Kolyma Tales

Je kunt kniesoren dat de zware en dikke verzamelband, met al zijn doublures en het voorbijgaan aan iedere chronologie, te veel van het goede is; maar niemand is verplicht om de verhalen van A tot Z te lezen. Je kunt opmerken dat uitgeverij De Bezige Bij zo snel mogelijk moet komen met een

betaalbare en handzame paperback (waarin dan meteen de meer dan dertig zetfouten gecorrigeerd kunnen worden). Maar het doet allemaal niets af aan het monumentale karakter van deze uitgave. Berichten uit Kolyma is een gedenkteken in woorden voor de miljoenen naamloze slachtoffers van de Goelag. En wat voor woorden!

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Trouw

Het belang van Sjalamovs verzamelde Berichten uit Kolyma kan moeilijk worden overschat. Dat geldt voor het historische belang als een van de weinige uitvoerige getuigenissen van een overlever. En voor het literaire belang als een documentair prozawerk waarin met de allergrootste precisie wordt

verhaald hoe mensen leven op de bodem van de hel. Dieren, zo stelt Sjalamov meer dan eens vast, 'zijn uit beter materiaal gemaakt': onder omstandigheden als die in Kolyma sterven ze gewoon. Mensen kun je vernederen, vertrappen, folteren, beroven, afjakkeren, ze zullen zich met alle listen en lagen aan de laatste broodkruimel blijven vastklampen. Tot ook zij door de bodem zakken. De permafrost van Kolyma bewaart de lijken van honderdduizenden gevangenen.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member JBreedlove

A riveting collection of short stories and essays about life in the Gulag in Russia's Far East. More understated than Solzhenitsen's Gulag works and more like Chekov in its ordinary telling of an extraordinary time and life in a "white hell".

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LibraryThing member 3kdze

Read 'Récits de la Kolyma', by Varlam Chalamov. It deals with the Siberian Goulag at the time of Staline's merciless power over people's lives. Chalamov survived, after spending over 15 years in Hell. It's our duty to read this book so that the millions of victims of this system won't have died in

vain. This book is a SANCTUARY.

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LibraryThing member arubabookwoman

I loved the description in the forward of this book as a "mosaic made of tiny pieces." Each of the stories is a tiny gem, each is peopled with characters who have no idea whether they will be dead or alive the next day. As a character in one story states, "We understood that death was no worse than

life, and we feared neither. We were overcome by indifference." These are not people inspired by hope. They do what they have to in order to stay alive one more day, one more hour. There is no moralizing, no lesson stated, no shining example of courage or inspiration. Whatever the action or inaction of any prisoner, each reader must react to the stories in his or her own way.

Highly recommended

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LibraryThing member untraveller

Excellent, excellent book. This puts Alexander Solzhenitsyn almost to shame with the quality of the prose and the forthrightness of the message. 500 pages of short stories about the Siberian camps for political and criminal prisoners told in a way that will utterly amaze even the most stoic of

readers. Damn good!

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LibraryThing member jonfaith

Kolyma Tales was my first used book purchase via Amazon. (I feel obligated to honor our benefactor at every turn now. I even touch my breast when I say Amazon.)

Emerging from a blue period, I truly had no idea how beautiful this harrowing account would be. I don't detect any tension between the

sublime and Kolyma. Imre Kertész has taught me well. It is chance, it is human. Survival simply wasn't possible. Those that did emerge, were stripped of something. A loss occurred. Kolyma is a protean creation: it is a novel, a collection, a testament, an indictment, a discarded path towards something which couldn't be Hope.

Hungry men will always defend justice furiously (if they are not too hungry or too exhausted).

Consider my dilemma, I was so moved by this book over the last few days yet the events depicted are so alien and hostile as to defy comment. I kept reading, finding myself strangely hungry. I was spared the standard Kolyma dream of loaves of rye bread. Even while quaffing ale, I thought about those that drank medical alcohol at the expense of their patients. I thought repeatedly about the carpenter's puppy: that's all I can say about that particular anecdote. There are always foot rags to be adjusted, heels to be scratched time in the infirmary. There are innumerable others. I give Kolyma Tales my highest recommendation.

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LibraryThing member JRCornell

Shalamov spent 17 years n the Soviet forced-labor camps of kolyma, and in these stories he vividly captures the lives of ordinary people caught up in terrible circumstances, their hopes and plans extending no further than a few hours.

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