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Крутой маршрут #2
Within the Whirlwind
This book continues the narrative of Ginzburg's nightmarish eighteen-year survival of Soviet prisons and labor camps, following the Stalinist purges of 1937. Introduction by Heinrich Böll. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
448 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1982
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About the author
Eugenia Ginzburg
6 books66 followersEugenia Ginzburg (Russian: Евгения Гинзбург) was a Russian historian and writer. Soon after Eugenia Ginzburg was born into the family of a Jewish pharmacist in Moscow, her family moved to Kazan. In 1920 she entered the social sciences department of Kazan State University, later switching to pedagogy.
She worked as a rabfak (worker's faculty) teacher, then as an assistant at the University. Shortly thereafter, she married Pavel Aksyonov, the mayor of Kazan and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. After becoming a Communist Party member, Ginzburg continued her successful career as educator, journalist and administrator. Her oldest son, Alexei Fedorov, from her first marriage to Doctor Fedorov, was born in 1926 and died in the Great Patriotic War. Her younger son Vasily Aksyonov, born in 1932, went on to become a famous writer.
In February 1937, she was expelled from the party ranks and soon arrested for her alleged connections to the Trotskyists. (See also Great Purge). Her parents were also arrested but released two months later. Her husband was arrested in July and sentenced to 15 years of "corrective labor" with the confiscation of his property. (Articles 58-7 and 11). In August, Eugenia was also sentenced to ten years.
Eugenia Ginzburg experienced first-hand the infamous Moscow Lefortovo and Butyrka prisons, the Yaroslavl "Korovniki", as well as the journey on a prison train across the country to Vladivostok, and finally to Kolyma in the cargo hold of the steamer Jurma (Джурма). At Magadan, she worked at a camp hospital, but was soon sent into the cold depths of the Gulag and assigned to so-called common jobs, where she quickly became an emaciated dokhodyaga ("goner"). A Crimean German doctor, Anton Walter, probably saved her life by recommending her for a nursing position. Anton had been deported due to his German heritage, Eugenia due to her allegedly critical attitude to the Soviet system. They married later.
In February 1949, Ginzburg was formally released but had to stay in Magadan for five more years. She found a position at a kindergarten and secretly started to work on her memoirs. In October 1950 she was arrested again and exiled to Krasnoyarsk region, but before she left, her destination was changed to Kolyma. After Stalin's death in 1953, Ginzburg was able to visit Moscow and was fully rehabilitated in 1955, as were millions of wrongly convicted, many posthumously.
She returned to Moscow, worked as a reporter and continued her work on her magnum opus memoir, Journey into the Whirlwind (English title). After the book was completed (1967), all attempts to publish it in the USSR failed for political reasons and the manuscript was smuggled abroad, where it was widely published. Eventually, her book included 2 parts, in original Russian named "Krutoi marshrut I" and "Krutoi marshrut II" -- "Harsh Route" or "Steep Route."
She worked as a rabfak (worker's faculty) teacher, then as an assistant at the University. Shortly thereafter, she married Pavel Aksyonov, the mayor of Kazan and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. After becoming a Communist Party member, Ginzburg continued her successful career as educator, journalist and administrator. Her oldest son, Alexei Fedorov, from her first marriage to Doctor Fedorov, was born in 1926 and died in the Great Patriotic War. Her younger son Vasily Aksyonov, born in 1932, went on to become a famous writer.
In February 1937, she was expelled from the party ranks and soon arrested for her alleged connections to the Trotskyists. (See also Great Purge). Her parents were also arrested but released two months later. Her husband was arrested in July and sentenced to 15 years of "corrective labor" with the confiscation of his property. (Articles 58-7 and 11). In August, Eugenia was also sentenced to ten years.
Eugenia Ginzburg experienced first-hand the infamous Moscow Lefortovo and Butyrka prisons, the Yaroslavl "Korovniki", as well as the journey on a prison train across the country to Vladivostok, and finally to Kolyma in the cargo hold of the steamer Jurma (Джурма). At Magadan, she worked at a camp hospital, but was soon sent into the cold depths of the Gulag and assigned to so-called common jobs, where she quickly became an emaciated dokhodyaga ("goner"). A Crimean German doctor, Anton Walter, probably saved her life by recommending her for a nursing position. Anton had been deported due to his German heritage, Eugenia due to her allegedly critical attitude to the Soviet system. They married later.
In February 1949, Ginzburg was formally released but had to stay in Magadan for five more years. She found a position at a kindergarten and secretly started to work on her memoirs. In October 1950 she was arrested again and exiled to Krasnoyarsk region, but before she left, her destination was changed to Kolyma. After Stalin's death in 1953, Ginzburg was able to visit Moscow and was fully rehabilitated in 1955, as were millions of wrongly convicted, many posthumously.
She returned to Moscow, worked as a reporter and continued her work on her magnum opus memoir, Journey into the Whirlwind (English title). After the book was completed (1967), all attempts to publish it in the USSR failed for political reasons and the manuscript was smuggled abroad, where it was widely published. Eventually, her book included 2 parts, in original Russian named "Krutoi marshrut I" and "Krutoi marshrut II" -- "Harsh Route" or "Steep Route."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
May 9, 2010
It wasn't easy to finish this book. After reading "Into the Whirlwind" it was hard to bear more blows to Eugenia's life: one guard sends her back to tree felling, the other one on a walk across the taiga, a walk that lets her contemplate suicide. But the rewards of going all the way to the last page were stunning.
- Her descriptions of her time in the "children's house" (just what I need for my research)
- Or this quote: "For the first time in several years I found myself alone in a room. The distant voices and the sound of steps outside the little gray window had given way to silence. Silence - what a long time since I had last heard it! How empty my soul had become in this painful chopping and changing between the tedium of hard manual labor and the torments of working as a camp medic. I seemed to have stopped reciting poems to myself. But here I could make a new start. I should become myself again. And in the silence to poems would come back to me. Blessed solitude, a gift beyond treasure, especially after the fearful loneliness of compulsory, unrelieved togetherness ..."
- Her honesty is breathtaking. When she learns of her older son's death she writes: "I cared for no one, absolutely no one, at that moment ... The egotism of those who suffer is probably even more all embracing than the self-regard of those who are happy."
- The following could have been written about post-war Germany: "People may reply that it is more common to come across cases of those who loudly protest their innocence while seeking to put the blame on the era they live in, on their neighbors, or on their own youthfulness and inexperience ... And that is so. Yet, I am all but convinced that the very loudness of these protestations is meant to drown the quiet and inexorable inner voice that keeps reminding a man of his guilt."
- There are scenes so vivid they will stay in my mind as if etched in stone: When she is finally out of the camp she wants to walk to Magadan despite a forecast of dangerous snow storms. She tramps off and in the middle of this desert of ice and snow, when she is close to giving up, she detects a figure. As it comes closer she recognizes her husband, the German doctor she met in the camps. Or the scene when after twelve years of separation she meets her youngest son. "It was the most crucial moment in my life: the joining up of the broken links in our chain of time; the recapturing of our organic closeness severed by twelve years of separation, of living among strangers. My son!... But how fragile it is, this thread that has joined again past and future, how it tembles in the wind! It must not be allowed to snap again! Keep it from breaking, keep it from breaking at all costs. ..."
- When she was re-arrested I almost put the book down. Too much to bear. But I would have missed her release after just a few days, I would have missed the story of Engineer Krivoshei, the spy (He could be a figure out of Figes' The Whisperer) and the havoc he reeked. One of the jewels of Ginzberg's narration: "I feel guilty vis-a-vis the reader. It's so monotonous! Here we are again, awaiting arrest! Not another round of those nightmares!"
Her personal triumphs after Stalin died are endlessly rewarding.
- Her descriptions of her time in the "children's house" (just what I need for my research)
- Or this quote: "For the first time in several years I found myself alone in a room. The distant voices and the sound of steps outside the little gray window had given way to silence. Silence - what a long time since I had last heard it! How empty my soul had become in this painful chopping and changing between the tedium of hard manual labor and the torments of working as a camp medic. I seemed to have stopped reciting poems to myself. But here I could make a new start. I should become myself again. And in the silence to poems would come back to me. Blessed solitude, a gift beyond treasure, especially after the fearful loneliness of compulsory, unrelieved togetherness ..."
- Her honesty is breathtaking. When she learns of her older son's death she writes: "I cared for no one, absolutely no one, at that moment ... The egotism of those who suffer is probably even more all embracing than the self-regard of those who are happy."
- The following could have been written about post-war Germany: "People may reply that it is more common to come across cases of those who loudly protest their innocence while seeking to put the blame on the era they live in, on their neighbors, or on their own youthfulness and inexperience ... And that is so. Yet, I am all but convinced that the very loudness of these protestations is meant to drown the quiet and inexorable inner voice that keeps reminding a man of his guilt."
- There are scenes so vivid they will stay in my mind as if etched in stone: When she is finally out of the camp she wants to walk to Magadan despite a forecast of dangerous snow storms. She tramps off and in the middle of this desert of ice and snow, when she is close to giving up, she detects a figure. As it comes closer she recognizes her husband, the German doctor she met in the camps. Or the scene when after twelve years of separation she meets her youngest son. "It was the most crucial moment in my life: the joining up of the broken links in our chain of time; the recapturing of our organic closeness severed by twelve years of separation, of living among strangers. My son!... But how fragile it is, this thread that has joined again past and future, how it tembles in the wind! It must not be allowed to snap again! Keep it from breaking, keep it from breaking at all costs. ..."
- When she was re-arrested I almost put the book down. Too much to bear. But I would have missed her release after just a few days, I would have missed the story of Engineer Krivoshei, the spy (He could be a figure out of Figes' The Whisperer) and the havoc he reeked. One of the jewels of Ginzberg's narration: "I feel guilty vis-a-vis the reader. It's so monotonous! Here we are again, awaiting arrest! Not another round of those nightmares!"
Her personal triumphs after Stalin died are endlessly rewarding.
April 17, 2015
Just as amazing as the first part of her memoir, Journey into the Whirlwind. Ginzburg can x-ray people's souls, and, somehow, just as the first part, this book is full of humor and even hope. A must-read for anyone who's interested in Russian history and, more broadly, in humanity--to what incredible heights it can soar and to what abysmal depths it can fall.
August 18, 2019
I was worried at first that this was going to be just more of the same harrowing stories from Into the Whirlwind (and there are some), but it is easier to see this book as the second volume of Ginsburg’s story, rather than a sequel. It describes her journey out of the gulags and into exile. She writes with such tender humanism, humour and insight, and ultimately, this is a story of the triumphant human spirit.
September 12, 2019
Reviewed together with Journey into the Whirlwind.
July 15, 2010
A solid sequel to Ginzburg's first book, Journey into the Whirlwind. I had been unaware of this book when I read the first and wondered why the first book had ended so abruptly; now I realize these books are really meant to be two volumes of the same work. I suppose they need not necessarily be read together; there is a three-page section at the beginning of this second book that summarizes the events of the first. But I think reading them together, and in order, certainly enriches the experience.
Here Ginzburg recounts the last few years of her sentence at a series of brutal labor camps in the farthest, remotest corner of northeast Russia. They only called off work if it was -50 degrees Celsius, and the guard claimed the temperature never dropped past -49. Ginzburg was more fortunate than most in that she had some friends with influence and often got better jobs, including at the camp infirmaries and on farms. After her release she was required to remain in Magadan, a remote city on Russia's eastern coast, populated by ex-prisoners and a few free workers who got paid extra for being there. Life gradually improved: she was able to send for her son, whom she hadn't seen since he was a toddler; she married a fellow prisoner; they adopted a little girl; she got a job first in a kindergarten and then as a teacher at a night school for adults. Gradually in the years following Stalin's death, things got much easier for the prisoners and ex-prisoners, and Ginzburg was eventually rehabilitated (that is, exonerated, her record cleared).
Ginzburg is, as in the first volume, scrupulously honest and fair, evaluating all the events she witnesses and characters she encounters in a matter-of-fact way. She was a literature professor and in the book she frequently quotes poetry and refers to obscure Russian writers (luckily there are footnotes to explain these references). She also managed to keep her sense of humor. Some of her stories are downright funny, particularly her experiences on the chicken farm.
I would recommend this to people interested in political prisoners' memoirs and Stalinist Russians in particular. It is a wealth of information.
Here Ginzburg recounts the last few years of her sentence at a series of brutal labor camps in the farthest, remotest corner of northeast Russia. They only called off work if it was -50 degrees Celsius, and the guard claimed the temperature never dropped past -49. Ginzburg was more fortunate than most in that she had some friends with influence and often got better jobs, including at the camp infirmaries and on farms. After her release she was required to remain in Magadan, a remote city on Russia's eastern coast, populated by ex-prisoners and a few free workers who got paid extra for being there. Life gradually improved: she was able to send for her son, whom she hadn't seen since he was a toddler; she married a fellow prisoner; they adopted a little girl; she got a job first in a kindergarten and then as a teacher at a night school for adults. Gradually in the years following Stalin's death, things got much easier for the prisoners and ex-prisoners, and Ginzburg was eventually rehabilitated (that is, exonerated, her record cleared).
Ginzburg is, as in the first volume, scrupulously honest and fair, evaluating all the events she witnesses and characters she encounters in a matter-of-fact way. She was a literature professor and in the book she frequently quotes poetry and refers to obscure Russian writers (luckily there are footnotes to explain these references). She also managed to keep her sense of humor. Some of her stories are downright funny, particularly her experiences on the chicken farm.
I would recommend this to people interested in political prisoners' memoirs and Stalinist Russians in particular. It is a wealth of information.
February 19, 2021
I found the first volume of Eugenia Ginzburg's work "Journey into the Whirlwhind," which is about Ginzburg's experience in Stalinist Russia as she was captured, tortured, and sentenced to a decade in a Siberian labor camp to be stunning and heartbreaking. I looked forward to reading "Within the Whirlwind," the second installment of her memoir.
I struggled a bit reading this book -- mostly because Ginzburg (probably due to necessity from the horrors she witnessed -- seems a much "flatter" writer in this volume. The story and the horrors of life in Siberian camps is just as striking, but it's told in a more matter-of-fact type style that made it a harder read.
Still, Ginzburg's observations are a solid (and heartbreaking) look at a terrible time in history.
I struggled a bit reading this book -- mostly because Ginzburg (probably due to necessity from the horrors she witnessed -- seems a much "flatter" writer in this volume. The story and the horrors of life in Siberian camps is just as striking, but it's told in a more matter-of-fact type style that made it a harder read.
Still, Ginzburg's observations are a solid (and heartbreaking) look at a terrible time in history.
January 6, 2019
A timeless and cautionary story about the fate of Social Utopias
The writing and/or the translation should not dissuade the reader from appreciating the poignant truths of how global solutions to human social relations always falls victim to an evil autocrat whose venial thirst for power inevitably corrupts the idealistic intentions of the social movement. The power to impose idealistic national or global rules sounds so desirable, but the nature of some human's lust for power inevitably results in the perversion and corruption of this ideal. And those tyrants are always the ones who inevitably obtain the power unless the structure of the social contract is strong enough to prevent it.
Here is the personal tragedy that was written no less than 10,000,000 times between 1935 and 1937 in the Utopia that was supposed to be Russia. There is no better story of the consequences to the individual lives of the true believers than this two volume sequence. Stalin realized that the threat to his totalitarian control did not reside in the average apolitical citizen, it resided in the intellectual and middle level communist party supporter who rightly saw the corruption of the Communist ideal and who would inevitably rise up against his rule. The solution: disembowel from the body politic the entire swath of true believers who were about to discover this corruption.
What amazed the reader is the failure, even after 18 years, for the author to understand this truth. Right up to the end she still is a true believer. Failure to understand the nature of man by substituting idealistic vision of what people should be over the reality of what they are, and who inevitably rises to the position of power to control and dictate the terms of the social order, is a fatal flaw of the author. It wreaked a personal havoc that irreversibly destroyed her life and so many other's lives.
On her return to Moscow the author tries to retrieve her identity and Communist party papers as if that will begin to rectify the wrongs of 18 years and clarify the truth of these horrific crimes. She seems surprised about the blaise attitude of young bureaucrats over the fate of so many fellow citizens because time has passed and the current generation is literally unaware of the tragedy to so many Russians in the generation that preceded them.
A two volume tale that speaks way more than two volumes.
The writing and/or the translation should not dissuade the reader from appreciating the poignant truths of how global solutions to human social relations always falls victim to an evil autocrat whose venial thirst for power inevitably corrupts the idealistic intentions of the social movement. The power to impose idealistic national or global rules sounds so desirable, but the nature of some human's lust for power inevitably results in the perversion and corruption of this ideal. And those tyrants are always the ones who inevitably obtain the power unless the structure of the social contract is strong enough to prevent it.
Here is the personal tragedy that was written no less than 10,000,000 times between 1935 and 1937 in the Utopia that was supposed to be Russia. There is no better story of the consequences to the individual lives of the true believers than this two volume sequence. Stalin realized that the threat to his totalitarian control did not reside in the average apolitical citizen, it resided in the intellectual and middle level communist party supporter who rightly saw the corruption of the Communist ideal and who would inevitably rise up against his rule. The solution: disembowel from the body politic the entire swath of true believers who were about to discover this corruption.
What amazed the reader is the failure, even after 18 years, for the author to understand this truth. Right up to the end she still is a true believer. Failure to understand the nature of man by substituting idealistic vision of what people should be over the reality of what they are, and who inevitably rises to the position of power to control and dictate the terms of the social order, is a fatal flaw of the author. It wreaked a personal havoc that irreversibly destroyed her life and so many other's lives.
On her return to Moscow the author tries to retrieve her identity and Communist party papers as if that will begin to rectify the wrongs of 18 years and clarify the truth of these horrific crimes. She seems surprised about the blaise attitude of young bureaucrats over the fate of so many fellow citizens because time has passed and the current generation is literally unaware of the tragedy to so many Russians in the generation that preceded them.
A two volume tale that speaks way more than two volumes.
February 19, 2013
An exhausting but profound read. More contemplative in tone and content than Journey into the Whirlwind, but retaining Ginzburg's striking blend of understatement and frankness, Within the Whirlwind chronicles the darkest days of her imprisonment in the Kolyma camps, her subsequent exile, and her eventual rehabilitation. In both content and style this memoir has few rivals (I look forward to comparing it with Shalamov's Kolyma Tales, my next read). What impressed itself upon me the most, however, is the force with which the psychological toll of her ordeal is impressed upon the reader. This is not the Ginzburg at the beginning, nor at the end of Journey into the Whirlwind. It is a woman who survived unimaginable hardship against all odds, and perhaps only succeeded therein through sacrificing most of who she was pre-1937. That she retained, or managed to regrow a sense of humanity is itself surprising; that she managed to chronicle her experiences in such a profound way is more surprising still.
If you can get a copy of this, please do. It's out of print, but I managed to find a copy on Amazon.
If you can get a copy of this, please do. It's out of print, but I managed to find a copy on Amazon.
August 23, 2011
I never cease to be amazed by the stories of those who survived the Gulag. One unique aspect of her story is how she described the immediate change that occurred when Stalin died. She, and really the entire country, experienced a profound sense of new hope, even though communism continued for another forty years. There is a scene late in the book where she is in a cafe in Moscow, talking with old friends that had also survived exile, when a group of college students overhears them and is moved to tears by the stories. As she said it was good to hear that there were many that did not believe "the Great Lie".
January 14, 2022
Very good read. Not a quick read for me. I thought her first volume, "Into the Whirlwind", was a lot easier read. Eugenia's story is a part of the Gulag biographies that came out of Stalinist Russia. More people died at the hands of Joseph Stalin than Adolfo Hitler by far. Stalin was a brutal butcher in the name of political ideology and really a cruel man. It staggers the imagination to witness the atrocities committed in the name of social progress.
January 5, 2019
Eugenia Ginzburg's second volume documenting her survival through 18 years of prison and labour camps and her eventual reinstatement into society. I find the subject particularly interesting - however, this book wasn't as good as the first one, 'Journey Into the Whirlwind'. I just found this one was a bit dragged out and would have been better had the events been a little more compressed. However, I do like Ginzburg's style of writing and as a whole, it's quite an intriguing book.
June 29, 2013
I read the spanish version which brings both volumes in one book of 450 pages. Not even Tolkien could imagine such a journey of 18 years. In my opinion, the most interesting is the beginning and the end where she falls into the trap and when she gets out of hell, full of insights on her sincere feelings.
February 20, 2018
I love reading the Russian names of people and places, and about the humanity of the people, even in the midst of Stalin’s Great Purge. It did drag a little in the middle – the unremitting suffering and travails she endured – but gained new life with the death of The Great One and motored along excitedly to its conclusion. I enjoy reading stories of human fortitude.
April 7, 2009
this woman is just...unbeleivable.her tragic story makes me very sad.
October 25, 2010
Excellent. But I thought her other book, Journey Into the Whirlwind, was even better. It moved faster and was even more personal to me.
ILL
ILL
July 14, 2015
(see review for Journey into the Whirlwind)
July 29, 2013
The second part of Ginzburg's story.
January 26, 2015
her two books are amazing to me; her incredible memory and writing about this terrible period in her and her country's life will stay with me for a long time.
May 10, 2015
Many think this is a great story.
I just could not get into it.
Bailed very early; dnf.
I just could not get into it.
Bailed very early; dnf.
January 29, 2016
Amazing story of a Russian woman and how she survived Stalin's Gulags.
July 21, 2024
Although I have read other accounts of Soviet camps and prisons(such as Solzhenitsyn's "One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich", "The First Circle" "Cancer Ward" and of course his magisterial "The Gulag Archipelago"), Ms Ginzburg's account of her eighteen years in the Gulag is arguably superior in a sense as unlike Solzhenitsyn, she does not focus solely on the horrors and cruelties she witnessed(not that she denies them) and experienced herself- but she also notes the instances of kindness and humanity she experienced(which arguably saved her life), from the unlikeliest of sources such as the wife of the all powerful commandant of the Kolyma complex and a MGB colonel who surreptititously changes the age of her son Vasya from a teenage boy to a baby so that they can remain together. She even retains a sense of humour- after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, she and other "zeks" with German sounding names are rounded up(presumably as a prelude to deportation if not summarily execution), she points out that as a Jew she is highly unlikely to wish to gave aid and comfort to the invading Nazis and her life is spared(ironic isn't it- she was ironically safer in the freezing hell of Siberia than in the path of the Einsatzgruppen- SS execution squads- who would would killed her and any identifiably Jewish man, woman or child- without a second's thought)!
May 3, 2025
Part two of the terrible, true story of a political prisoner under Stalin. She is an excellent writer. Though the story is horrible, these two books are worth it for the writing.
The movie that was based on these two books isn't that great but it does give you visuals for it all, especially the Siberia part.
They were sent by train across the Soviet Union so far east they were almost in Alaska. They were near the Arctic circle! Minus 40 degrees, working outside without enough clothing - how did people survive? Many of them did not. This was the fate of millions and I'm ashamed that I hadn't known about it at all.
The movie that was based on these two books isn't that great but it does give you visuals for it all, especially the Siberia part.
They were sent by train across the Soviet Union so far east they were almost in Alaska. They were near the Arctic circle! Minus 40 degrees, working outside without enough clothing - how did people survive? Many of them did not. This was the fate of millions and I'm ashamed that I hadn't known about it at all.
March 12, 2021
Really worth reading. Loved it despite the desperately grim ground it covered. Ginzburg is a gifted writer; I could hardly put the book down. I had to borrow it from the library as it is unavailable to buy at a reasonable price - it should definitely be reprinted - it is so important that we all read memoirs like this one. She gives real insight into how fear can brainwash people into turning against their own compatriots and how millions came to follow orders unquestioningly.
July 7, 2023
I wish these two volumes were not so hard to find. They are fantastic and everyone should read them. Those who complain that reading about prison camps constitute some kind of unhealthy enjoyment or romanticism of other’s suffering should give them a try and see if they still feel that way afterward. This memoir is chock full of historical insight and humanity. Not to be missed.
January 7, 2025
Memoir of time in prison during Stalin's reign. Interesting parallels for today's threatening to imprison political opponents and erase immigrants. Despite the topic, this is surprisingly not a grotesque read. Well constructed.
March 2, 2024
Très instructif sur cette époque russe sous Staline. À lire
to-read-actual
July 28, 2024Pub 1967
September 19, 2020
I’ve read this book about 20 years ago and read it again over and over since¡ This is a book for all time¡
July 17, 2021
Très très bien. Le livre que je voulais lire depuis longtemps sur le goulag. Pour ma part, j'ai préféré le premier ouvrage au second, l'arrestation et la stupeur qui est plus "dynamique" que le second plus statique en Kolyma. L'Autrice décrit tres bien ses conditions de survie dans le système penitenciaire soviétique et les combines pour ne pas mourir.
Ce qui m'a frappé est par contre la non-remise en cause par Guinzbourg de ce système, le manque de rage contre l'état ou le Parti qui lui a fait vivre cet enfer pour rien. C'est la que comprends que Guinzbourg a été une victime, mais aussi un membre de ce système et qu'elle a accepté le châtiment. Passionnant.
Ce qui m'a frappé est par contre la non-remise en cause par Guinzbourg de ce système, le manque de rage contre l'état ou le Parti qui lui a fait vivre cet enfer pour rien. C'est la que comprends que Guinzbourg a été une victime, mais aussi un membre de ce système et qu'elle a accepté le châtiment. Passionnant.
December 7, 2007
A beautifully written book about one woman's experience in the Gulag.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews