Varlam Shalamov's Kolymskie Rasskazy is an enormous and exceedingly complex work, one which is only beginning to get the critical attention it so richly deserves. It is a work of considerable artistic maturity, generic innovation, and thematic p ...
Varlam Shalamov's Kolymskie Rasskazy is an enormous and exceedingly complex work, one which is only beginning to get the critical attention it so richly deserves. It is a work of considerable artistic maturity, generic innovation, and thematic power. In addressing with ruthless clarity one of the century's most tragic phenomena, the Soviet labor camp system, Shalamov puts on display the very soul of humanity.
The fact that recognition has come so slowly to such a major contribution to twentieth-century literature can be traced, in large part, to the chaotic history of its publication, itself a reflection of the political struggles of the times. As Shalamov wrote “For the Drawer,” and was himself not involved in the publication of his work, nearly all aspects of how it finally appeared to the public were dictated by the political, financial, or personal motivations of others.
Shalamov's stories began appearing in the late 1950s in samizdat. Yet Shalamov had little respect for the dissident community which created samizdat and made his work first available. Samizdat, or the emigre journals of the West, published several of Shalamov's stories over about ten years beginning in 1966. For them as well, Shalamov's work was primarily a political tool. This is equally true of the translations, which were often made to support the rhetoric of the Cold War
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