The Gulag Handbook: An Encyclopedia Dictionary of Soviet Penitentiary Institutions and Terms Related to the Forced Labor Camps [Hardcover]

Jacques Rossi (Author), William A. Burhans (Translator), Robert Conquest (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1557780242 | ISBN-13: 978-1557780249 | Publication Date: October 1989 | Edition: 1st

The Russian language original of The Gulag Handbook was published in London 1987; the English language version, New York 1989; the second Russian language edition, Moscow 1991; the Japanese, Tokyo 1996; the French, Paris 1997, the Czech, Prague 1999.

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Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Russian

Product Details

• Hardcover: 621 pages
• Publisher: Paragon House; 1st edition (October 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557780242
• ISBN-13: 978-1557780249
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,736,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insights into Gulag-Related Vocabulary, Communist Doublespeak, etc., June 7, 2010

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Gulag Handbook: An Encyclopedia Dictionary of Soviet Penitentiary Institutions and Terms Related to the Forced Labor Camps (Hardcover)

This work, in dictionary format, lists the Russian word written in Cyrillic alphabet, and then provides an English-language definition of it. Explanatory notes are also frequently included.

Of course, the gulag terms are often expressions of Communist doublespeak. For instance, the term "mass exile" was used for deported Poles. The term Pan (Sir) was a fixture of Communist ideology--an emotional term of opprobrium for Polish landlords. Of course, the vast majority of Poles deported to the interior of the USSR, or otherwise persecuted by the Communists, were not landlords. The Communists actually defined a Pan as anyone whose clothing was better than that of the typical Soviet citizen! (p. 291).

This work is not limited to vocabulary. There are sketches of gulag-camp layouts, and tables of such information as types of prison sentences, purported gulag inmates' food rations, etc. A detailed bibliography of gulag literature is included, including seldom-cited works on this subject.

The authors touch on broader matters. They, for instance, recognize the fact that the Soviet Union, not Nazi Germany, was responsible for the Katyn Massacre. (pp. 155-156).