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Sketches of the Criminal World: Further Kolyma Stories
This version has the last three volumes of the Kolyma Stories:
IV - Sketches of the Criminal World
V - The Resurrection of the Larch
VI - The Glove, or, Kolyma Stories II
The astonishing follow-up to 2018's Kolyma Stories.
In 1936, Varlam Shalamov, a journalist and writer, was arrested for counterrevolutionary activities and sent to the Soviet Gulag. He survived fifteen years in the prison camps and returned from the Far North to write one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century literature, an epic array of short fictional tales reflecting the years he spent in the Gulag. Sketches of the Criminal World is the second of two volumes (the first, Kolyma Stories, was published by NYRB Classics in 2018) that together constitute the first complete English translation of Shalamov’s stories and the only one to be based on the authorized Russian text.
In this second volume, Shalamov sets out to answer the fundamental moral questions that plagued him in the camps where he encountered firsthand the criminal world as a real place, far more evil than Dostoyevsky’s underground: “How does someone stop being human?” and “How are criminals made?” By 1972, when he was writing his last stories, the camps were being demolished, the guard towers and barracks razed. “Did we exist?” Shalamov asks, then answers without hesitation, “I reply, ‘We did.’”
IV - Sketches of the Criminal World
V - The Resurrection of the Larch
VI - The Glove, or, Kolyma Stories II
The astonishing follow-up to 2018's Kolyma Stories.
In 1936, Varlam Shalamov, a journalist and writer, was arrested for counterrevolutionary activities and sent to the Soviet Gulag. He survived fifteen years in the prison camps and returned from the Far North to write one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century literature, an epic array of short fictional tales reflecting the years he spent in the Gulag. Sketches of the Criminal World is the second of two volumes (the first, Kolyma Stories, was published by NYRB Classics in 2018) that together constitute the first complete English translation of Shalamov’s stories and the only one to be based on the authorized Russian text.
In this second volume, Shalamov sets out to answer the fundamental moral questions that plagued him in the camps where he encountered firsthand the criminal world as a real place, far more evil than Dostoyevsky’s underground: “How does someone stop being human?” and “How are criminals made?” By 1972, when he was writing his last stories, the camps were being demolished, the guard towers and barracks razed. “Did we exist?” Shalamov asks, then answers without hesitation, “I reply, ‘We did.’”
576 pages, Paperback
Published January 14, 2020
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About the author
Varlam Shalamov
83 books224 followersVarlam Tikhonovich Shalamov (Russian: Варлам Тихонович Шаламов; June 18, 1907–January 17, 1982), baptized as Varlaam, was a Russian writer, journalist and poet.
Alternate spellings of his name:
Варлам Шаламов
Varlam Chalamov
Warłam Szałamow
Warlam Schalamow
V. T. Shalamov
Varlam Șalamov
Alternate spellings of his name:
Варлам Шаламов
Varlam Chalamov
Warłam Szałamow
Warlam Schalamow
V. T. Shalamov
Varlam Șalamov
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 24, 2020
The two volumes of Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Stories published by NYRB represent one of the most important pieces of world literature I've ever had the fortune to lay my hands on. This is the real Gulag Archipelago and Shalamov is its true author, as Solzhenitsyn himself acknowledged. These two volumes are to twentieth century Russian literature what War and Peace was to the nineteenth. If you are even remotely interested in Russian history or the testimony of survivors of a brutal Stalinist apocalypse, then you simply must read this.
Having now read both volumes, the first published in 2018 and the second early in 2020, certain things strike me about Kolyma Stories. One is the non-chronological, back and forth arrangement of the pieces. The reader finds herself in 1947, 1951, 1938, again and again. Furthermore, some of the stories retell various incidents and anecdotes, giving the whole almost a Biblical, tapestry-like complexity. It reminds me a little of Joseph Heller's narrative technique in Catch 22.
Another thing about Kolyma Stories is the way the personality of Shalamov himself shines through. Weakened by starvation, beatings and the extreme cold, he somehow managed to 'drift down' to being a goner, surviving the gold mines of 1938 and more than a decade in the Far North after that. Contemptuous of the gangsters, work-averse and refusing to consider bribes, Shalamov became a true survivor of an atrocity the equal of Auschwitz.
There's so much to learn from Shalamov. I especially enjoy his tales of the raw, fragile beauty of the Kolyma wildernesses. You can learn as much about human nature from Kolyma Stories as any other text I can think of. There is true wisdom to be found here, but most importantly the book serves as an absolutely unique historical document and an indictment of Stalinism.
Just as Elie Wiesel's Night offers the true, firsthand testimony of the Holocaust, so Kolyma Tales offers an unforgettable history of the Gulag.
'Did we live?' Shalamov asks. 'We did.' Here's proof.
Having now read both volumes, the first published in 2018 and the second early in 2020, certain things strike me about Kolyma Stories. One is the non-chronological, back and forth arrangement of the pieces. The reader finds herself in 1947, 1951, 1938, again and again. Furthermore, some of the stories retell various incidents and anecdotes, giving the whole almost a Biblical, tapestry-like complexity. It reminds me a little of Joseph Heller's narrative technique in Catch 22.
Another thing about Kolyma Stories is the way the personality of Shalamov himself shines through. Weakened by starvation, beatings and the extreme cold, he somehow managed to 'drift down' to being a goner, surviving the gold mines of 1938 and more than a decade in the Far North after that. Contemptuous of the gangsters, work-averse and refusing to consider bribes, Shalamov became a true survivor of an atrocity the equal of Auschwitz.
There's so much to learn from Shalamov. I especially enjoy his tales of the raw, fragile beauty of the Kolyma wildernesses. You can learn as much about human nature from Kolyma Stories as any other text I can think of. There is true wisdom to be found here, but most importantly the book serves as an absolutely unique historical document and an indictment of Stalinism.
Just as Elie Wiesel's Night offers the true, firsthand testimony of the Holocaust, so Kolyma Tales offers an unforgettable history of the Gulag.
'Did we live?' Shalamov asks. 'We did.' Here's proof.
November 7, 2020
What do we know of others’ grief? Nothing. About others’ happiness? Even less. We try to forget even about our own grief, and our memory for grief and misfortune is conscientiously weak. To know how to live is to know how to forget, and nobody knows that so well as the people of Kolyma, the prisoners.
- Varlam Shalamov
Nearly 1,300 pages over two volumes constitute Varlam Shalamov’s testament. Sketches of the Criminal World is the second volume that carries on the mosaic storytelling, established in Kolyma Stories, of Shalamov’s survival from the Gulag camps. And like Kolyma Stories, books four, five, and six of Sketches remain as unflinching, as unromantic, as scintillating in respect to its predecessor. So what is there to make of all this? The trials of surviving an abyss in a remote, hellacious ice-caked nightmare surely should provide some kernels of wisdom, some aspect which will make the reader feel as though he or she has been given redemption by way of the written word. One quickly finds that there are no lessons, no pretty little empowerments that are candidates to sludge their way across the screens of social media postings by the ever-present ersatz cultural prophets. Shalamov says as much himself. He breaks from the tradition of Tolstoy’s fevered religious moralizing and shatters the illusion of Sholzenitsyn’s that in hard labor lies the path to reconciliation: there was no God in Kolyma (he was elsewhere) and labor was not a matter of valor or honor, it was how people were slowly killed, working long days in the bitter cold. I can say that what Shalamov has written is masterful and the way he wrote it just as so. NYRB has done a great service in gathering his entire Kolyma cycle, all six books over two volumes, and printing them for the English-reading world. Donald Rayfield’s translation is brilliant and consistent throughout. I am thankful because these translations allowed me to encounter and ingest great work—Shalamov is a writer of the highest order and his short stories are stripped of all nonsense.
Varlam Shalamov once told his friend Irina Sirotinskaya, who is responsible for collecting and preserving his works, that “All my skin has been renewed—my soul has not.” He lived a hard life that ended rather sadly. But when he was severe, when he was sharp of mind, he wrote unforgivingly of his experience. And this task was undertaken not for fame or money, not for renown. Alissa Valles, who wrote the introduction for Sketches, details the process, as it were, for Varlam Shalamov:
In Shalamov’s own account, when he wrote he paced and raged in his room, weeping and shouting, saying every story aloud. How Shalamov found the strength to carry out this arduous labor after almost two decades of crippling prison life and exile, in impoverished isolation and recurrent physical and mental pain, with no hope of recognition or publication, without the slightest compromise with a timid post-Stalin literary establishment and without allowing himself to be used as a pawn in the Cold War, is one of the miracles of modern literature.
- Varlam Shalamov
Nearly 1,300 pages over two volumes constitute Varlam Shalamov’s testament. Sketches of the Criminal World is the second volume that carries on the mosaic storytelling, established in Kolyma Stories, of Shalamov’s survival from the Gulag camps. And like Kolyma Stories, books four, five, and six of Sketches remain as unflinching, as unromantic, as scintillating in respect to its predecessor. So what is there to make of all this? The trials of surviving an abyss in a remote, hellacious ice-caked nightmare surely should provide some kernels of wisdom, some aspect which will make the reader feel as though he or she has been given redemption by way of the written word. One quickly finds that there are no lessons, no pretty little empowerments that are candidates to sludge their way across the screens of social media postings by the ever-present ersatz cultural prophets. Shalamov says as much himself. He breaks from the tradition of Tolstoy’s fevered religious moralizing and shatters the illusion of Sholzenitsyn’s that in hard labor lies the path to reconciliation: there was no God in Kolyma (he was elsewhere) and labor was not a matter of valor or honor, it was how people were slowly killed, working long days in the bitter cold. I can say that what Shalamov has written is masterful and the way he wrote it just as so. NYRB has done a great service in gathering his entire Kolyma cycle, all six books over two volumes, and printing them for the English-reading world. Donald Rayfield’s translation is brilliant and consistent throughout. I am thankful because these translations allowed me to encounter and ingest great work—Shalamov is a writer of the highest order and his short stories are stripped of all nonsense.
Varlam Shalamov once told his friend Irina Sirotinskaya, who is responsible for collecting and preserving his works, that “All my skin has been renewed—my soul has not.” He lived a hard life that ended rather sadly. But when he was severe, when he was sharp of mind, he wrote unforgivingly of his experience. And this task was undertaken not for fame or money, not for renown. Alissa Valles, who wrote the introduction for Sketches, details the process, as it were, for Varlam Shalamov:
In Shalamov’s own account, when he wrote he paced and raged in his room, weeping and shouting, saying every story aloud. How Shalamov found the strength to carry out this arduous labor after almost two decades of crippling prison life and exile, in impoverished isolation and recurrent physical and mental pain, with no hope of recognition or publication, without the slightest compromise with a timid post-Stalin literary establishment and without allowing himself to be used as a pawn in the Cold War, is one of the miracles of modern literature.
August 18, 2025
Introduction, by Alissa Valles
Book Four: Sketches of the Criminal World
--What Fiction Writers Get Wrong
--Crooks by Blood
--A Woman from the Criminal World
--The Prison Bread Ration
--The War of the "Bitches"
--Apollo Among the Criminals
--Sergei Yesenin and the World of Thieves
--How "Novels" are "Printed"
Book Five: The Resurrection of the Larch
--The Path
--Graphite
--Hell's Dock
--Silence
--Two Encounters
--Grishka Logun's Thermometer
--A Roundup
--Brave Eyes
--Marcel Proust
--The Faded Photograph
--The Boss of the Political Administration
--Riabokon
--The Life of Engineer Kipreyev
--Pain
--The Nameless Cat
--Someone Else's Bread
--A Theft
--The Town on the Hill
--The Examination
--Fetching a Letter
--The Gold Medal
--By the Stirrup
--Khan-Girei
--Evening Prayer
--Boris Yuzhanin
--Mr. Popp's Visit
--The Squirrel
--The Waterfall
--Taming the Fire
--The Resurrection of the Larch
Book Six: The Glove, or, Kolyma Stories II
--The Glove
--Galina Pavlovna Zybalova
--Liosha Chekanov, or, A Fellow-Accused in Kolyma
--Third-Class Triangulation
--Wheelbarrow I
--Wheelbarrow II
--Water Hemlock
--Dr. Yampolsky
--Lieutenant Colonel Fragin
--Permafrost
--Ivan Bogdanov
--Yakov Ovseyevich Zavodnik
--Dr. Kuzmenko's Chess
--The Man Off the Ship
--Aleksandr Ghoghoberidze
--Lessons in Love
--Athenian Nights
--A Journey to Ola
--A Lieutenant Colonel in the Medical Service
--The Military Commissar
--Riva-Rocci
Notes
Book Four: Sketches of the Criminal World
--What Fiction Writers Get Wrong
--Crooks by Blood
--A Woman from the Criminal World
--The Prison Bread Ration
--The War of the "Bitches"
--Apollo Among the Criminals
--Sergei Yesenin and the World of Thieves
--How "Novels" are "Printed"
Book Five: The Resurrection of the Larch
--The Path
--Graphite
--Hell's Dock
--Silence
--Two Encounters
--Grishka Logun's Thermometer
--A Roundup
--Brave Eyes
--Marcel Proust
--The Faded Photograph
--The Boss of the Political Administration
--Riabokon
--The Life of Engineer Kipreyev
--Pain
--The Nameless Cat
--Someone Else's Bread
--A Theft
--The Town on the Hill
--The Examination
--Fetching a Letter
--The Gold Medal
--By the Stirrup
--Khan-Girei
--Evening Prayer
--Boris Yuzhanin
--Mr. Popp's Visit
--The Squirrel
--The Waterfall
--Taming the Fire
--The Resurrection of the Larch
Book Six: The Glove, or, Kolyma Stories II
--The Glove
--Galina Pavlovna Zybalova
--Liosha Chekanov, or, A Fellow-Accused in Kolyma
--Third-Class Triangulation
--Wheelbarrow I
--Wheelbarrow II
--Water Hemlock
--Dr. Yampolsky
--Lieutenant Colonel Fragin
--Permafrost
--Ivan Bogdanov
--Yakov Ovseyevich Zavodnik
--Dr. Kuzmenko's Chess
--The Man Off the Ship
--Aleksandr Ghoghoberidze
--Lessons in Love
--Athenian Nights
--A Journey to Ola
--A Lieutenant Colonel in the Medical Service
--The Military Commissar
--Riva-Rocci
Notes
August 1, 2020
Many years after the end of the war, in the criminal world, at the bottom of the human sea, the submarine waves of blood still hadn’t been stilled.
Sketches of the Criminal Worldis the second of two volumes composed by former Gulag inmate and survivor, Varlam Shalamov. In this body of work, Shalamov attempts to discern and dissect the criminal underbelly of the Kolyma camps. It was in these camps, where violent criminals and seasoned gangsters were given free rein by the State to endanger the lives of political prisoners by means of coercion, rape, and murder. In his opening essay, What Fiction Writers Get Wrong,Shalamov criticizes those, such as Victor Hugo (Les Misérables) for romanticizing the criminal world, whereinstead of exposing criminality for what it is, it prepared the ground for poisonous plants to flourish in the inexperienced and untried souls of young people.
Interspersed among these tales of horror and terror in the prison camps, lie some beautiful pieces of prose poetry. InThe Waterfall,Shalamov observes the freely running stream of water cascading over a cliff only to be pulverized and shattered by the solid wall of air. Although the rush of water is strong enough to flood fields and uproot trees,it’s strength is not enough to cope with the obtuseness of the air, the air that is so easy to breathe, the air that is transparent and yielding, yielding to the point of being invisible, and that seems to be a symbol of such freedom.
Harrowing yet humbling,Sketches Of The Criminal Worldis an impressive piece of art that should not be overlooked.
Sketches of the Criminal Worldis the second of two volumes composed by former Gulag inmate and survivor, Varlam Shalamov. In this body of work, Shalamov attempts to discern and dissect the criminal underbelly of the Kolyma camps. It was in these camps, where violent criminals and seasoned gangsters were given free rein by the State to endanger the lives of political prisoners by means of coercion, rape, and murder. In his opening essay, What Fiction Writers Get Wrong,Shalamov criticizes those, such as Victor Hugo (Les Misérables) for romanticizing the criminal world, whereinstead of exposing criminality for what it is, it prepared the ground for poisonous plants to flourish in the inexperienced and untried souls of young people.
Interspersed among these tales of horror and terror in the prison camps, lie some beautiful pieces of prose poetry. InThe Waterfall,Shalamov observes the freely running stream of water cascading over a cliff only to be pulverized and shattered by the solid wall of air. Although the rush of water is strong enough to flood fields and uproot trees,it’s strength is not enough to cope with the obtuseness of the air, the air that is so easy to breathe, the air that is transparent and yielding, yielding to the point of being invisible, and that seems to be a symbol of such freedom.
Harrowing yet humbling,Sketches Of The Criminal Worldis an impressive piece of art that should not be overlooked.
September 16, 2020
This is a continuation of Shalamov's Kolyma Stories and even begins where the earlier book breaks off with Book Four, which is made up of stories more generally descriptive of conditions in the camps of the Soviet Gulag than they are stories of narrative and character. They and the more conventional short stories of Books Five and Six that follow are, like Kolyma Stories, relentlessly grim. You enter the world of the work camps and are swallowed up by them. Shalamov knew what he was writing about. He spent 15 years in the labor camps of the Kolyma Peninsula and was lucky enough to survive. He knew very well the cruel conditions he describes, the death and dysentery and starvation and unbelievable cold. He served some of his later years there as a paramedic, and so many of the stories in this 2d volume are about events and characters in the hospitals. All the stories are touched by autobiography, but not all the characters are prisoners; a few stories depict ordinary lives and people who were once prisoners or keepers and chose to not leave the region when they could. There's even a story about a squirrel. But mostly they're of hopeless prisoners being worked and starved to death, subject not only to the dangers of prison policies but also of the frictions between the competing castes of political prisoners and criminals.
December 11, 2018
Mai pătrunzător decât Soljeniţîn, mai tulburător decât Ghinzburg. Înfiorător de lucid.
August 22, 2022
כתבתי כבר יחסית הרבה על וארלם שלאמוב, ומובן שגם קראתי הרבה מסיפוריו (עד כמה שידוע לי שיריו לא תורגמו מרוסית). שלוש ביקורות שלי על שלושה מספריו שתורגמו לעברית: "סיפורי קולימה", "אמן את החפירה" ו"הגדה השמאלית". תוכלו למצוא אותן ב- goodreads. אני יכול בקלות למקם את קבצי סיפוריו בפסגת רשימת הספרים האיכותיים שקראתי וגם בין המהנים שבהם (אם מותר ליהנות מסוג כזה של ספרות – בעמוד 484 בספר זה, שלאמוב טוען שלא ניתן לכתוב קומדיה על אודות הגולאג, האם מותר ליהנות מספרות אודותיו?) כפי שמצוין באחרית הדבר ב"אמן את החפירה" שלאמוב הוסיף לכתוב סיפורים, מאוחרים יותר, על קולימה. הוצאת NYRB האמריקאית טרחה לתרגם (תרגום מ-ע-ו-ל-ה) לפני שנתיים את כל הסיפורים האלה המהווים שלושה ספרים נוספים שלו ופרסמה אותם (כפי שנהגה עם שלושת הספרים שתורגמו גם לעברית) כקובץ ענק אחד. בסיפוריו של שלאמוב יש חזרות לא מעטות. לא מדובר, לדעתי, ברשלנות אלא על אסטרטגיה מכוונת: כל מאורע משותף לעלילות רבות ומשמש להאיר מקומות ודמויות שונות, כל פעם מזווית אחרת. לאחר שקראתי את ספריו של שלאמוב בעברית הגעתי לרוויה מסוימת. יחד עם זאת מאחר שמדובר בספרות נפלאה לא עמדתי לבסוף בפיתוי ורכשתי את הקובץ האנגלי השני.
גם שלושת הספרים המקובצים כאן נהדרים. הספרים החמישי והשישי הם קבצי סיפורים קצרים במתכונת הספרים הקודמים. כל סיפור הוא גם תיעוד וגם יצירה ספרותית הגותית, המבקשת לגעת, ולהבהיר בצורה צלולה, כל היבט של אותה "פלאנטה אחרת" שהחיים בה, למין האכילה, המנוחה ועשיית הצרכים ועד לספרות, לרפואה ולתעסוקה, שונים תכלית השינוי מהחיים הרגילים. קולימה מכונה "אי" בפי יושביה, לא בגלל שהיא אי מבחינה גיאוגרפית אלא מפני שמגיעים אליה בספינה ומפני שמדובר בעולם אחר בעל חוקים אחרים, "שאול" הלכה למעשה, שהבאים בשעריה מתים לרוב תוך זמן קצר ביותר, ואלו שנותרים בחיים "זונחים כל תקווה" וחיים רק את הרגע, חיים בלא עתיד. בשונה מסיפוריו המוקדמים יותר, שלאמוב אינו מהסס להשוות את הגולאגים למחנות ההשמדה הנאצים ולהודות בפשטות ופה מלא כי מנגנון הגולאג היה מנגנון של השמדה שבמקום בגז השתמש בהרעבה, עבודת פרך וקור בלתי נתפס. שלאמוב מבקש לבאר את הכל, לחשוף את המשמעות של כל דבר: מצרכים אישיים של האדם (הוא דן בכתיבת וקריאת שירה כמו גם במשמעות עשיית הצרכים אצל האסירים) דרך ההיסטוריה של אישים נבחרים ושל מפעלי ייצור ועד לטבע המקיף את המחנות המשקף והופך לסמל לחיים השונים כל כך בקולימה (ענף עץ השרען, שלוקח לו שלוש מאות שנה להתבגר ושב לחיים בדירה במוסקבה.) הסיפורים איומים אך גם נוגעים ללב.
הספר הרביעי, שנתן לקובץ זה את שמו, למרות שמשובצים בו סיפורים, הוא למעשה אוסף של מאמרים העוסקים בכל היבט של חייהם של האסירים הלא פוליטיים במחנות, מה ששלאמוב מכנה העולם הקרימינאלי. מדובר למעשה בפושעים "מקצועיים". עולמם הוא עולם מנוגד לעולמם של האסירים הפוליטיים. במחנות חל היפוך – האנשים שאינם פושעים, שכל חטאם נובע מהפללה מלאכותית בידי המנגנון הסטליניסטי מושמדים ואילו הפושעים האכזריים נהנים מתנאים משופרים ולמעשה שולטים במחנות ואף מגוייסים לשמש חלק ממנגנון ההשמדה. שלאמוב הוא יסודי גם בעיסוק בחיי הפושעים והוא מבאר כל היבט של חייהם, של ההיסטוריה שלהם ושל הטעויות של סופרים אחרים בתיאור עולמם.
המפעל של שלאמוב הוא ענק, אבל את הספרים לא ניתן להניח מהיד. למי שאינו רוצה לקרוא הרבה כל כך אני ממליץ לקרוא את הקובץ "אמן את החפירה" המכיל בזעיר אנפין את כל ההיבטים השונים בכתיבתו של שלאמוב בצורה מגובשת שלה גם סיום ספרותי מרגש.
גם שלושת הספרים המקובצים כאן נהדרים. הספרים החמישי והשישי הם קבצי סיפורים קצרים במתכונת הספרים הקודמים. כל סיפור הוא גם תיעוד וגם יצירה ספרותית הגותית, המבקשת לגעת, ולהבהיר בצורה צלולה, כל היבט של אותה "פלאנטה אחרת" שהחיים בה, למין האכילה, המנוחה ועשיית הצרכים ועד לספרות, לרפואה ולתעסוקה, שונים תכלית השינוי מהחיים הרגילים. קולימה מכונה "אי" בפי יושביה, לא בגלל שהיא אי מבחינה גיאוגרפית אלא מפני שמגיעים אליה בספינה ומפני שמדובר בעולם אחר בעל חוקים אחרים, "שאול" הלכה למעשה, שהבאים בשעריה מתים לרוב תוך זמן קצר ביותר, ואלו שנותרים בחיים "זונחים כל תקווה" וחיים רק את הרגע, חיים בלא עתיד. בשונה מסיפוריו המוקדמים יותר, שלאמוב אינו מהסס להשוות את הגולאגים למחנות ההשמדה הנאצים ולהודות בפשטות ופה מלא כי מנגנון הגולאג היה מנגנון של השמדה שבמקום בגז השתמש בהרעבה, עבודת פרך וקור בלתי נתפס. שלאמוב מבקש לבאר את הכל, לחשוף את המשמעות של כל דבר: מצרכים אישיים של האדם (הוא דן בכתיבת וקריאת שירה כמו גם במשמעות עשיית הצרכים אצל האסירים) דרך ההיסטוריה של אישים נבחרים ושל מפעלי ייצור ועד לטבע המקיף את המחנות המשקף והופך לסמל לחיים השונים כל כך בקולימה (ענף עץ השרען, שלוקח לו שלוש מאות שנה להתבגר ושב לחיים בדירה במוסקבה.) הסיפורים איומים אך גם נוגעים ללב.
הספר הרביעי, שנתן לקובץ זה את שמו, למרות שמשובצים בו סיפורים, הוא למעשה אוסף של מאמרים העוסקים בכל היבט של חייהם של האסירים הלא פוליטיים במחנות, מה ששלאמוב מכנה העולם הקרימינאלי. מדובר למעשה בפושעים "מקצועיים". עולמם הוא עולם מנוגד לעולמם של האסירים הפוליטיים. במחנות חל היפוך – האנשים שאינם פושעים, שכל חטאם נובע מהפללה מלאכותית בידי המנגנון הסטליניסטי מושמדים ואילו הפושעים האכזריים נהנים מתנאים משופרים ולמעשה שולטים במחנות ואף מגוייסים לשמש חלק ממנגנון ההשמדה. שלאמוב הוא יסודי גם בעיסוק בחיי הפושעים והוא מבאר כל היבט של חייהם, של ההיסטוריה שלהם ושל הטעויות של סופרים אחרים בתיאור עולמם.
המפעל של שלאמוב הוא ענק, אבל את הספרים לא ניתן להניח מהיד. למי שאינו רוצה לקרוא הרבה כל כך אני ממליץ לקרוא את הקובץ "אמן את החפירה" המכיל בזעיר אנפין את כל ההיבטים השונים בכתיבתו של שלאמוב בצורה מגובשת שלה גם סיום ספרותי מרגש.
March 24, 2023
"Astfel am înțeles lucrul cel mai important , am înțeles ca OMUL e OM nu pentru ca e creația lui Dumnezeu, nu pentru ca la fiecare mana are un deget uimitor de mare. Ci pentru ca el este mai puternic și mai rezistent fizic decât orice alt animal , iar în al doilea rand , pentru ca si-a forțat latura psihica s- o slujească avantajos pe cea fizica."
" De altfel , a fi liber și a trăi în libertate sunt doua lucruri diferite."
" De altfel , a fi liber și a trăi în libertate sunt doua lucruri diferite."
June 6, 2019
Principiul vieții, experiența personală contrazic literatura.
„În primul rând trebuie să întorci palmele primite și abia după aceea mila. Să ții minte răul înaintea binelui. Să ții minte tot binele o sută de ani, iar tot răul - două sute. Prin aceste învățături mă deosebesc de toți umaniștii ruși din secolele XIX-XX.”
„În primul rând trebuie să întorci palmele primite și abia după aceea mila. Să ții minte răul înaintea binelui. Să ții minte tot binele o sută de ani, iar tot răul - două sute. Prin aceste învățături mă deosebesc de toți umaniștii ruși din secolele XIX-XX.”
January 21, 2025
This isn't the kind of narrative to plow straight through. It will pummel you with its repetitive blows. Instead, ration this out if you can sip its bitterness. I reviewed the first "Kolyma Stories" (NYRB; not to be confused with the earlier abridgment in Penguin, "Kolyma Tales.") and this shares its quirks. Being recollected after the fact, as many USSR prison memoirs in less salubrious, awful situations have been. Shalamov doesn't indulge romanticism; even Dostoevsky gets brushed aside.
Instead, it's more that the title and subtitle promise. I found the castigation of the gangsters and how they take out their instincts on the Section 58 et al "friers," the political inmates sentenced under that catch-all category of anti-Soviet propaganda (one category: "smoking" on the job=state sabotage) wearying. However, footnotes allow the committed reader to learn about the minutiae to which Shalamov puts pen to page, indicting those in and out of incarceration foolish enough to imagine they affirm honor among thieves, themselves one basic group on top of the penal bottom.
He lacks the irony of his peer Solzhenitsyn, who acknowledged Shalamov as his own influence in turn. So, it's difficult to immerse one's self for long in sordid frigid depths. After the gangsters are dealt with, the fifth part shifts to profiles of those in the camps. Natalia Klimova's idealism turned terrorism rang loudest as a rattling depiction of how a love for one's sisters and brothers early on, at least in theory, can curdle into vengeance, violence, and virulent hatred separating a human from the hearts of those whose minds she claims to wish to liberate. Part Six loosely recapitulates some of the first volume, as the paramedic training Shalamov manages to sneak himself into keeps him in the surroundings of the camps, like many released, after his supposed freedom from their walls.
This anthology bristles. It does not offer inspiration about overcoming adversity, nor triumphant rallies of good-hearted prostitutes, grudgingly fair mob bosses, morally incorruptible doctors, or stalwart "four-eyed eggheads" (the last named probably closest to you and I on GR if you are here.) There's no faith, no humor not even the gallows type, and no justification for the cruelties meted out. Only the unrelenting terror. Yet, still, some revere the system that led to these savageries upon hundreds of millions inflicted well within living memory. That alone impels one to take this history with seriousness, and to realize how thin can be the barrier between any of us and sheer bloody rage carried out against any we think oppose us, if there's bread to be snatched, sex taken, or warmth.
You may never hoist a wheelbarrow, bite into an onion, watch a puppy, wonder where a cat once around went off to, pick up an indelible pencil or smear your finger with graphite, in the same way. A larch looms as a testament to endurance amidst death. A path not trodden by another is a wonder.
Instead, it's more that the title and subtitle promise. I found the castigation of the gangsters and how they take out their instincts on the Section 58 et al "friers," the political inmates sentenced under that catch-all category of anti-Soviet propaganda (one category: "smoking" on the job=state sabotage) wearying. However, footnotes allow the committed reader to learn about the minutiae to which Shalamov puts pen to page, indicting those in and out of incarceration foolish enough to imagine they affirm honor among thieves, themselves one basic group on top of the penal bottom.
He lacks the irony of his peer Solzhenitsyn, who acknowledged Shalamov as his own influence in turn. So, it's difficult to immerse one's self for long in sordid frigid depths. After the gangsters are dealt with, the fifth part shifts to profiles of those in the camps. Natalia Klimova's idealism turned terrorism rang loudest as a rattling depiction of how a love for one's sisters and brothers early on, at least in theory, can curdle into vengeance, violence, and virulent hatred separating a human from the hearts of those whose minds she claims to wish to liberate. Part Six loosely recapitulates some of the first volume, as the paramedic training Shalamov manages to sneak himself into keeps him in the surroundings of the camps, like many released, after his supposed freedom from their walls.
This anthology bristles. It does not offer inspiration about overcoming adversity, nor triumphant rallies of good-hearted prostitutes, grudgingly fair mob bosses, morally incorruptible doctors, or stalwart "four-eyed eggheads" (the last named probably closest to you and I on GR if you are here.) There's no faith, no humor not even the gallows type, and no justification for the cruelties meted out. Only the unrelenting terror. Yet, still, some revere the system that led to these savageries upon hundreds of millions inflicted well within living memory. That alone impels one to take this history with seriousness, and to realize how thin can be the barrier between any of us and sheer bloody rage carried out against any we think oppose us, if there's bread to be snatched, sex taken, or warmth.
You may never hoist a wheelbarrow, bite into an onion, watch a puppy, wonder where a cat once around went off to, pick up an indelible pencil or smear your finger with graphite, in the same way. A larch looms as a testament to endurance amidst death. A path not trodden by another is a wonder.
July 28, 2022
If you’ve enjoyed Shalamov’s classic ‘Kolyma Tales’ then this additional collection of stories, essays and other short pieces is essential reading.
October 3, 2020
Book Four: Sketches of the Criminal World
I found this to initially be the most interesting book in this volume; loved the deeper dive into the Kolyma gangster scene. There is some familiar stuff here but a lot more depth and detail on the gangsters. Shalamov clearly hated the gangsters, deeply. He did not see them as humans, and from his accounts he had reason to make a distinction. Towards the end of book four I was ready for a change of topic: quite dark.
Book Five: The Resurrection of the Larch
Never having heard of a larch before reading Russian history, I have become fascinated with them and especially appreciate the poetic use Shalamov makes of this tree. His focus on the tree has meaning and is worth thinking about in depth. I have many lingering scenes of the outdoors, of surveying excursions and trips to gather mushrooms. I think these will remain tied to my internal image of northern russia.
Book Six: The Glove, or, Kolyma Stories II
This book was in some ways the weakest and most repetitive of the entire effort. There were some great entries though and it ends with a well chosen chapter. It felt like a long journey through Shalamov's Kolyma tales, but it was worth it. His take was darker and grittier than Solzhenitsyn's, they don't contradict, they just expose the variety of experience that was possible in the chaotic and inhumane situations of northern prison camps, or extermination camps as Shalamov would call them.
I found this to initially be the most interesting book in this volume; loved the deeper dive into the Kolyma gangster scene. There is some familiar stuff here but a lot more depth and detail on the gangsters. Shalamov clearly hated the gangsters, deeply. He did not see them as humans, and from his accounts he had reason to make a distinction. Towards the end of book four I was ready for a change of topic: quite dark.
Book Five: The Resurrection of the Larch
Never having heard of a larch before reading Russian history, I have become fascinated with them and especially appreciate the poetic use Shalamov makes of this tree. His focus on the tree has meaning and is worth thinking about in depth. I have many lingering scenes of the outdoors, of surveying excursions and trips to gather mushrooms. I think these will remain tied to my internal image of northern russia.
Book Six: The Glove, or, Kolyma Stories II
This book was in some ways the weakest and most repetitive of the entire effort. There were some great entries though and it ends with a well chosen chapter. It felt like a long journey through Shalamov's Kolyma tales, but it was worth it. His take was darker and grittier than Solzhenitsyn's, they don't contradict, they just expose the variety of experience that was possible in the chaotic and inhumane situations of northern prison camps, or extermination camps as Shalamov would call them.
March 29, 2025
Shalamov's stories, perhaps despite one's expectations, continue to tumble on after the three books of the first volume. However, this volume starts off with stories that are closer to essays than conventional stories. He criticizes his predeccessors, whether they are Chekhov or Dostoevsky, specifically in their shortcomings in depicting criminals, who Shalamov knew too well in his decades-long experience in the camps. Gradually, as I read these powerful, miserably cynical stories, I started to question the description of them as fiction. This short story cycle is so closely based on Shalamov's life, that I take issue calling it fiction at all. His name is used quiet frequently; and otherwise, he is the 'I' in the stories, if there is one. The short stories form a pretty solid base for a biography of him, and this is much closer to an autobiography, one could say, in the form of short stories, or maybe a fragmented memoir. But fiction is not an accurate description.
As with any long short story collection, some are quet impactful, others less so. I recommend it, but only after you've read the first volume, and if you think you want to continue reading him.
As with any long short story collection, some are quet impactful, others less so. I recommend it, but only after you've read the first volume, and if you think you want to continue reading him.
September 14, 2021
A deep dive into myriad stories vignettes and sketches of the Soviet prison camps human nature and an autocratic arbitrary system intent on destroying souls.
May 5, 2023
Cartea reunește mai multe povestiri despre Gulag, toate reale: unele sunt plictisitoare (mai ales primele, strict despre blatari și lumea lor), unele scrise greoi, unele bune și foarte bune, câteva memorabile pe viață.
Șalamov nu are nici pe aproape talentul de scriitor al lui Soljenițîn, dar oferă un tablou mai vast în timp și spațiu, și mult mai variat, pentru că a prins vreo 30 de ani de gulag (față de doar un deceniu la Soljenițân, dacă ”doar” e cuvântul potrivit). De asemenea, oferă o ”faună” de suflete mai diversă și, pentru că el a prins Kolîma, cea mai rea dintre toate, povestește nu doar despre cruzimea incredibil de diversificată a omului față de om, dar și față de animale și natură. Spre deosebire de Soljenițîn, oferă și o gamă mai diversă de sentimente, inclusiv bucăți realmente amuzante (vizita unui director american și contrastul cu lumea sovietică m-a făcut să râd ca nimic de mult timp), dar și tandrețe, poezie, umanitate și absurd.
O carte pe care, din păcate, o voi ține minte pentru totdeauna, cu un gust amar și-un suflet plin de ură față de orice are legătură cu comunismul; și care m-a convins încă o dată că în toată istoria omenirii, de când eram încă fiare, nu a existat ceva mai ticălos și josnic decât Gulagul. Mai malefic, da, Dachau, Auschwitz, Jihadul etc; mai crud, da, Rwanda, mongolii, conchistadorii/aztecii etc; dar mai abject, mai adâncit în străfundurile inimaginabile ale nemerniciei sufletești, niciodată.
Șalamov nu are nici pe aproape talentul de scriitor al lui Soljenițîn, dar oferă un tablou mai vast în timp și spațiu, și mult mai variat, pentru că a prins vreo 30 de ani de gulag (față de doar un deceniu la Soljenițân, dacă ”doar” e cuvântul potrivit). De asemenea, oferă o ”faună” de suflete mai diversă și, pentru că el a prins Kolîma, cea mai rea dintre toate, povestește nu doar despre cruzimea incredibil de diversificată a omului față de om, dar și față de animale și natură. Spre deosebire de Soljenițîn, oferă și o gamă mai diversă de sentimente, inclusiv bucăți realmente amuzante (vizita unui director american și contrastul cu lumea sovietică m-a făcut să râd ca nimic de mult timp), dar și tandrețe, poezie, umanitate și absurd.
O carte pe care, din păcate, o voi ține minte pentru totdeauna, cu un gust amar și-un suflet plin de ură față de orice are legătură cu comunismul; și care m-a convins încă o dată că în toată istoria omenirii, de când eram încă fiare, nu a existat ceva mai ticălos și josnic decât Gulagul. Mai malefic, da, Dachau, Auschwitz, Jihadul etc; mai crud, da, Rwanda, mongolii, conchistadorii/aztecii etc; dar mai abject, mai adâncit în străfundurile inimaginabile ale nemerniciei sufletești, niciodată.
February 28, 2021
For me this was 4.5 stars. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first volume, if ‘enjoy’ is the right word. Like the first, it consists of three original books brought together. The first of these, from which the whole book gets its name, is a series of essays about the role and ethos of the criminal classes in the Gulag. This seemed more in the nature of a history of the Gulag, rather than the usual short story Shalamov writes. I got more from the stories than I did from the essays, hence marking this book down in comparison to the first.
The stories that make up the rest of the book are accounts of Shalamov’s different experiences or different people he encountered in the camps. This is also a change from the first book where it wasn’t always clear whether he was writing about something that had happened to him or somebody else. Still, it gives a picture of the dreadful conditions he was lucky to survive.
The stories that make up the rest of the book are accounts of Shalamov’s different experiences or different people he encountered in the camps. This is also a change from the first book where it wasn’t always clear whether he was writing about something that had happened to him or somebody else. Still, it gives a picture of the dreadful conditions he was lucky to survive.
December 16, 2020
Shalamov’s stories of the gulag are painfully perfect. He is the bard of this well-populated Soviet underworld. This volume is not quite as compelling as the other volume published by NYRB, Kolyma Stories.
November 14, 2021
Being more autobiographical, maybe lacks a bit of the charm of the 1st collection of stories. I might even say Glad had a point with his editorial decisions. I was also disappointed by the paucity of translator notes. Still compelling, still Shalamov, but not necessarily a must-read
January 1, 2021
Takes you into a world that has put humans on their limits
Read
September 13, 2022I could not finish this, and can't even rate it. It's not bad, just super depressing. There's no hope for humanity, and the ruthless criminal world can't be changed.
May 1, 2024
Shalamov spares no one, not even himself.
Regardless of our particular politics, we are obliged to listen to the witnesses.
Regardless of our particular politics, we are obliged to listen to the witnesses.
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