Read more
Caught up in one of the many purges that swept the Soviet Union during the Great Terror, Leonid Petrovich Bolotov (1906-1987) was one of 86 engineers arrested at Leningrad's Red Triangle Rubber Factory and sent to the Gulag as "enemies of the people." He would be the only one to survive and return to his family after enduring two decades in the infamous Kolyma labor camps.
Translated into English and published here for the first time, Bolotov's memoir narrates with growing intensity his arrest, imprisonment and interrogation, his "confession" and trial, his exile to hard labor in Arctic Siberia, and his rehabilitation in 1956 following the official end of Stalin's personality cult.
List of contents
Table of ContentsTranslator-Editor's Acknowledgments
Translator-Editor's Preface
Translator-Editor's Introduction
Part I: Defeat of the Working Family
One-My Arrest
Two-Shpalernaia Prison
Three-My Interrogation
Four-Pruss and Aleksandrov
Five-The Sailor
Six-The Pilot
Seven-I'm Held in Captivity
Eight-The Hundredth Prisoner
Nine-My 60th Day in Prison
Ten-My Stay in Two Prisons
Eleven-The Night Before the Trial
Twelve-The Trial
Thirteen-I Meet My Convicted Friends
Fourteen-Second Transit Prison for Men
Fifteen-The Train: Leningrad to Vladivostok
Sixteen-Vladivostok Transit Camp
Seventeen-Behind Barbed Wire
Eighteen-Kulu
Part II: My Stay and Work in Kolyma
Nineteen-From Magadan to the Taiga
Twenty-The New Power
Twenty-One-Baptism of Fire
Twenty-Two-Panning Season
Twenty-Three-Music While We Worked
Twenty-Four-My Father's Letter
Twenty-Five-My Search for Firewood
Twenty-Six-My Broken Leg
Twenty-Seven-My New Friends
Twenty-Eight-The Competition
Twenty-Nine-World War II in the Gold Mine
Thirty-The Cave-In
Thirty-One-The Unexpected Meetings
Thirty-Two-Investigator Kulakov
Thirty-Three-The New Accusation
Thirty-Four-Jail
Thirty-Five-Brevda's Story
Thirty-Six-My Last Judgment
Thirty-Seven-The Finnish Shingles
Thirty-Eight-Glass Factory
Thirty-Nine-Young Thieves
Forty-Katia Maksakov's Story
Forty-One-Ivan Zelenin's Story
Forty-Two-Our Raskolnikov
Forty-Three-The Blue-Eyed Blonde
Forty-Four-Bears and Berries
Forty-Five-Special Camp 5
Forty-Six-A New Order
Forty-Seven-Freedom-with Restrictions
Forty-Eight-Dishwashing
Forty-Nine-The Family Cares
Fifty-Nina's Arrival
Fifty-One-Nina's Arrest
Fifty-Two-Tomsk's Jail
Fifty-Three-Nina's Release and Meeting with Children
Fifty-Four-The First Thawed Patch
Fifty-Five-In Leningrad
Fifty-Six-Our New Lives Begin
Translator-Editor's Afterword
Glossary
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Irina Yevgenievna Barclay, professor of Russian and Russian literature at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, has over two decades of college teaching in America and Russia. She is a former Boris Yeltsin Presidential Scholar and, later, active in an organization headed by Mikhail Gorbachev. Dr. Barclay has authored over 50 articles and participated in dozens of conferences around the world.
Summary
Translated into English and published here for the first time, Leonid Petrovich Bolotov's memoir narrates with growing intensity his arrest, imprisonment and interrogation, his “confession” and trial, his exile to hard labour in Arctic Siberia, and his rehabilitation in 1956 following the official end of Stalin's personality cult.
