Open Access“Yes, Sonyushka, and say what you will, I`m only living on your letters …”: daily life in camp and survival strategy of N. P. Antsiferova (review: Nikolai Antsiferov. “This is our life in letters”: letters to family and friends (1900–1950s). Moscow, New literary review, 2021. 640 p.)
Author(s) -
Tatiana M. Polyanskaya
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
vestnik slavânskih kulʹtur
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2073-9567
DOI - 10.37816/2073-9567-2022-63-354-359
Subject(s) - gulag , everyday life , politics , history , population , nazi concentration camps , literature , law , sociology , art , political science , demography , nazism
Camp letters are one of the most objective sources in the study of the GULAG prisoners’ everyday life. On the basis of specific quotations from N.P. Antsiferov's letters, the working and living conditions of the camp population of the Baikal-Amur ITL in the late 1930s are considered; Antsiferov's testimonies are compared with the official documentation of the NKVD and the GULAG. The author of the article compares the way of thinking of Nikolai Antsiferov and Varlam Shalamov, as one of the most popular writers about the life of prisoners in correctional labor camps. The article for the first time gives an assessment of the N.P. Antsiferov's epistolary heritage in the study of the history of the GULAG and political repression during the years of Stalin's rule.