent a wide range of Gulag experiences, including prisons, labor camps and colonies, and deportation settlements. They include among them a so-called kulak who was deported in 1930, as well as an interviewee who obtained his release from a political camp only in 1986. Taken together, these accounts form a powerful picture of incarceration, forced labor, and exile in the USSR, and demonstrate the profound disruptions suffered by everyday citizens. They also reveal the long-term effects of the Gulag, demonstrating how these experiences extended beyond the fall of the Soviet Empire and into the next generation. Front Matter....Pages i-xix Introduction....Pages 1-14 Front Matter....Pages 15-15 A Life in the Forest....Pages 17-28 Soviet but German....Pages 29-46 Under Two Dictators....Pages 47-66 Front Matter....Pages 67-67 A Mother in Exile....Pages 69-86 Surrounded by Death....Pages 87-97 It Wasn’t Life....Pages 99-114 Front Matter....Pages 115-115 Three Death Certificates but No Grave....Pages 117-131 Enumerated Units....Pages 133-147 Front Matter....Pages 149-149 From Privilege to Exile....Pages 151-167 Bridging Separate Worlds....Pages 169-189 Front Matter....Pages 191-191 I So Desired Death....Pages 193-199 Fragments....Pages 201-206 Disgusting and Hopeless....Pages 207-210 We Will Surely Die....Pages 211-213 Why Did He Ruin Our Happiness?....Pages 215-217 Fare Thee Well....Pages 219-222 Back Matter....Pages 223-256