Solovki prison camp

The Solovki prison camp (later Solovki prison) was located on the Solovetsky Islands, in the White Sea). It was the "mother of the GULAG" according to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Historically Solovetsky Islands have been the location of the famous Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery complex, which repelled foreign attacks during the Time of Troubles, the Crimean War, and the Russian Civil War.

By Lenin's decree, the monastery buildings were turned into Solovetsky Lager' Osobogo Naznachenia (SLON),[1] that is, the "Solovki Special Purpose Camp". The acronym of the camp name is a sullen word play for those who speak Russian: slon means "elephant". It was one of the first "corrective labor camps", a prototype of the Gulag system.[2] In the beginning of 1924 sometimes the double name was used Severnye (Solovetskiye) Lagerya OGPU (Northern (Solvki) camps of OGPU)[3]

In 1926 the Solovki camp was turned into a prison, partly because of the conditions which made escape near impossible and partly because the monastery had been used as a political prison by the Russian imperial administration. The treatment of the prisoners attracted much criticism in Western Europe and the USA. After a thorough cleanup, the Soviet government sent the proletarian writer Maksim Gorky to the camp in an attempt to counter this criticism. Indeed, Gorky wrote a very favourable essay, which praised the beautiful nature of the islands. How much Gorky knew about the real conditions, remains a mystery.

The prison was closed in 1939 because the Second World War was imminent, while the camp was situated close to the border with Finland. The buildings were then transformed into a naval base. The navy cadet corps was deployed in the monastery buildings, one of the notable cadets was the future author Valentin Pikul. The Orthodox Church reestablished the monastery in 1992, the year when the ensemble was included into UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Contents

Notable prisoners

Many prisoners were members of the intelligentsia, and represent the cream of Tsarist and revolutionary-period Russia. These include:[4]

Naftaly Frenkel was at first a prisoner, but later became commander of the camp.

Solovki camp in art and literature

References

  1. ^ Соловецкий Лагерь Особого Назначения (СЛОН) (Russian)
  2. ^ Gulag by Anne Applebaum. New York: Anchor Book, 2003. p.20.
  3. ^ СОЛОВЕЦКИЙ ИТЛ ОГПУ (Соловецкие лагеря особого назначения, Соловецкий лагерь принудительных работ особого назначения ОГПУ, СЛОН, СЛАГ, Соловецкие и Карело-Мурманские лагеря, СКМИТЛ) Memorial (Russian)
  4. ^ Application for UNESCO World Heritage Site, 1991, p. 11.

External links