Image and Memory. A photographic legacy of GULAG. Tomasz Kizny X My presentation today consists of two parts. Firstly I would like to start with brief review on the exhibition “GULAG” which is going to be open tonight in Verona which shows part of material published in GULAG book. In the second part I wish to present more general overview of discovered till present- day photographs of Gulag and to talk about its role in the process of creating collective memory. X Let me start with few basic facts about Soviet Gulags. Map explanation. Gulag from Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei (Main Camps Administration) was soviet security department that administered vast system of forced-labor camps in the USSR, also responsible for prisons, deportations and exiles (internal banishment). The Gulag was officially established in the 1930 and terminated in 1960. But since publication The Gulag Archipelago by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in 1974 the term Gulag is used as name for entire Soviet camps system since first camps (May 1918) were established during the early Bolshevik years. The last camp for political prisoners in the USSR “Perm - 36” was closed in 1988. The total number of people passed through the Gulags in period 1930-1956 is estimated for 18 million. These figure does not include other repressions did under Gulag administration: victims of “special exile” (internal banishment) and mass deportations like “kulaks” (richer peasants) during collectivization in
1930s, deportations of Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians Estonians, Caucasians, Tatars, Volga Germans and others during the war. Adding the numbers together of all categories of citizens repressed by Gulag system the total number of forced laborers and exiled in the USSR in period 1930-1956 comes to 28 million and 700 thousands. To date, no completely satisfactory death statistics for the Gulag system have yet appeared. The number of died in camps and in the exile villages in the Stalinist era (1929-1953) based on archival sources is estimated as 2 milion 750 thousand peopole . However the total number of died as a result of Bolshevik Revolution and Soviet system including victims of Red Terror, Civil War, the famines in 1920s and 1930s, the Gulag camps and exiles and the mass executions is estimated for 20 mln (S. Cortuois) other historians cite numbers around 12 millions. Statistics: Ann Appelbaum GULAG. A History. 2003. Now I am going briefly to show seven chapters of the GULAG exhibition and book. X SOLOVETSKY CAMP The monastery on the Solovetsky Islands is one of the holy sites of the Russian Orthodox world since 15 th century. In 1923 the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp was established on this remote northern archipelago. Churches and chapels were converted into barracks for prisoners and camp administration buildings. X By that time at least 100 Bolshevik concentration camps already existed but Solovetsky was the first camp to be directly under the control of OGPU (United State Political Department), which carried out the centralization of the camp system, completed in 1930 with the establishment of the Chief Administration of
Camps or GULAG. X Solovketsky monastery has particular place in the history of GULAG due to the fact that since 1929 system of camps started rapidly grow on the basis of Solovky camp experience. Solovki might also serve as a symbol of the destruction of Russian tradition, religion and culture in the name of communist ideology. X In 1992 the Solovetsky monastery complex was included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. X X X BIELOMORKANAL Starting from the 1930s, GULAG prisoners were used on a large scale to implement economic tasks and began to play an essential role in the USSR economy. The White Sea Canal was one of the first “ great construction projects of Communism” X which relied exclusively on the labor of prisoners. At Stalin's instructions work on Bielomorkanal was fast and inexpensive. X Roughly 100 000 prisoners and 70 000 special exiled equipped with the simple tools build 230-kilometre long canal linking the Baltic and the White Sea in 20 months between 1931 and 1933. X Build too small for maritime vessels and for half a year ice-bound The White Sea Canal never played any strategic role and it’s economic importance was marginal. X Bielomorkanal is an example that much of the work in the Gulag was not just hopeless. It was often pointless too. The human cost of White Sea Canal construction was at least 12 300 prisoners. X VAIGACH 1930-1936 So called Vaygach Expedition was one of the first soviet political police landing operation on the Far North of the SU. The tasks of expedition were to extract zinc and lead ore on the island. They were probably also counting on finding deposits of gold there. X The Vaygach Expedition was in many respects a special event in the world of the Gulag. There were no barbed wire fences or watchtowers prisoners were only guarded by soldiers. For fulfilling the daily work norm, two days were written off a prisoner’s sentence. Outstanding
workers were paid cash prizes and were allowed to bring their families to Vaygach what was the part of state policy to settle villages on uninhabited regions. X X X X THEATRE IN GULAG The theatre was very popular in the Gulag camps. Many commanders made it a point of pride to have their own theatre group. For the camp bosses, especially in the far north, the theater was the only entertainment in the isolated world of the camps. Actors were recruited among prisoners. X Gulag theatres varied in nature: from groups dancing to balalaika in the camp dining room, to professional companies with a symphony orchestra, costumes and stage equipment delivered from Moscow and Leningrad. Professional companies were set up by the administrations of large camp centers like Norilsk, Vorkuta or Magadan in Kolyma. Repertoire was mainly operas and operettas and of course propaganda: odes to Stalin, revolutionary songs, etc… Grigory Litinsky, a Moscow writer who, as a prisoner, worked in the administration of the theater at Vorkuta, account that the prison camp officials w ere in the habit of going to the theater each evening as if to a restaurant. “They would listen to a favorite aria and then go back to the buffet to have a glass of champagne. The top commanders had their own office in the theater, where they were brought alcohol and snacks.” X Memory of Lazar Sheryshevsky “ After the performance, in the dressing room the actors took off their princes’, ladies’ and hussars’ costumes and changed into padded jackets and hats with earflaps. In the gloom of the Arctic night, in a ringing frost, an armed convoy escorted the conductor, the musicians, actors and dancers behind the
barbed wire again. Here the performers went back to their real-life role – as prisoners. ” Lazar Sheryshevsky X “ Why did the Gulag bosses found prison camp theaters? Purely for their own pleasure. That’s all . ” Nina Gamilton KOLYMA The complex of camps at Kolyma lying at the northeastern tip of the Soviet Union, was the biggest prison camp system in the USSR which take in total about 10 per cent of the territory of the USSR. X The main activity was extraction of gold and later uranium. Kolyma was one of the harshest places in GULAG. Due to the Arctic climate with winter lasting for several months, and temperatures falling to minus 65 degrees Celsius as well as the ruthless exploitation of prisoners. X The nightmare that was Kolyma lasted for 25 years between 1932 and 1957. X According to records of Prisoners Registration Department of GULAG in the period 1932-1954 through Kolyma camps passed 860 000 prisoners and 121 256 of them died. This mortal statistic is incomplete . X X THE DEAD ROAD “ The 'Dead Road ” or the Great Northern Railroad Highway was built by a seventy thousand prisoners, the line running 1300 km along the Arctic Circle through Western Siberia. X It was the last "great communist construction project" of Stalinist times. The construction was begun in inexplicable haste, with no plan, no regard for cost, and no technical designs. X In two weeks after Stalin's funeral the work was stopped. By the time almost 900 km had been already constructed (60% of planed 1500 km railway). X Even if the railway had been completed, it is uncertain what
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