Despite continued interest in the Gulag, academic scholarship has failed to move beyond the strict divide between 'criminal' and 'political' prisoners. This is largely due to the lack of memoirs from outside the intelligentsia and misconceptions perpetuated in mainstream culture, which has led to a disproportionate focus on vory-v-zakone ('thieves-in law') - who in 1950 made up less than 10% of the Gulag's 'criminals'. Mark Vincent draws on neglected materials - including song collections, Gulag newspapers and journals, tattoo drawings and dictionaries of slang, alongside reports from the state-funded Moscow Criminological Bureau - and uses a variety of disciplinary methodologies to reconstruct a fuller picture of Gulag daily life and society. Vincent maps the Gulag thematically, re-constructing the 'penal arc' through transportation, arrival and initiation, visual and verbal means of communication, the importance of card playing in structuring hierarchies, punishment rituals and the notorious 1948-52 cyka voina ('bitches' war'), a period of internal prisoner conflict in the aftermath of the Great Patriotic War. Especially important are the lines of continuity that Vincent draws between the Gulag system and both late Imperial katorga and aspects of today's Russian mafia. This impressively inter-disciplinary volume is important reading for all students and scholars of twentieth century Russia, as well as those interested in international criminality and penology.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.