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The Gulag Archipelago
''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' () is a three-volume nonfiction series written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident. It was first published in 1973 by the Parisian publisher YMCA-Press, and it was translated into English and French the following year. It explores a vision of life in what is often known as the Gulag, the Soviet labour camp system. Solzhenitsyn constructed his highly detailed narrative from various sources including reports, interviews, statements, diaries, legal documents, and his own experience as a Gulag prisoner. Following its publication, the book was initially circulated in the Soviet Union by '' samizdat'' underground publication. It was not widely published there until 1989. It appeared that year in the literary journal ''Novy Mir''; a third of the work was published in three issues. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, ''The Gulag Archipelago'' has been officially p ...
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Nikita Struve
Nikita Alexeyevich Struve (; 16 February 1931 – 7 May 2016) was a French author and translator of Russian descent, specializing in the study of Russian émigrés. Biography Struve was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb of Paris, into the Struve family. He was the grandson of Peter Berngardovich Struve and the son of Aleksey Petrovich Struve (d. 1976), founder of a Russian library at Paris. Struve graduated from and taught Russian at the Sorbonne in the 1950s. In 1963, he published a book on the history of the Church under the Soviet regime, ''Les chrétiens en URSS'', which was translated into 5 languages. In 1979 Struve defended his doctoral dissertation on Osip Mandelstam (published in French, then - in the author's translation in Russian). In the same year he became a full professor at the University of Paris X (Nanterre), and later head of the Department of Slavic Studies. In 1978 he headed the Russian section of the YMCA Press publisher. In 1991 he opened the publishing ...
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Forced Labor In The Soviet Union
Forced labour was used extensively in the Soviet Union and the following categories may be distinguished. Obligatory labour of the early Soviet Russia The Bolshevik government began centralizing labor policies and restructuring workforce regulations, which limited the choice to work and also limited options of employment and assignments. In July 1918, the Russian Constitution implemented the Obligatory Labour Service to help support the Russian economy, which became effective immediately. In 1919, the Russian Labor Code laid out the exemptions for the elderly as well as pregnant women. It also stated that workers would be given the choice to work in their trades, if the option was available. If the option was not available, workers would be required to accept the work that was available. Wages became fixed in 1917 by the Supreme Counsel of Popular Economy, and the work day was set to be eight hours. However, a worker and their employer could agree upon overtime, laying out cond ...
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Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose coming as the Messiah#Christianity, messiah (Christ (title), Christ) was Old Testament messianic prophecies quoted in the New Testament, prophesied in the Old Testament and chronicled in the New Testament. It is the Major religious groups, world's largest and most widespread religion with over 2.3 billion followers, comprising around 28.8% of the world population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in Christianity by country, 157 countries and territories. Christianity remains Christian culture, culturally diverse in its Western Christianity, Western and Eastern Christianity, Eastern branches, and doctrinally diverse concerning Justification (theology), justification and the natur ...
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Inquisition
The Inquisition was a Catholic Inquisitorial system#History, judicial procedure where the Ecclesiastical court, ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various medieval and reformation-era state-organized tribunals whose aim was to combat Christian heresy, heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and customs considered to be Deviance (sociology), deviant, using this procedure. Violence, isolation, torture or the threat of its application, have been used by the Inquisition to extract confessions and denunciations. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, but convictions of unrepentant heresy were handed over to the secular courts for the application of local law, which generally resulted in execution or life imprisonment. Inquisitions with the aim of combatting religious sedition (e.g. apostasy or heresy) had their start in the Christianity ...
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Macbeth
''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambitions and power. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. Scholars believe ''Macbeth'', of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of King James I, contains the most allusions to James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. In the play, a brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to violence by his wife, Macbeth murders the king and takes the Scottish throne for himself. Then, racked with guilt and paranoia, he commits further violent murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, soon becoming a tyrannical ruler. The bloo ...
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Kengir Uprising
The Kengir uprising was a prisoner rebellion that occurred in Kengir ( Steplag), a Soviet MVD special camp for political prisoners, during May and June 1954. Its duration and intensity distinguished it from other Gulag rebellions during the same period, such as the Vorkuta uprising and Norilsk uprising. After the murder of some of their fellow prisoners by guards, Kengir inmates rebelled and seized the entire camp compound, holding it for weeks and creating a period of freedom for themselves unique in the history of the Gulag. After a rare alliance between the criminals and political prisoners, the prisoners succeeded in forcing the guards and camp administration to flee the camp and effectively quarantined it from the outside. The prisoners thereafter built intricate defenses to prevent the incursion of the authorities into their newly won territory. This situation lasted for an unprecedented length of time and resulted in novel activity, including the formation of a provision ...
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Inmate
A prisoner, also known as an inmate or detainee, is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement or captivity in a prison or physical restraint. The term usually applies to one serving a sentence in prison. English law "Prisoner" is a legal term for a person who is imprisoned. In section 1 of the Prison Security Act 1992, the word "prisoner" means any person for the time being in a prison as a result of any requirement imposed by a court or otherwise that he be detained in legal custody. "Prisoner" was a legal term for a person prosecuted for felony. It was not applicable to a person prosecuted for misdemeanour. The abolition of the distinction between felony and misdemeanour by section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 has rendered this distinction obsolete. Glanville Williams described as "invidious" the practice of using the term "prisoner" in reference to a person who had not been convicted. History The earliest evidence of ...
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Zek (inmate)
Zek may refer to: * Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War (''Zentralstelle zur Erforschung der Kriegschuldfrage''), a think-tank based in Berlin * Zek z/k, or zeka, a term for inmates in the Soviet Union and modern Russia, originated in Gulags, see White Sea–Baltic Canal#Commemoration * Zentralstelle für Kreditinformation, a Swiss organisation centralizing and listing every credit attached to someone Fictional characters * Achmet Zek, a character from the serial film '' Tarzan the Tiger'' * Zek, a character from the TV series ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' * Zek Chelovek (Russian for "Prisoner" "Human Being"), a character in the 2012 action movie ''Jack Reacher Jack Reacher is the protagonist of a series of crime thriller novels by British author Lee Child, a 2012 film adaptation, its 2016 sequel, and a television series on Amazon Prime Video. In the stories, Jack Reacher was a major in the U.S. ...'' See also * * Zeck {{disambiguation ...
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Personality Cult
A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an idealized and heroic image of a admirable leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Historically, it has been developed through techniques such as the manipulation of the mass media, the dissemination of propaganda, the staging of spectacles, the manipulation of the arts, the instilling of patriotism, and government-organized demonstrations and rallies. A cult of personality is similar to apotheosis, except that it is established through the use of modern social engineering techniques, it is usually established by the state or the party in one-party states and dominant-party states. Cults of personality often accompany the leaders of totalitarian or authoritarian governments. They can also be seen in some monarchies, theocra ...
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Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as the fourth Premier of the Soviet Union, premier from 1941 until his death. He initially governed as part of a Collective leadership in the Soviet Union, collective leadership, but Joseph Stalin's rise to power, consolidated power to become an absolute dictator by the 1930s. Stalin codified the party's official interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, while the totalitarian political system he created is known as Stalinism. Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori, Georgia, Gori, Russian Empire, Stalin attended the Tiflis Theological Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He raised f ...
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20th Congress Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union
The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union () was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's " Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. Delegates at this Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were given no warning of what to expect. Indeed, proceedings were opened by First Secretary Khruschev's call for all to stand in memory of the Communist leaders who had died since the previous Congress, in which he mentioned Stalin in the same breath as Klement Gottwald. Hints of a new direction only came out gradually over the next ten days, which had the effect of leaving those present highly perplexed. The Polish communist leader Bolesław Bierut died in Moscow shortly after attending the 20th Congress. The Congress elected the 133 (full voting) Members and 122 (non-voting) Candidate members of the 20th Central Committee. Secret speech ...
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On The Personality Cult And Its Consequences
"On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" () was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. Popularly known as the Secret Speech (), this is something of a misnomer, as copies of the speech were read out at thousands of meetings of Communist Party and Komsomol organisations across the country. Khrushchev's speech was sharply critical of the rule of the deceased General Secretary and Premier Joseph Stalin, particularly with respect to the purges which had especially marked the last years of the 1930s. Khrushchev charged Stalin with having fostered a leadership cult of personality despite ostensibly maintaining support for the ideals of communism. The speech was shocking in its day. There are reports that some of those present suffered heart attacks and that the speech even inspired suicides, due to the shock of all o ...
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