The Noise of time in literary works devoted to Kolyma by G. G. Demidov

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis of Georgiy Demidov’s camp prose. Many camp survi vors write about Kolyma penal servitude of the 20th century in different genres (novels, novellas, short stories, essays, tragedies, requiems, notes, diaries, confessions, etc.). Demidov’s vision of the Kolyma world with its specific northern realities is presented in his stories and novels. He focuses on the ritualized camp routine. In the majority of the cited texts, the word ritual, as a set of prison actions, is used mainly in lay and negative senses. Ritual, a con stant attribute of prison-camp life in Kolyma, was intended not only to organize and discipline the prisoners but also to intensify the torture of imprisonment. These (anti)social practices resulted in the relatively rapid destruction of the thin film of civi lization. Its restoration later becomes an extremely difficult task for both the individual and socie ty as a whole.