Return from the Archipelago: Narratives of Gulag Survivors by Leona s> Toker (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 37I Toker, Leona. Return from theArchipelago. Narratives of GulagSurvivors. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2000. xv + 333 pp. Notes. Bibliography .Index. /28.50. THE sheer quantity of memoirs, autobiographies, and fictions written by Gulag survivorsis astounding. Throughout the Soviet period, the desire to recount, to explain, not to forget, impelled survivorsto set pen to paper and, since perestroika,the existence of a significantcorpus has become apparent; many older texts have attained publication for the first time, and a more critical re-reading of earlier texts has been made ethically acceptable by the final repudiation of the Gulag. Leona Toker's Return from theArchipelago: Narratives ofGulagSurvivors is one of the firstattemptsto dojustice to this huge and complex body of Gulag testimonyand prose. Return fromtheArchipelago opens with a history of the Soviet camp system, tracing the development of the camp network,the trajectoryof officialpolicy towards prisoners, and the implications for its victims. The second chapter also takes a broad chronological sweep, reviewing the writings that issued from the Gulag, and the featuresthat distinguishthe differentgenerations of Gulag writers, both Russian, Russian-emigre and foreign. After five more detailed central chapters that are discussed below, the final chapter of the book addressesthe centralityof the Gulag in a range of later fictional works, and theirdependence upon both readerandwriter'sfluencywith the semiotics of the Gulag. These chapters frame the middle section, where Toker dissects the formal structuresof both individualworks,and sub-genressuch as memoir. It is here that Tokerwrestleswith the dilemmas that this genre presents.Her approach hovers between an ethical endeavour to explore the experiences of Gulag victims, and a determination to show their aesthetic value; this in itself is a reflection of what she calls their bi-functionality both as testimonial acts and as aestheticworks. Toker identifies the structuralfeatures that are common to most of these texts, and the effectivenessof thesefeaturesin communicatingto a readersome of the horrorsof the camp world. This kind of detailed analysis,especially for those who have read a number of the memoirs to which she refers, is both interesting and challenging. However, most readers will be strangersto the main bulkof the memoirs, and I think for a reason. Despite the flurryof publishingactivityin the late I98os and early i 990S as censorshipwas relaxed, these memoirs have not achieved greatpopularity preciselybecause many of them fail to engage and maintain the interest of the reader. Many Gulag testimonies are not as aestheticallystrong as Toker proposes. Fora few years Russian readerswere desperate for any accounts that could shed light on the murkySoviet past, and each issueof the literaryjournalNovyi Mirhad to satisfy their voracious hunger. Once the political or ethical impetus was spent, however, the aesthetic effectiveness of most Gulag narratives- with some noted exceptions proved weak.A decade on, rowsof glasnost-eraNovyiMir lie dustyand unreadon any self-respectingdacha shelf. Thus, while it is usefulthat Tokerbringsto our attentionthe diversityof the Gulag corpus,herworkisstrongerin itsanalysisof the more canonicalwriters, 372 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 such as Shalamov and Solzhenitsyn.Indeed it ison these that she focuses,with three of the eight chapters dedicated exclusively to them. Here she convincingly explores the ways in which the de-humanizing, dislocating experience of the Gulag is embodied in the structureof the text, and through a harmony between content and form achieves artisticmerit. Return fromtheArchipelago is a hugely wide-ranging work, covering almost a century of diverse writing. Its scale is both its strength and weakness; the rigorousanalysisof lesser-knowntexts might at times seem likehardwork,but by revealing the magnitude of the Gulag corpus, this book raises many important,and difficult,questions:about our abilityand our duty to explore a past so horrificallyalien to our own experience, the kind of truth we seek in such an endeavour, and the ways in which literature both enlightens and impedes us. School ofSlavonic andEastern European Studies MIRIAM DOBSON University College London Smolander,Jyrki. Suomalainen oikeisto ja 'kansankoti'. Bibliotheca Historica, 63. Suomalaisen KirjallisuudenSeura, Helsinki, 2000. 342 pp. Illustrations. Notes.Bibliography. Index.FIM140.00. KANSANKOTI is a Finnish translation of the Swedish term Folkhemmet, the 'people's home', a kind and loving word for the welfare state. This is a study, running from the ending of the Continuation War up to 1975, of the attitude...