Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov are two of the best-known Gulag writers. After a short period of personal acquaintance, their lives and views on literature took different paths. Solzhenitsyn did not see a literary program in Shalamovâs works, which he describes as âa result of exhaustion after years of hard labour in the campâ. By understanding the text as a âresultâ, Solzhenitsyn critically touched on a concept of evidence, which Shalamov several times emphasized as important to his own works. According to Shalamov, instead of the text being a re-presentation, it should be an extract from or substitute for the real or the factual, by which his Gulag experience became present once again. Concepts such as âdocumentâ, âthingâ and âfactâ became important for Shalamovâs self-identification as a modernist. At the same time, Solzhenitsyn, viewing his own task as one of restoring historical experiences of the Russian people and trying âto explain the slow course of history and what sort of one it has beenâ, assumed the dual role of writer and historian, which inevitably raises the question of what characterizes the borders between fact and fiction in his works. It also raises question about dichotomies of historical and fictional truth.
Contributors: Andrea Gullotta, Fabian Heffermehl, Luba Jurgenson, Irina Karlsohn, Josefina Lundblad-JanjiÄ, Elena Mikhailik, Michael A. Nicholson, Irina Sandomirskaja, Ulrich Schmid, Franziska Thun-Hohenstein, Leona Toker.
Fabian Heffermehl, Ph.D, University of Oslo / Humboldt University of Berlin, is researcher in art theory and Russian literature.
Irina Karlsohn, Ph.D, is Senior Lecturer of Russian language and literature at Dalarna University, Sweden.
Content
Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction Fabian Heffermehl and Irina Karlsohn
Part 1 Literary Origins
â1âDiscontinuities in the Evolution of Kolyma Stories and âOne Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovichâ Michael A. Nicholson
â2âPoetry after the Gulag: Do Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov Have a Lyric Mindset? Ulrich Schmid
â3âMore than a Cat: Reflections on Shalamovâs and Solzhenitsynâs Writings through the Perspective of Trauma Studies Andrea Gullotta
Part 2 Memory and Body
â4âWhy Did Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov Not Write The Gulag Archipelago Together? Luba Jurgenson
â5âTactility and Memory in Shalamov Fabian Heffermehl
â6ââA Grudge-holding Bodyâ: Body and Memory in the Works of Varlam Shalamov Franziska Thun-Hohenstein
â7âCertain Properties of Rhyme: Poetic Language Touching Abomination Irina Sandomirskaia
Part 3 History and Narrative
â8âCounterfactuals and History in The Gulag Archipelago Irina Karlsohn
â9ââThe Gulagâs Archipelagoâ: Rhetoric of History Elena Mikhailik
â10âTelling the Stories of Others and Writing the Bodies of Others: The Representation of Women in Shalamovâs Kolyma Stories and Solzhenitsynâs The Gulag Archipelago Josefina Lundblad-JanjicÌ
â11âThe Issue of âSofteningâ and the Problem of Addressivity in Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov Leona Toker Index
All interested in Russian literature, memory, the Gulag and post-Holocaust studies.