Shalamov’s Memory

Abstract

Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales, known for their laconic style and deep pessimism, defy an easy generic categorization as short stories or memoirs. As an alternative, I read Shalamov’s prose as an unconscious revival of the classical and medieval “art of memory” by tracing the elaboration of typographical (the taiga as text) and topographical (the taiga as tomb) metaphors of memory in Kolyma Tales. The analysis of the stories is supplemented by a reading of his self-criticism, which points to the essential, almost Augustinian role of memory in Shalamov’s practice of composition.