Varlam Shalamov

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov (Варлам Тихонович Шаламов, July 1, 1907–January 17, 1982) was a Russian writer, journalist, poet, political prisoner and Gulag survivor. Varlam Shalamov, the 1950s File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... July 1 is the 182nd day of the year (183rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 183 days remaining. ... 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... January 17 is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with reporter. ... A poet exists within a cultural and intellectual tradition and usually writes in a specific language, but the qualities of good poetry are to some extent timeless and address issues common to all humanity. ... A political prisoner may be someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image are deemed by a government to either challenge or threaten the authority of the state. ... Gulag (Russian: ГУЛАГ (help· info)) is an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно—Трудовых Лагерей и колоний, Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii, The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies of the NKVD. Anne Applebaum, in her book Gulag: A History, explains: Literally, the word GULAG is an acronym, meaning Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or...

Varlam Shalamov was born in Vologda, Russia to a family of an orthodox religious minister and a teacher. In 1914, he entered the academic gymnasium of St. Alexander's and graduated in 1923. In 1926, after working for 2 years, he was accepted in Moscow State University, in the faculty of Soviet law. While studying Soviet law at Moscow State University, he joined a Trotskyists' group and on February 19, 1929 was arrested and sentenced to three years of hard labor in Vishera, North Urals for distributing the Letters to the Party Congress known as Lenin's Testament, which, in part, criticized Stalin, and for participating in a demonstration marking the tenth anniversary of the Soviet revolution with the slogan, "Down with Stalin." He was released in 1931, and worked in the town of Berezniki in construction until his return to Moscow in 1932. St. ... ... In most Protestant churches, a minister is a member of the ordained clergy who leads a congregation or participates in a role in a parachurch ministry; such a person may also be called a Pastor, Preacher, Bishop, Chaplain or Elder. ... The Law of the Soviet Union—also known as Soviet Law, or Socialist Law—was the law that developed in the Soviet Union following the Russian Revolution of October 1917; modified versions of it were adopted by many Communist states (see below) following the Second World War. ... Moscow State University campus M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russian: Московский Государственный Университет имени Ðœ.Ð’.Ломоносова, often abbreviated МГУ, MSU, MGU) is the largest and oldest university in Russia, founded in 1755. ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... February 19 is the 50th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Vishera River - a river in the Komi Republic, Russia. ... The Ural Mountains, (Russian: Ура́льские го́ры = Ура́л) also known simply as the Urals, are a mountain range that run roughly north and south through western Russia. ... Lenins Testament is the name given to a document written by Vladimir Lenin in the last weeks of 1922 and the first week of 1923. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ...

Upon return back to Moscow in 1932, Shalamov worked as a journalist and some of his essays and articles were published, including his first short story (in 1936) "The three deaths of Doctor Austino." 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with reporter. ...

At the outset of the Great Purge, on January 12, 1937, Shalamov was arrested again for "counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities" and sent to Kolyma, also known as "the land of white death", for five years. He was already in jail awaiting sentencing when one of his short stories was published in the literary journal "Literary Contemporary." In 1943 he was handed another term, this time for 10 years, for anti-Soviet agitation: he called Ivan Bunin a "classic Russian writer." The Great Purge is the name given to campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. ... January 12 is the 12th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Kolyma River (Колыма́) is a river in Russia that empties into the East Siberian Sea. ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) is a common year starting on Friday. ... Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on February 25, 1927 to arrest those suspected guilty of counter-revolutionary activities. ... Ivan Bunin Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (Ива́н Алексе́евич Бу́нин) (October 10, 1870 – November 8, 1953) was the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. ...

The conditions that he endured were extreme, first in gold mining opertions, and then in coal mining, during which time he also contracted typhus. He was repeatedly sent to punishment zones, both for his political "crimes" as well as for his attempt to escape.

In 1946, being a dohodyaga (emaciated and devitalized), his life was saved by a doctor-inmate A.I. Pantyukhov, who risked his own life to qualify Shalamov as a hospital attendant. The new "career" allowed Shalamov to survive and to write poetry. In 1951 he was released from the camp, and continued working as a medical assistant for the forced labor camps while still writing, and in 1952, Shalamov sent his poetry to Boris Leonidovich Paternak, who praised Shalamov's work. After his release from the camps, he was faced with the dissolution of his former family, including a grown daughter who no longer recognized her father. 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ...

Shalamov was allowed to leave Magadan in November 1953 following the death of Stalin, and was permitted to go to the settlement of Turkmen in Kakininsky Oblast, where he worked as a supply agent. Beginning in 1954, and continuing until 1973, he worked on "Kolyma Tales." Magadan vicinity from the US Defense Mapping Agency (1978) Magadan (Магада́н), city (1989 pop. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ...

After the death of Stalin in March 1953, masses of zeks (from the Russian abbreviation z/k for zakliuchonnyi, an inmate) were being released and rehabilitated, many posthumously. Shalamov was allowed to return to Moscow after having been officially rehabilitated in 1956. In 1957, Shalmov became a correspondent for the journal "Moskva," and his poetry began being published. His health, however, had been broken by his years in the camps, and he received an invalid's pension. 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... Rehabilitation in the context of Soviet or Russian topics is often a false friend used to translate the Russian term reabilitatsiya as applied to convicted persons. ... Posthumous means after death. ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Shalamov proceeded publishing poetry and essays in the major Soviet literary magazines, while writing his magnum opus, The Kolyma Tales. He was acquainted with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Boris Pasternak, Nadezhda Mandelstam. The manuscripts were smuggled abroad and distributed via samizdat. The translations have been published in the West since 1966. The complete Russian-language edition was published in London in 1978, and thereafter both in Russian and in translation. "Kolyma Tales" is considered to be one of the great Russian group of short stories of the twentieth century. Magnum opus (sometimes Opus magnum), from the Latin meaning great work, refers to the best, most popular, or most renowned achievement of an author, artist, or composer. ... Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union for his book The Gulag Archipelago. ... Boris Pasternak (1890-1960). ... Nadezhda Mandelstam Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam (Russian language: Надежда Яковлевна Мандельштам, maiden name Hazin, October 18, 1899 — December 29, 1980) was a Russian writer and a wife of poet Osip Mandelstam. ... Samizdat, book published by Pathfinder Press containing a collection of forbidden Trotskyist Samizdat texts. ... The term Western world or the West can have multiple meanings depending on its context. ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ...

The Western publishers always disclaimed that Shalamov's stories were being published without the author's knowledge or consent. Surprisingly, in 1972 Shalamov retracted the Tales, most likely being forced to do so by the Soviet regime. As his health deteriorated, he spent the last three years of his life in a house for elderly and disabled literary workers in Tushino. Shalamov died of poor health on January 17th 1982 and was interred at Kuntsevo Cemetery, Moscow. 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1972 calendar). ... Soviet redirects here. ... Tushino (Тушино in Russian) is a locality in the north of Moscow. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: (help· info)) is the capital of Russia and the countrys principal political, economic, financial, educational and transportation center, located on the river Moskva. ...

The book was finally published on Russian soil in 1987, as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost policy, when the collapse of the Soviet Union was imminent. 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... (help· info) (Russian: ), IPA: (commonly anglicized as Gorbachev), born March 2, 1931, was leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The rise of Gorbachev Although reform stalled between 1964–1982, the generational shift gave new momentum for reform. ...

See also

• History of the Soviet Union
• Gulag
• Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)
• Enemy of the people
• 101st km

The History of the Soviet Union begins with the Russian Revolution of 1917 in an effort to implement socialism, eventually leading to communism by Vladimir Lenin on a large scale, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 when its central government was dissolved. ... Gulag (Russian: ГУЛАГ (help· info)) is an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно—Трудовых Лагерей и колоний, Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii, The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies of the NKVD. Anne Applebaum, in her book Gulag: A History, explains: Literally, the word GULAG is an acronym, meaning Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or... Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on February 25, 1927 to arrest those suspected guilty of counter-revolutionary activities. ... The term enemy of the people (Russian language: враг народа, vrag naroda) was a fluid designation under the Bolsheviks rule in regards to their real or suspected political or class opponents, sometimes including former allies. ... (Redirected from 101st km) Upon the release from the Gulag, the former inmates rights would typically still be restricted for a long period of time. ...

Publications

• ISBN 0140186956 Kolyma Tales
• ISBN 0393014762 Graphite
• ISBN 5170044925 Vospominaniia (memoirs)

External links

• Shalamov at Lib.ru (in original Russian)