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E-book
Author Draskozcy, Julie S. author

Title Belomor Criminality and Creativity in Stalin's Gulag / Julie S. Draskozcy
Published Academic Studies Press

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Introduction: Born again: a new model of Soviet selfhood -- The factory of life -- The art of crime -- The symphony of labor -- The performance of identity -- The mapping of utopia
Summary Containing analyses of everything from prisoner poetry to album covers, Belomor: Criminality and Creativity in Stalin's Gulag moves beyond the simplistic good/evil paradigm that often accompanies Gulag scholarship. While acknowledging the normative power of Stalinism-an ethos so hegemonic it wanted to harness the very mechanisms of inspiration-the volume also recognizes the various loopholes offered by artistic expression. Perhaps the most infamous project of Stalin's first Five-Year Plan, the Belomor construction was riddled by paradox, above all the fact that it created a major waterway that was too shallow for large crafts. Even more significant, and sinister, is that the project won the backing of famous creative luminaries who enthusiastically professed the doctrine of self-fashioning. Belomor complicates our understanding of the Gulag by looking at both prisoner motivation and official response from multiple angles, thereby offering a more expansive vision of the labor camp
Notes Vendor-supplied metadata
Subject Labor camps -- Soviet Union
Prisoners' writings, Soviet -- History and criticism
Prisoners as artists -- Soviet Union
Prisoners -- Soviet Union -- Intellectual life
Labor camps.
Prisoners as artists.
Prisoners -- Intellectual life.
Prisoners' writings, Soviet.
Soviet Union.
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781618112880
1618112880