Category Archives: Gulag
What’s in a Strikethrough?
Can a simple manuscript strikethrough be a sign of deep affection? I’m currently writing a book on Alzhir, a special Gulag camp division designed to hold women arrested during the so-called Great Terror of 1937-1938 as “family members of traitors … Continue reading
Posted in Gender and Sexuality, Gulag, Kazakhstan, Soviet Era 1917-1991
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Gulag Town and the “Little Zone” vs. the “Big Zone”
The main question Alan Barenberg urges us to ponder is the question of space. Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov, and others have conditioned us into thinking of Gulag space as separate space. Alan’s book, however, explicitly “aims to free the Gulag from Solzhenitsyn’s … Continue reading
Posted in Gulag, Gulag Town Company Town
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Gulag Town, Company Town, and the History of the Gulag
Thanks, Steve, for inviting me to participate in another Blog Conversation on the Gulag! Since we have almost a complete handful of Gulag specialists in on this conversation, I thought it might be useful to place Alan’s excellent book within … Continue reading
Gulag Town, Company Town: A Blog Conversation
We are excited to be trying something new with the latest in our series of blog conversations. We are co-hosting this blog conversation in conjunction with the Second World Urbanity Project blog. You can follow part of the conversation here … Continue reading
A Night in Karlag
I recently had the pleasure of presenting a paper at a conference entitled “Legacies of the Gulag and the Memory of Stalinism” at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam. My paper focused on public memory … Continue reading
Posted in Gulag, Kazakhstan, Nostalgia and Memory, Soviet Era 1917-1991
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Death and Redemption – Responses, but not answers
Thanks to Golfo Alexopoulos and Dan Healey for joining the conversation. It is pleasing to see that not only are new young scholars writing about the Gulag, but some of the best established scholars like Golfo and Dan have turned … Continue reading
Posted in Death and Redemption, Gulag, Soviet Era 1917-1991
3 Comments
Death and Redemption – a newspaper article and some thoughts on release
It’s been pointed out that the translated newspaper article I pasted into a comment at the bottom of a long discussion might go unnoticed, and – given it might be useful to others teaching on the Gulag – I thought I’d add it … Continue reading
Posted in Blog Conversations, Death and Redemption, Gulag
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Death and Redemption – Reforging, Reeducation, Redemption
So many interesting posts in this discussion, I feel like I could write an entire article responding to all of it. Here, I want to try to address some issues brought up initially by Jeff Hardy and in the comments … Continue reading
Posted in Death and Redemption, Gulag, Soviet Era 1917-1991
3 Comments
Death and Redemption
Over the past eighteen months I have come to realise that I’m not an ideal blogger in the sense that I’m not always very good at checking the internet! I’ve been busily writing my first thoughts about Death and Redemption … Continue reading
Posted in Death and Redemption, Gulag
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Death and Redemption – On Images
First, I must thank my colleague and co-blogger Andrew Jenks for setting up this blog conversation here at Russian History Blog. As an academic author, I have found the wait for journal reviews of my book to be excruciating. The … Continue reading
Death and Redemption—Theory and Practice
Though still a relatively young scholar (nine years since receiving his Ph.D.), Steve Barnes can rightfully be considered the dean of Gulag studies in the United States. From his provocative 2003 dissertation, to his Gulag: Many Days Many Lives website, … Continue reading
Posted in Death and Redemption, Gulag, Soviet Era 1917-1991, Stalinism
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ZATOs In View
A few weeks ago, on March 27, I was at a reception at the Harriman Institute (for Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies) at Columbia University for the opening of a new exhibit entitled ZATO: Soviet Secret Cities During the … Continue reading
Posted in Closed Cities, Cold War, Gulag, Soviet Intelligentsia, Soviet Science, Uncategorized
5 Comments
A guard’s perspective: Dovlatov’s Zona
After a slightly longer blogging ‘vacation’ than I had intended, I used some of the Christmas break to catch up on the posts I missed. Like many others, I particularly enjoyed the Gulag Boss discussion. It motivated me to start … Continue reading
Posted in Gulag, Gulag Boss, Russian Literature, Uncategorized
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Gulag Boss: On Truths and Silences
First, thanks to all the contributors to this discussion. Honestly, it has to this point exceeded my expectations. The intellectual content has been high, the questions thought-provoking, and the traffic heavy. For a moment, I want to dwell on the … Continue reading
Posted in Gulag, Gulag Boss
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Gulag Boss – Mochulsky and Gulag Space
Thank you, Steve, for organizing this group discussion and for inviting me to participate! No doubt one of the more interesting points of inquiry will be to assess Mochulsky’s role and behavior as a “perpetrator,” and Deborah Kaple eludes to … Continue reading
Posted in Gulag, Gulag Boss
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Gulag Boss: Scribblings
Deborah Kaple’s publication of Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir is a real achievement and a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of gulag studies. Mochulsky’s memoir presents a rare first-person description of the gulag by an NKVD employee working on … Continue reading
Posted in Gulag, Gulag Boss
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Gulag Boss – A Blog Conversation
Welcome to the first Russian History Blog conversation. If you have not, do take a quick look at my introduction to these Blog Conversations. In this post, I want to introduce briefly the subject of our discussion and provide a … Continue reading
Posted in Blog Conversations, Gulag, Gulag Boss, Uncategorized
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Blog Conversations
Starting Wednesday, Russian History Blog will host what hopefully will be the first in a series of blog conversations. On Wednesday, I will provide a more formal introduction to this particular blog conversation (on the new memoir Gulag Boss), but … Continue reading
Posted in Blog Conversations, Digital Russian History, Gulag, Gulag Boss
3 Comments
Interview on Death and Redemption
Princeton University Press published my book, Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society in May. I had the great pleasure to talk about the book with Sean Guillory (of Sean’s Russia Blog) at New Books in … Continue reading
ASEEES NewsNet Article on Russian History Blog
If you haven’t seen it yet, please do visit the first all-digital edition of the ASEEES NewsNet, where you will find an article by yours truly that discusses the origins and the goals of Russian History Blog along with a … Continue reading
Posted in Digital Russian History, Gulag
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