Authors

Mark Vincent¹;  ¹ University of East Anglia, UK

Discussion

Other than by brief comments such as in Steven Barnes' Death and Redemption, the topic of ethno-politics has been little explored in relation to daily life in the Gulag. Although penal authorities looked to organise inmates into the same categories which were prescribed outside the camps, visual evidence shows us that the prisoners also had individual concepts of nationalism and ethnicity which could be transcribed onto their bodies through tattoos.

Using the archive of tattoo drawings compiled by Danzig Baldaev, this paper will consider Russian nationalist examples such as the recreation of Viktor Vasnetsov paintings displaying the bogatyr (heroic medieval knight) in defending Orthodoxy from perceived outside invasion. Other similar images will be discussed, such as a female Lativian prisoner who would show a more benevolent side to ethic relations while also displaying traditional folkloric symbolism from her home region. 

Particular focus, however, will be made on the Autonomous Buryat-Mongolian region and look at images from prisoners who were incarcerated in the Dzhida Labour Camp which has been little discussed in Gulag scholarship. These tattoos included portraits of former ruler Chinggis Khan at a time when Buryat and Mongolian culture was being suppressed by Soviet authorities and therefore provided inmates with an alternative means of showing their opposition to the state.