Compass for the Archipelago
The Gulag in Documents: New Territory for Research
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Solzhenitsyn molded our view of Stalinist terror in the image of the Archipelago GULag. A seven-volume document collection of previously unpublished source material, Istoriya stalinskogo Gulaga, helps reveal in systematic fashion the gigantic system of Soviet forced labour camps. Files from Russian archives provide insight into the structures, goals and operation of the NKVD-MVD repression apparatus and documents prison conditions and resistance efforts. The victims’ perspective is largely excluded from official documents and statistics, but this collection does include forms of repression such as deportation.
(Osteuropa 5/2006, pp. 147–199)