Ghosts of the Gulag in the Eveny World of the Dead

• Published in: The Polar Journal
• Main Author: Ulturgasheva, Olga
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Gulag; Siberia; affect; contagion; personhood; The Polar Journal
• Online Access: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/publications/5f0b6204-7937-49f7-9d08-67298ba60aec; https://doi.org/10.1080/2154896X.2017.1329256; https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/files/56134322/Ghosts_of_the_Gulag_May_24_2017_1_.pdf

The article explores the legacy of the Gulag in Northeast Siberia by providing a detailed discussion of the space of the village built on the former site of the concentration camp haunted by the unhappy ghosts of former prisoners. Since, in local cosmology the latter are given the status of malevolent spirits – arinkael –, they create the context in which the memory of the Gulag is reproduced locally through the repetitive encounters of ghosts in the village buildings. The account illustrates that ghosts of the former violently killed Gulag prisoners charged with a ective potential for contagion expand and modify the status of arinkael within the Eveny cosmology. This contributes to the process of “world-making”, in which the local population and Gulag ghosts are mutually expanding Eveny cosmology while simultaneously reactivating the memories about the Gulag.