Surviving Russian Prisons

Surviving Russian Prisons

Author: Laura Piacentini

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1134044593

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What do Russian prisons look like? Who is sent to prison in Russia? How is punishment allocated and administered? This pioneering book aims to answer these and other questions by embarking on a journey that begins by exploring how the prisons have survived the collapse of the USSR, and ends with a discussion of global penal politics. It is the first book to have been written in English on penal practices in the contemporary Russian prison system. Surviving Russian Prisons focuses in particular on the reality of work and labour within Russian prisons, exploring its changing function. From being for much of the twentieth century a major activity as well as an ideological justification for prison regimes, its main function now has been to enable prisoners to survive through participating in a barter economy. In exploring the microworlds of the Russian prison this book at the same time presents new evidence and offers fresh insight into how prisons are governed in societies undergoing turbulent social and political transformation; it explores how current practices in relation to prisoners' work comply with international regulations designed to promote humane containment and positive custody; and debates the nature of knowledge on penal discourse in transitional states.


Surviving the Gulag

Surviving the Gulag

Author: Ilse Johansen

Publisher: University of Alberta

Published: 2016-07-20

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1772120383

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"The terrified yell of my comrades makes me stop. I drop the potatoes into the grass and turn around. He has pulled out the pistol and is taking aim. Slowly I come back." Surviving the Gulag is the first-person account of a resourceful woman who survived five grueling years in Russian prison camps: starved, traumatized, and worked nearly to death. A story like Ilse Johansen's is rarely told—of a woman caught in the web of fascism and communism at the end of the Second World War and beginning of the Cold War. The candid story of her time as a prisoner, written soon after her release, provides startling insight into the ordeal of a German female prisoner under Soviet rule. Readers of memoir and history, and students of feminism and war studies, will learn more about women's experience of the Soviet gulag through the eyes of Ilse Johansen. Introduction by Michael Seadle. "It is getting colder and colder. At -38C we don't have to work any more." Surviving the Gulag is the first-person account of a complex woman who survived five horrifying years in Russian prison camps: starved, beaten, and worked nearly to death. A story like Ilse Johansen's is rarely told—of a woman caught in the web of fascism and communism at the end of the Second World War and beginning of the Cold War. Her candid account of her time as a prisoner, written soon after her release, provides startling insight into the trials of a German female prisoner under Soviet rule. Readers of memoir and history, and students of feminism and war studies, will learn more about women's experience of the Soviet gulag through the eyes of Ilse Johansen.


The English Prisoner

The English Prisoner

Author: Tig Hague

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2009-04-02

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 0141959029

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In July 2003 young Englishman Tig Hague was on a routine business trip to Moscow when he was arrested at the airport. Within hours he was accused of a major crime. Next, he was tried and transported hundreds of miles to the remote, forsaken wastes of Mordovia.And prison camp Zone 22. Sentenced to spend the next four years there, every day was a struggle against disease, freezing temperatures, malnutrition, the unpredictable, sometimes terrifying behaviour of the camp guards and his fellow prisoners.But, most of all, it was a fight to ensure his own psychological survival. Only the thought of his girlfriend Lucy, fighting Russia's corrupt and labyrinthine legal system, kept Tig sane - and gave him a reason to see each day to its end. The English Prisoner is an extraordinary story of endurance, as one man - plucked from his normal, everyday life - is forced to reach deep inside himself to survive life in one of the bleakest outposts in the world: Russia's vast and unforgiving 'forgotten zone'.


Prisoner of Tehran

Prisoner of Tehran

Author: Marina Nemat

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-05-06

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1416537430

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Follows the author's tragic childhood in 1980s Iran, which was shaped by war, the Khomeini regime, and her work as a teen anti-propaganda activist, efforts for which she was brutally beaten and sentenced to death before a guard offered to save her and protect her family if she would convert to Islam and marry him. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.


The Child of Gulag

The Child of Gulag

Author: Yuri Feynberg

Publisher: Tate Publishing

Published: 2013-02

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1622952405

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This story is based on the life of author Yuri Feynberg, who is one of the last surviving children of the Soviet Penal System, known to the world as the GULAG. Although not a prisoner, Yuri spent his childhood behind the barbed wired fence in a remote Siberian hard labor camp, where his mother worked as a medical doctor. As the only child there, he lived among Stalin's political prisoners, hardcore criminals, and security guards. This extraordinary childhood created an unusual personality and an unbendable character, which made it possible for Yuri to excel in the Soviet Special Forces, survive prosecution, and overcome unfathomable personal tragedies without losing his humanity.


Coming Out of the Ice

Coming Out of the Ice

Author: Victor Herman

Publisher:

Published: 1979

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13:

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This American's memoirs tell of the 45 years he lived in the Soviet Union, experiencing acclaim as a parachutist, imprisonment, marriage, and banishment to Siberia.


Prison: A Survival Guide

Prison: A Survival Guide

Author: Carl Cattermole

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2019-06-20

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 147356588X

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The cult guide to UK prisons by Carl Cattermole – now fully updated and featuring contributions from female and LGBTQI prisoners, as well as from family on the outside. Contains: Blood – but not as much as you might imagine Sweat – and the prisons no longer provide soap Tears – because prison has created a mental health crisis Humanity – and how to stop the institution destroying it Featuring contributors Sarah Jake Baker, Jon Gulliver, Darcey Hartley, Julia Howard, Elliot Murawski and Lisa Selby. ‘Essential reading’ Will Self ‘We’re in the justice dark ages and Cattermole’s great book switches on the lights’ Dr Theo Kindynis, Lecturer in Criminology Goldsmiths, University of London ‘It has the potential to change a lot of people’s lives for the better’ Daniel Godden, Partner at Berkeley Square Solicitors’


The House of the Dead

The House of the Dead

Author: Daniel Beer

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2017-01-03

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 0307958914

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Winner of the Cundill History Prize The House of the Dead tells the incredible hundred-year-long story of “the vast prison without a roof” that was Russia’s Siberian penal colony. From the beginning of the nineteenth century until the Russian Revolution, the tsars exiled more than a million prisoners and their families east. Here Daniel Beer illuminates both the brutal realities of this inhuman system and the tragic and inspiring fates of those who endured it. Siberia was intended to serve not only as a dumping ground for criminals and political dissidents, but also as new settlements. The system failed on both fronts: it peopled Siberia with an army of destitute and desperate vagabonds who visited a plague of crime on the indigenous population, and transformed the region into a virtual laboratory of revolution. A masterly and original work of nonfiction, The House of the Dead is the history of a failed social experiment and an examination of Siberia’s decisive influence on the political forces of the modern world.


Remembering the Darkness

Remembering the Darkness

Author: Veronica Shapovalov

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 0742511464

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This engrossing collection of prison memoirs by Russian women is the first to portray the direct experiences of the wide range of women who were incarcerated in Soviet prisons and camps. Comprising the stories of women from all classes and backgrounds, this book covers the entire span of the Gulag's existence from the 1920s to the 1980s, including the little-known periods of political repression of the 1960s and 1980s. These memoirs and letters provide a rich portrait of how women led everyday life in prison and in the camps, of the strategies of accommodation and resistance they employed, and the challenges they faced when they reentered Soviet society. Although readers will hear the voices of women who were in excruciating physical and emotional pain, they will also find remarkable testimonies to the agency and resilience of women who struggled against incredible odds. Written by women from all stations in life and from drastically different backgrounds, these stories reconstruct not only the world of the Gulag but also its meaning for society at large. The documents excerpted here point to areas of Soviet history and culture that have yet to be fully investigated as they illuminate women's experiences of friendship, work, hope, inspiration, loss, and terror. All the works selected for the collection are united by their authors' sense of group and individual identity. To varying degrees, all of them associate their experiences with events and people beyond their personal experiences and immediate surroundings, thus expanding the traditional perspective of women's writing. These riveting stories, never before published in English or Russian, will appeal to scholars and students of Soviet history and literature, as well as general readers interested in women's history.