Difference between revisions of "Gulag"
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
(create) |
|||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
The term '''Gulag''' is used to refer to the extensive network of prison camps used in the Soviet Union to imprison its political enemies, real or imagined. The name derives from a acronym for the Chief Directorate of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies, ''Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii'', and became well-known by its use in the title of the novel by [[Alexander Solzhenitsyn]] ''The Gulag Archipelago''. The population of the Gulag peaked in 1939 (at the climax of the Stalinist purges) at 1.65 million, and again in the early 1950s at 2.5 million. Around 1 million Gulag prisoners died of ill-treatment, disease or starvation between 1931 and 1953. | The term '''Gulag''' is used to refer to the extensive network of prison camps used in the Soviet Union to imprison its political enemies, real or imagined. The name derives from a acronym for the Chief Directorate of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies, ''Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii'', and became well-known by its use in the title of the novel by [[Alexander Solzhenitsyn]] ''The Gulag Archipelago''. The population of the Gulag peaked in 1939 (at the climax of the Stalinist purges) at 1.65 million, and again in the early 1950s at 2.5 million. Around 1 million Gulag prisoners died of ill-treatment, disease or starvation between 1931 and 1953. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==See also== | ||
| + | *[[Concentration camp]] | ||
[[Category:Soviet Union]] | [[Category:Soviet Union]] | ||
Revision as of 19:57, September 8, 2007
The term Gulag is used to refer to the extensive network of prison camps used in the Soviet Union to imprison its political enemies, real or imagined. The name derives from a acronym for the Chief Directorate of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies, Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii, and became well-known by its use in the title of the novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago. The population of the Gulag peaked in 1939 (at the climax of the Stalinist purges) at 1.65 million, and again in the early 1950s at 2.5 million. Around 1 million Gulag prisoners died of ill-treatment, disease or starvation between 1931 and 1953.