Kolyma stories
by Varlam Shalamov · first published 2018
6mentions
3recommended by
3HN commenters
2018first – last mentioned
100% recommend
"Kolyma Stories is a masterpiece of twentieth-century literature, an epic array of short fictional tales reflecting the fifteen year that Varlam Shalamov spent in the Soviet Gulag. This is the first of two volumes (the second the appear in 2019) that together will constitute the first complete English translation of Shalamov's stories and the only one to be based on the authorized Russian text. Shalamov spent six years as a slave in the gold mines of Kolyma before finding a less intolerable life as a paramedic in the prison camps. He began writing his account of life in Kolyma after Stalin's d
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Kolyma Stories and Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago are an incredible pair. For Solzhenitsyn, the Gulag is deeply personal and his rage seeps through every page. Shalamov is the complete opposite, and his book is…
on “Things I Learned in the Gulag” ↗…not sure how readable Solzhenytsin is in English, but his Russian is atrocious (he was also obviously not a nice person). For sheer horror of life in worker's paradise, I think Varlam Shalamov's [0] Kolyma stories are much better written. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varlam_Shalamov
on “The Poignant Gulag Art by Stalin’s Doomed Meteorologist” ↗Kolyma Stories is probably the best book about the reality of communism.
on “Things I Learned in the Gulag” ↗Kolyma Stories is probably the best book about the reality of communism. Is what I'm replying to. It's a very narrow slice of a much bigger thing. Life after (or even before) Stalin was not free from such abuses.…
on “Things I Learned in the Gulag” ↗…the Big Terror to the same extent, life in Eastern Europe was quite a bit better than in the USSR. When we visited a friend in Prague in 1985, he had a collection of "anti-soviet" literature (including Kolyma Stories that would be enough to send anyone in USSR reliving Shalamov's experience. And he didn't even hide it...
on “Things I Learned in the Gulag” ↗…someone who had passed through the Gulag, a lot of Gulag has been internalized in the populace. The evil was very much banal, as it were, and the changes were mostly a matter of degree. Being seen reading "Kolyma Stories" would have you spending a few years on the "Sunny Kolyma" as it was called.
on “Things I Learned in the Gulag” ↗