I’ve been working on my research project on narratives of imprisonment, hard labour and exile for several years now, and am at last making concrete progress with my book. While I’m completing it, I plan to use the blog to organize my notes by writing short reflection pieces on primary and secondary sources as I read […]
All posts in category Gulag
Keeping Faith with the Party
Posted by Sarah Young on March 26, 2014
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2014/03/26/keeping-faith-with-the-party/
Bedtime reading
A fit of nostalgia following the recent death of the actor Lewis Collins has seen me revisiting old episodes of The Professionals, which was probably the first grown-up TV series I watched as a kid. It’s very entertaining, not least in the way it confounds expectations. The default position may be causal sexism, for instance […]
Posted by Sarah Young on December 30, 2013
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2013/12/30/bedtime-reading/
Women in the Gulag
I always welcome new contributions to the study of the Gulag, particularly (because it is a dimension that remains much less explored than the history) those that focus on personal experiences of the Soviet labour camp system and the writings associated with it, so I was looking forward to reading Paul R. Gregory’s Women of […]
Posted by Sarah Young on November 11, 2013
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2013/11/11/women-in-the-gulag/
New article: Knowing Russia’s Convicts
This week has finally seen the publication of my article ‘Knowing Russia’s Convicts: the Other in Narratives of Imprisonment and Exile in the Late Imperial Era’ in Europe-Asia Studies. It’s a special issue based on the Villains and Victims workshop which I wrote about previously, and it contains some great articles that really reflect what an […]
Posted by Sarah Young on November 3, 2013
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2013/11/03/new-article-knowing-russias-convicts/
New publications: the spatial turn
I have a couple of recent publications to announce. The first is on Shalamov: ‘Mapping Space as Factography: Human Traces and Negated Genres in Varlam Shalamov’s Kolymskie rasskazy,’ Slavonica, 19.1 (April 2013), 1-17 ) (£). The second, co-authored with John Levin, is ‘Mapping Machines: Transformations of the Petersburg Text’, The Spatial Turn in Literary Studies, Primerjalna književnost (Comparative Literature) 36.2 (2013). […]
Posted by Sarah Young on September 15, 2013
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2013/09/15/new-publications-the-spatial-turn/
Russian prison experience
Last week I participated in a workshop titled ‘Punishment as a Crime? Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Prison Experience in Russian Culture’, at Uppsala University’s Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies. The programme, which is available here, was notable for its wide range of papers and approaches. The imperial, soviet and post-soviet periods were all covered, and […]
Posted by Sarah Young on August 22, 2012
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/08/22/russian-prison-experience/
Four short links: Gulag
A number of Gulag sites have come or returned to my attention recently, so this is a quick round-up of the best (for reasons I won’t go into, I’m rather short of time at the moment and the longer posts I’m trying to write are somewhat behind schedule). I’ve not included the virtual museums I […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 13, 2012
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/07/13/four-short-links-gulag/
Varlam Shalamov and the art of defecation
With apologies to any readers of a sensitive disposition, this is an important subject. Pretty much every Gulag narrative makes mention of the primitive toilet facilities and prison cells and camps – the ubiquitous and foul-smelling parasha (slop bucket) and arrangements for its emptying – and there are plenty of references to feelings of shame […]
Posted by Sarah Young on June 7, 2012
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/06/07/varlam-shalamov-and-the-art-of-defecation/
Dostoevsky and the Gulag
I’ve started work on a paper on the depiction of criminals in labour camp writing for a workshop later this summer, and as Dostoevsky is one of my starting points, this has led me to revisit the broader question of the role of recurrent references to him in Gulag literature. This post is not intended […]
Posted by Sarah Young on May 6, 2012
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/05/06/dostoevsky-and-the-gulag/
Gulag Voices: two books
This year has seen the publication of two books titled Gulag Voices: an anthology of memoirs edited by Anne Applebaum, and a collection of oral histories by Jehanne Gheith and Katherine Jolluck, so this seems like a good opportunity to look at both of them. I had previously read all but one of the extracts […]
Posted by Sarah Young on September 5, 2011
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2011/09/05/gulag-voices-two-books/