Gulag Letters

Gulag Letters PDF Author: Arsenii Formakov
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300228198
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A poignant collection of letters written by the Latvian poet, novelist, and newspaper editor Arsenii Formakov while interned in Soviet labor camps Emily Johnson has translated and edited a fascinating collection of letters written by Arsenii Formakov, a Latvian Russian poet, novelist, and journalist, during two terms in Soviet labor camps, 1940 to 1947 in Kraslag and 1949 to 1955 in Kamyshlag and Ozerlag. This correspondence, which Formakov mailed home to his family in Riga, provides readers with a firsthand account of the workings of the Soviet penal system and testifies to the hardships of daily life for Latvian prisoners in the Gulag.

My Father's Letters

My Father's Letters PDF Author: Memorial
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 1783785306
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
A profoundly moving and historical record—letters sent by sixteen fathers imprisoned in the Gulag camps to their children during the 1930s–1950s. “They will live as human beings and die as human beings; and in this alone lies man’s eternal and bitter victory over all the grandiose and inhuman forces that ever have been or will be.” —Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate Between the 1930s and 1950s, millions of people were sent to the Gulag in the Soviet Union. My Father’s Letters tells the stories of sixteen men—mostly members of the intelligentsia, and loyal Soviet subjects—who were imprisoned in the Gulag camps, through the letters they sent back to their wives and children. Here are letters illustrated by fathers keen to educate their children in science and natural history; the tragic missives of a former military man convinced that the terrible mistake of his arrest will be rectified; the “letter” stitched on a bedsheet with a fishbone and smuggled out of a maximum security camp. My Father’s Letters is an immediate source of life in prison during Stalin’s Great Terror. Almost none of the men writing these letters survived. “My Father’s Letters is well presented and deeply moving. The translation is fluent and all the necessary background information is clearly provided. Some passages conjure up the life of an individual family—and of an entire culture—with heart-breaking vividness.” —Robert Chandler “Astoundingly, these stories are not miserable. Yes, the men mention their inadequate shelter, clothing and food, but the overwhelming impact is the expression of their love for their families . . . My Father’s Letters is beautifully produced.” —Vin Arthey, Scotsman

Gulag Letters

Gulag Letters PDF Author: Arsenii Formakov
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300228198
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A poignant collection of letters written by the Latvian poet, novelist, and newspaper editor Arsenii Formakov while interned in Soviet labor camps Emily Johnson has translated and edited a fascinating collection of letters written by Arsenii Formakov, a Latvian Russian poet, novelist, and journalist, during two terms in Soviet labor camps, 1940 to 1947 in Kraslag and 1949 to 1955 in Kamyshlag and Ozerlag. This correspondence, which Formakov mailed home to his family in Riga, provides readers with a firsthand account of the workings of the Soviet penal system and testifies to the hardships of daily life for Latvian prisoners in the Gulag.

Letters from the Gulag

Letters from the Gulag PDF Author: Oksana Asher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philologists
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description


Just Send Me Word

Just Send Me Word PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141971401
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
From Orlando Figes, international bestselling author of A People's Tragedy, Just Send Me Word is the moving true story of two young Russians whose love survived Stalin's Gulag. Lev and Svetlana, kept apart for fourteen years by the Second World War and the Gulag, stayed true to each other and exchanged thousands of secret letters as Lev battled to survive in Stalin's camps. Using this remarkable cache of smuggled correspondence, Orlando Figes tells the tale of two incredible people who, swept along in the very worst of times, kept their devotion alive. Orlando Figes was granted exclusive access to the thousands of letters between Lev and Sveta that form the foundation of Just Send Me Word, and he was able to interview the couple in person, then in their nineties. These real-time and largely uncensored letters form the largest cache of Gulag letters ever found. Reviews: 'One is overcome with admiration for the kindness, bravery and generosity of people in terrible peril ... It is impossible to read without shedding tears' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Financial Times 'This powerful narrative by a distinguished historian will take its place not just in history but in literature' Robert Massie 'Electrifying, passionate, devoted, despairing, exhilarating ... a tale of hope, resilience, grit and love' The Times 'Moving ... a remarkable discovery' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'The gulag story lacks individuals for us to sympathise with: a Primo Levi, an Anne Frank or even an Oskar Schindler. Just Send Me Word may well be the book to change that' Oliver Bullough, Independent 'Immensely touching ... [a] heartening gem of a book' Anna Reid, Literary Review 'The remarkable true story of a love affair between two Soviet citizens ... as much a literary challenge as a historical one: the book can be read as a non-fiction novel' Telegraph 'Remarkable ... Figes, selecting and then interpreting this mass of letters, makes them tell two kinds of story. The first is a uniquely detailed narrative of the gulag, of the callous, slatternly universe which consumed millions of lives ... The second is about two people determined not to lose each other' Neal Ascherson, Guardian 'A quiet, moving and memorable account of life in a totalitarian state ... The book often reads like a novel ... captivating' Evening Standard 'Orlando Figes has wrought something beautiful from dark times' Ian Thomson, Observer 'A heart-rending record of extraordinary human endurance' Kirkus Reviews '[A] remarkable tale of love and devotion during the worst years of the USSR ... [Figes's] fine narrative pacing enhances this moving, memorable story' Publishers Weekly About the author: Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Peasant Russia, Civil War, A People's Tragedy, Natasha's Dance, The Whisperers and Crimea. He lives in Cambridge and London. His books have been translated into over twenty languages.

Just Send Me Word

Just Send Me Word PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 0805095233
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
A heroic love story and an unprecedented inside view of one of Stalin's most notorious labor camps, based on a remarkable cache of letters smuggled in and out of the Gulag "I went to get the letters for our friends, and couldn't help but feel a little envious, I didn't expect anything for myself. And suddenly—there was my name, and, as if it was alive, your handwriting." In 1946, after five years as a prisoner—first as a Soviet POW in Nazi concentration camps, then as a deportee (falsely accused of treason) in the Arctic Gulag—twenty-nine-year-old Lev Mishchenko unexpectedly received a letter from Sveta, the sweetheart he had hardly dared hope was still alive. Amazingly, over the next eight years the lovers managed to exchange more than 1,500 messages, and even to smuggle Sveta herself into the camp for secret meetings. Their recently discovered correspondence is the only known real-time record of life in Stalin's Gulag, unmediated and uncensored. Orlando Figes, "the great storyteller of modern Russian historians" (Financial Times), draws on Lev and Sveta's letters as well as KGB archives and recent interviews to brilliantly reconstruct the broader world in which their story unfolded. With the powerful narrative drive of a novel, Just Send Me Word reveals a passion and endurance that triumphed over the tragic forces of history.

Rethinking the Gulag

Rethinking the Gulag PDF Author: Alan Barenberg
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253059607
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The Soviet Gulag was one of the largest, most complex, and deadliest systems of incarceration in the 20th century. What lessons can we learn from its network of labor camps and prisons and exile settlements, which stretched across vast geographic expanses, included varied institutions, and brought together inmates from all the Soviet Union's ethnicities, professions, and social classes? Drawing on a massive body of documentary evidence, Rethinking the Gulag: Identities, Sources, Legacies explores the Soviet penal system from various disciplinary perspectives. Divided into three sections, the collection first considers "identities"—the lived experiences of contingents of detainees who have rarely figured in Gulag histories to date, such as common criminals and clerics. The second section surveys "sources" to explore the ways new research methods can revolutionize our understanding of the system. The third section studies "legacies" to reveal the aftermath of the Gulag, including the folk beliefs and traditions it has inspired and the museums built to memorialize it. While all the chapters respond to one another, each section also concludes with a reaction by a leading researcher: geographer Judith Pallot, historian Lynne Viola, and cultural historian and literary scholar Alexander Etkind. Moving away from grand metaphorical or theoretical models, Rethinking the Gulag instead unearths the complexities and nuances of experience that represent a primary focus in the new wave of Gulag studies.

Gulag

Gulag PDF Author: Anne Applebaum
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307426122
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 738

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Book Description
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • This magisterial and acclaimed history offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost. “A tragic testimony to how evil ideologically inspired dictatorships can be.” –The New York Times The Gulag—a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners—was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. Applebaum intimately re-creates what life was like in the camps and links them to the larger history of the Soviet Union. Immediately recognized as a landmark and long-overdue work of scholarship, Gulag is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand the history of the twentieth century.

The American Gulag Chronicles

The American Gulag Chronicles PDF Author: Tim Rivers
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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The Gulag Study

The Gulag Study PDF Author: Michael E. Allen
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428980024
Category : Prisoners of war
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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Letters from the GULag

Letters from the GULag PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : ru
Pages :

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Book Description