Wilson Center Experts
Steven Barnes
Title VIII-Supported Research Scholar, Kennan Institute
Kennan Institute
Expertise:
Russia and Eurasia
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of History, George Mason University
Wilson Center Project(s):
Behind Barbed Wire: Daily Life in the Soviet Gulag
Term:
Aug 01, 2005
Dec 01, 2005
Related Content for this Expert
Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society
May 19, 2011 // 4:00pm — 5:30pm
Death and Redemption examines the Gulag's role defining the border between reintegration into society and permanent removal through death. Steven Barnes focuses on Kazakhstan's Karaganda region, a location that hosted a number of Soviet detention institutions, and suggests that the Gulag should be construed as a "corrective facility," which gave its occupants a final chance to prove themselves through forced labor. Those who succeeded returned home after years of brutal, forced labor; the ones who "failed" died. Barnes traces the evolution of the Gulag from its origins post-1917, immediately following the Russian Revolution up to the death of Stalin in 1953. The author draws on recently declassified materials from Russia and Kazakhstan, including memoirs of survivors, to show that the Gulag as an institution remained closely linked to the Soviet idea of creating an utopian socialist society.
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Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society
May 19, 2011 // 4:00pm — 5:30pm
Death and Redemption examines the Gulag's role defining the border between reintegration into society and permanent removal through death. Steven Barnes focuses on Kazakhstan's Karaganda region, a location that hosted a number of Soviet detention institutions, and suggests that the Gulag should be construed as a "corrective facility," which gave its occupants a final chance to prove themselves through forced labor. Those who succeeded returned home after years of brutal, forced labor; the ones who "failed" died. Barnes traces the evolution of the Gulag from its origins post-1917, immediately following the Russian Revolution up to the death of Stalin in 1953. The author draws on recently declassified materials from Russia and Kazakhstan, including memoirs of survivors, to show that the Gulag as an institution remained closely linked to the Soviet idea of creating an utopian socialist society.