Kolyma talesVarlam SHALAMOV
Kolyma tales
by Varlam SHALAMOV · first published 1980
9mentions
7recommended by
9HN commenters
2012–2024first – last mentioned
78% recommend22% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Raw first-hand stories from Shalamov's 17 years in Soviet labour camps, read as a darker, more unflinching companion to Solzhenitsyn; valued for showing human suffering and the criminal underworld inside the Gulag.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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If you found the Gulag Archipelago insightful (the word 'enjoyed' seems wrong in this context), I highly recommend The Kolyma Tales[1] by Varlam Shalamov. Shalamov spent 17 years in 'hard labour' camps, in total. His work is more like a historical novel, akin to "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", but more raw and visceral.…
on “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself” ↗In Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" there are some fascinating accounts of how the criminal underworld operated in the Soviet era, and its brutal contact with the political prisoners in the Gulag. 'On Tick' is particularly memorable. The…
on “How organised crime took over Russia” ↗…scale by an evil dictator. It should be taught in all schools across the world, along with the deeds of other XX century evil mega mass murders. For learning more, I personally recommend starting with "Kolyma Tales" by Varlam Shalamov. Aside from the educational part, it's a great piece of literature.
on “HN call for help: Thousand of IT specialists flee Russia as job market collapses” ↗I also recommend to read "The Kolyma tales" by Varlam Shalamov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kolyma_Tales http://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics-ebo...
on “How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp” ↗Kolyma tales. It's a collection of essays from Varlam Shalamov, a Russian writer and reporter, who was imprisoned in the Gulag for nearly two decades. It was a shocking first hand account of human suffering and depravity.
on “Ask HN: What book bit, stung and shook you deeply?” ↗…focus on my core area - stats/ML/AI etc. and general HN stuff. [1] To the extent of corresponding with him at length [2] If there is a single book I would suggest to you or anyone else, it would be Kolyma Tales. It is probably the most despairing/ darkest thing I have ever read and made me appreciate human nature a lot more.
on “Taleb: The future will not be cool” ↗…Omnivore's Dilemma Ayn Rand's the Fountainhead Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics Julian Jaynes's the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Iain McGilchrist's the Master and his Emmisary Varlam Sharlamov's the Kolyma Tales Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: the Formation of Men's Attitudes (or alternatively Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death)
on “Ask HN: What book bit, stung and shook you deeply?” ↗…in the imperial time, no. Dostoyevsky's The House of the Dead is an interesting account of his time in Siberia, and it wasn't all that bad. It was different in Stalin's time, though. Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma tales tells a very different story. But even he survived after having served 15 years.
on “My life after 44 years in prison” ↗I am currently reading Kolyma Tales, during the pandemic I read the Gulag Archipelago - while the times are different his critique and analysis of society and the way human being behave in bad times are just as relevant today in the West.
on “May 10, 1983 Acceptance Address by Mr. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn” ↗