Origins of a Gulag Capital: Magadan and Stalinist Control in the Early 1930s
High above Nagaevo Bay, the city of Magadan affords an impressive panorama of rocky cliffs that fall precipitously into the Sea of Okhotsk. Beautiful and serene, the view typifies the natural scenery of this mountainous Pacific coasdine in the farthest reaches of northeastern Russia. But it also bel...
| Published in: | Slavic Review |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1998
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2501047 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0037677900052128 |
| Summary: | High above Nagaevo Bay, the city of Magadan affords an impressive panorama of rocky cliffs that fall precipitously into the Sea of Okhotsk. Beautiful and serene, the view typifies the natural scenery of this mountainous Pacific coasdine in the farthest reaches of northeastern Russia. But it also belies the tragic history of the region in the Stalin era, when the Soviet government sent upwards of one million prisoners to Magadan for servitude in the hard labor camps of the Kolyma and Chukodsa. In the national consciousness, the city has for many years held a unique and vexing significance, all the more intense because so many thed on the neighboring tundra. Standing as the most notorious center of the gulag, indeed as its "capital," Magadan became synonymous witii the Great Terror. |
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