One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

under construction ... obviously.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/solz-ivan.html

http://www.stalinproject.com/third_level.php?id_topic=32&id_category=10&id_subject=4

http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/the-gulag/

https://docs.google.com/a/pvlearners.net/viewer?a=v&q=cache:HnkuzJmO3nsJ:www.nps.gov/malu/parknews/upload/Gulag_Fact_Sheet.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjn9Cxs2rB0zyPz2S4oEyr1UaTEb1CXVuxxtXTkjAgIcl1FT_DhIwejprt7qqBH9uPMpp1erbEOTn-ix1Y6wrm8IfLQ470gOqNr_N0rWb5WTAYpJbNWJhtJweoFgwIhDMBjttam&sig=AHIEtbTryPHlC3IiteURlyyIaIQkFWWpXg

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/10/us-korea-north-google-idUSBRE9081CS20130110

http://w3.osaarchivum.org/gulag/txt1.htm

Overview of the Gulag

http://www.stalinproject.com/third_level.php?id_topic=32&id_category=10&id_subject=4

1. What does the term “Gulag” represent today? Today, historians typically use the term "Gulag" to refer to the entire Soviet forced labor detention system, at least as it existed throughout the Stalin era.

2. What were the three types of Gulag institutions? prisons, concentration (or labor) camps and internal exile

3. How were prisons different in the Gulag system in comparison to now? Only a small portion of Gulag inmates actually served their sentence of punishment in prisons. Rather, prisons primarily served as the place of detention for those under investigation, that is, during interrogation and prior to the pronouncement of sentence. After often the most cursory of trials, prisoners could be acquitted, sentenced to forced labor without deprivation of freedom, akin to probation, prison, labor camp (the most common sentence) or execution.

4. What was the primary place of detention for persons who had been convicted of the alleged crimes? forced labor concentration camps.

5. How was life in the concentration camps? Concentration camps offered relatively free movement within a camp zone most typically surrounded by a fence or barbed wire and containing a number of overcrowded, poorly-heated barracks. Most of a prisoner’s waking hours were spent not in the camp zone but under armed guard at various types of forced labor. There was a great variety in the type of work performed by concentration camp prisoners and in the level of oppressiveness of their living conditions, but between the extreme conditions, the brutality dished out by sadistic guards and the violence rampant among the prisoners themselves, a Soviet concentration camp would put the worst American prisons to shame in terms of the sheer wretchedness of living conditions.

6. What is internal exile? This exile was used mostly for large groups of people condemned not for particular crimes but for membership in a suspect group sometimes defined by class, such as the deportation of the so-called "kulaks", sometimes included entire nationalities, such as the Soviet Germans, Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, or Koreans. Exile typically required that a person live within a fixed region deep in Siberia or Central Asia. Exiles had to report periodically to the local secret police and give up a portion of their wages. Leaving the region of exile was treated as escape and subject to very stiff penalties.

7. Aside from regular prisoners who were really criminals, what types of people were also held in concentration camps? political prisoners (termed "counterrevolutionaries" by the Soviet state)–a group that included not only real opponents of the Soviet regime, but also those only thought to be potential opponents of that regime or even fully loyal Soviet citizens caught up merely for telling a joke about Stalin, or perhaps accidentally spilling coffee on a newspaper picture of Stalin, or denounced by a neighbor or acquaintance for nothing more than jealousy or spite.

8. What does “draconian” mean/refer to? 1: of, relating to, or characteristic of Draco or the severe code of laws held to have been framed by him 2: cruel; also : severe <draconian littering fines>

9. Why does the author of “Overview of the Gulag” refer to the Gulag actions as draconian “legal campaigns”? Because they were very severe

10. Give an example of a harsh Gulag law. Under one law, a hungry peasant who took a few potatoes from a field could be given 10 years.

11. Did all Russian Gulag inmates work? Yes, unless they were severely unable

12. How many millions of people passed through the prisons and camps of Gulag? Over 18 million

13. What does the author mean when he/she states, “The door of the Gulag was a revolving one” (“Overview of the Gulag”)? That every year the Gulag leaders released 20—40% of the prisoners.

14. What interesting highlight does the author mention at the very end? Friendships were created