Here are 100 books that Gulag fans have personally recommended if you like
Gulag.
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At the age of 16, I briefly joined the International Socialists, a small British Trotskyist party. Though I soon became disillusioned, it was a formative experience that left me with a lifelong fascination with communism and the Soviet Union. Over the following decades, I read everything I could about the subject, both fiction and non-fiction. In the years after the fall of communism, the ideas that eventually culminated in the writing of this book began to form in my head.
Grossman consciously attempted to write the War and Peace of the Second World War, and in this panoramic masterpiece, he pulled it off. Like War and Peace, the book focuses both on the travails of a single family and the broader sweep of history, as we witness events from the perspective of persecuted Jewish scientists, soldiers (both Soviet and German), partisans, peasants, and generals.
This is an intensely personal work – Grossman covered the battle of Stalingrad for the Soviet press and knew his subject matter firsthand. Writing it was also an extremely courageous act. The KGB confiscated the manuscript and Grossman never lived to see the book published.
Based around the pivotal WWII battle of Stalingrad (1942-3), where the German advance into Russia was eventually halted by the Red Army, and around an extended family, the Shaposhnikovs, and their many friends and acquaintances, Life and Fate recounts the experience of characters caught up in an immense struggle between opposing armies and ideologies. Nazism and Communism are appallingly similar, 'two poles of one magnet', as a German camp commander tells a shocked old Bolshevik prisoner. At the height of the battle Russian soldiers and citizens alike are at last able to speak out as they choose, and without reprisal…
I’m a Lithuanian-American with a Chinese name, thanks to my husband. Thirty years ago, I found papers among my uncle’s possessions telling a WWII story about our ancestral Lithuania. I had heard about it in broad terms, but I could hardly believe what I was reading. I spent years validating the material. The result was Amber Wolf, a historical novel about a war within the war: the fight against the Russian occupation of Eastern Europe. While many countries were involved in separate struggles, I focused on Lithuania and their David and Goliath fight against the Russian army. After all this time, the story still moves me.
Bloodlands is a story about the dead. Using archives made available after the break-up of the Soviet Union, Mr. Snyder sheds light on both Stalin’s and Hitler’s brutality.
In a confined area that includes just eastern Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic countries, 14 million civilians died from the 1930s to the end of the war. Most were either starved or shot. Even more startling were the plans to kill millions more.
Stalin said, “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.” Mr. Snyder reminds us of the tragedy.
Americans call the Second World War "the Good War." But before it even began, America's ally Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens-and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war's end, German and Soviet killing sites fell behind the Iron Curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness. ? Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of…
I’ve spent the past few years writing about the 1940 Katyń Massacre of 22,000 Polish prisoners of war by Stalin’s NKVD and the decades-long cover-up of their crime. My research has taken me far and wide across the recent history of eastern Europe but until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 I was convinced the events I was studying belonged firmly in the past. Now, more than ever, we need to make an effort to understand the ways in which history informs the present. I most admire writers who combine a forensic attention to detail with a deep compassion for the individuals at the heart of every story.
One of the most beautiful and devastating books I’ve ever read, Chernobyl Prayer relates the story of the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine from the point of view of those most closely involved. Nobel laureate Alexievich’s unique method of using verbatim witness accounts, which she edits into something closely resembling poetry, elevates this to the level of great literature. The Soviet government’s attempts to cover up the scale of the disaster are widely considered to have contributed to the final collapse of the Soviet Union.
'Absolutely essential and heartbreaking reading. There's a reason Ms. Alexievich won a Nobel Prize' - Craig Mazin, creator of the HBO / Sky TV series Chernobyl
- A new translation of Voices from Chernobyl based on the revised text -
In April 1986 a series of explosions shook the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While officials tried to hush up the accident, Svetlana Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors - clean-up workers, residents, firefighters,…
I’ve spent the past few years writing about the 1940 Katyń Massacre of 22,000 Polish prisoners of war by Stalin’s NKVD and the decades-long cover-up of their crime. My research has taken me far and wide across the recent history of eastern Europe but until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 I was convinced the events I was studying belonged firmly in the past. Now, more than ever, we need to make an effort to understand the ways in which history informs the present. I most admire writers who combine a forensic attention to detail with a deep compassion for the individuals at the heart of every story.
Kurkov’s novel is about a middle-aged beekeeper who embarks on a Kafka-esque road trip across the conflict-ridden regions of eastern Ukraine to find pollen for his bees. This book provides a unique insight into the absurdity and tragedy of a conflict that pre-dates the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 by 8 years, but has been largely ignored by the outside world.
With a warm yet political humor, Ukraine’s most famous novelist presents a balanced and illuminating portrait of modern conflict.
Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine's Grey Zone, the no-man's-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Thanks to the lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda that has been dragging on for years, only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, a rival from his schooldays. With little food and no electricity, under constant threat of bombardment, Sergeyich's one remaining pleasure is his bees. As spring approaches, he knows he must take…
Lynne Viola is a University Professor of Russian history at the University of Toronto. Educated at Barnard and Princeton, she has carried out research in Russian and Ukrainian archives for over 30 years. Among her books, are two dealing with Stalinist repression: Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine and The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements. Both are based on work in previously classified archives, including the archives of the political police.
This is the classic account of the Great Terror and the Gulag. Solzhenitsyn roots Stalinist repression firmly in the Russian Revolution, blaming Marxist ideology for the camps. The literary value of this work is incontestable.
The official, one-volume edition, authorized by Solzhenitsyn
“BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY” —Time
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
“It is impossible to name a book that had a greater effect on the political and moral consciousness of the late twentieth century.” —David Remnick, The New Yorker
Drawing on his own experiences before, during and after his eleven years of incarceration and exile, on evidence provided by more than 200…
For 30 years, my books, articles, and talks have warned the U.S. failure/refusal to work with Russia and the Europeans to forge a new system of global security after the Cold War could provoke a Russian nationalist backlash, a war between Moscow and Kyiv, and possibly major power conflict. My bookWorld War Trump warned that Trump could stage a coup. Toward an Alternative Transatlantic Strategy warned Biden’s support for Ukraine would provoke conflict with Russia. I have also written poems and novels on IR theory, plus two novels based on my experiences in China during the tumultuous years of 1988-89 and in France during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I like this book because Cohen writes about what happened and what could have happened―if Washington had chosen alternative foreign policies in its relations with the former Soviet Union and Russia. As I argued in Surviving the Millennium, this kind of approach is not “counter-factual” because it explores realistic policy alternatives made at the time that represent the paths not taken.
But sometimes, those alternative paths are actually implemented later in new circumstances, so they are part of the historical record and not “counter” the facts. I believe Cohen is right: The US lost a number of opportunities that could have brought Washington and Moscow into a more positive relationship that would have reduced tensions during the Cold War―and now in preventing the present “second” Cold War.
In this wide-ranging and acclaimed book, Stephen F. Cohen challenges conventional wisdom about the course of Soviet and post-Soviet history. Reexamining leaders from Nikolai Bukharin, Stalin's preeminent opponent, and Nikita Khrushchev to Mikhail Gorbachev and his rival Yegor Ligachev, Cohen shows that their defeated policies were viable alternatives and that their tragic personal fates shaped the Soviet Union and Russia today. Cohen's ramifying arguments include that Stalinism was not the predetermined outcome of the Communist Revolution; that the Soviet Union was reformable and its breakup avoidable; and that the opportunity for a real post-Cold War relationship with Russia was squandered…
I have been fascinated by the Gulag since reading the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in high school and then living for several months in Magadan, Russia, one of the “capitals” of the Gulag. The Gulag combined utopian dreams and stark violence; it was shrouded in many layers of secrecy; and it served, ultimately, as a microcosm of the Soviet Union. It is one of the great tragedies of the twentieth century, and its legacies are alive and well in Vladimir Putin’s Russia today. It can be an emotionally draining topic at times, but it also illustrates, through thousands of individual stories, humankind’s capacity for resiliency, goodness, love, and hope.
The book that shocked the world! The classic account of the Gulag! I deeply admire Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who survived several years of imprisonment and then interviewed hundreds of former inmates while lobbying the Soviet government to abandon its use of repression. The interviews and his own experiences form the basis of this three-volume book of over 1,500 pages (don’t worry—there’s an abridged edition!) that chronicles nearly every aspect of Stalin’s forced labor camps.
I love how Solzhenitsyn infuses his writing with righteous indignation—punctuated by dark humor—at what he and millions of others endured. I find him particularly effective at entering the prisoner’s mind to explore a range of morally fraught decisions that must constantly be made in the oppressive labor camps. Not to be missed!
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
“The greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever leveled in modern times.” —George F. Kennan
“It is impossible to name a book that had a greater effect on the political and moral consciousness of the late twentieth century.” —David Remnick, The New Yorker
“Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece. . . . The Gulag Archipelago…
I have been fascinated by the Gulag since reading the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in high school and then living for several months in Magadan, Russia, one of the “capitals” of the Gulag. The Gulag combined utopian dreams and stark violence; it was shrouded in many layers of secrecy; and it served, ultimately, as a microcosm of the Soviet Union. It is one of the great tragedies of the twentieth century, and its legacies are alive and well in Vladimir Putin’s Russia today. It can be an emotionally draining topic at times, but it also illustrates, through thousands of individual stories, humankind’s capacity for resiliency, goodness, love, and hope.
Wow, break out the tissues! This book is a compilation of letters home, from fathers imprisoned in the Gulag to children wondering when, if ever, they will see their dads again. As a father, I have difficulty making it through these messages of instruction, tenderness, and love without completely losing it.
To me, this book presents the uncrushed humanity of Gulag inmates, who, amidst violence, back-breaking labor, starvation, disease, exposure, and despair, intuitively understood the deep importance of writing words of comfort to their kids. I also love how beautifully illustrated this book is, with many photographs and lovely color drawings that were included in the letters.
'They will live as human beings and die as human beings; and in this alone lies man's eternal and bitter victory over all the grandiose and inhuman forces that ever have been or will be.' Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate
Between the 1930s and 1950s, millions of people were sent to the Gulag in the Soviet Union. My Father's Letters tells the stories of 16 men - mostly members of the intelligentsia, and loyal Soviet subjects - who were imprisoned in the Gulag camps, through the letters they sent back to their wives and children. Here are letters illustrated by…
Roger Reese has studied, researched, and or taught Soviet history since 1984. He has been on the faculty of Texas A&M University since 1990. He has published five books and numerous articles and book chapters on the military history of Russia and the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr. book prize for his most recent book, The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917.
I love this book because it “names names.” It is a tragic recounting of the sending of petty criminals combined with a mostly random rounding up of innocent “undesirables” off the street by the police in the USSR in 1934 who are then shipped to exile in Siberia where they were expected to work for the good of the Soviet state. In a matter of months thousands of them died from maltreatment, exposure, and starvation. The book traces the chain of events from inspiration by head of the Gulag Berman and chief of the secret police Iagoda all the way down the chain of command of the Party and police officials to the man responsible for stranding the people on a river island in Siberia. The book gives a glimpse into the nature of the repressive organs and mentality of the Soviet state in a way that humanizes the experience…
During the spring of 1933, Stalin's police rounded up nearly one hundred thousand people as part of the Soviet regime's "cleansing" of Moscow and Leningrad and deported them to Siberia. Many of the victims were sent to labor camps, but ten thousand of them were dumped in a remote wasteland and left to fend for themselves. Cannibal Island reveals the shocking, grisly truth about their fate. These people were abandoned on the island of Nazino without food or shelter. Left there to starve and to die, they eventually began to eat each other. Nicolas Werth, a French historian of the…
I’m a Lithuanian-American with a Chinese name, thanks to my husband. Thirty years ago, I found papers among my uncle’s possessions telling a WWII story about our ancestral Lithuania. I had heard about it in broad terms, but I could hardly believe what I was reading. I spent years validating the material. The result was Amber Wolf, a historical novel about a war within the war: the fight against the Russian occupation of Eastern Europe. While many countries were involved in separate struggles, I focused on Lithuania and their David and Goliath fight against the Russian army. After all this time, the story still moves me.
This touching memoir by Barbara Armonas tells the story of her choice to stay in Lithuania during WWII for the sake of her infant son.
It speaks to the toll Mrs. Armonas paid for that decision, including what it took to raise her son in a labor camp. It also looks at the rest of her family who had fled to the US and their efforts to bring her home. Despite the difficulties and trauma, the story ends with an uplifting message of hope and joy for the future.
At its best, this is a tale of love, persistence, perseverance, and forgiveness.
Barbara Armonas' 20-year ordeal in the soviet concentration camp system-the dreaded GULAG-is a rare and straightforward story, related with candor and underlying hope that the human spirit can survive any hardship-even the clamps of a vicious totalitarian system. This 50th Anniversary Edition commemorates Barbara's unbreakable spirit, memorializes her extraordinary life-she died three days short of her 100th birthday-and harkens us to actively nurture our freedom-because there still exist forces that challenge it every day. Her account is particularly relevant today as more and more documents of the Stalinist years and the Soviet Union in general become available for public view…
