Authors

Elisa Kriza¹;  ¹ Bamberg University, Germany

Discussion

This paper offers new readings of gulag literature written by former inmates Olga Adamova-Sliozberg (1902-1991) and Erica Wallach (1922-1993) and discusses the complexities of gender power relations within the gulag and after release. Moreover, this paper outlines how the experience of women in the gulag can shed light on more recent cases of female survivors of unjust imprisonment in other countries, such as the United States. Without falsely equating the magnitude of prison abuses in both countries, Martha Duncan and other scholars compellingly argue for comparative approaches that study memoirs of the Soviet gulag and prison literature from the United States. Drawing from historical and sociological findings, this paper delves deeper into the possibilities of a comparative approach as it explores how experiences of gendered power relations expressed in gulag literature illustrate wider social problems that affect convicts and ex-convicts in many countries including the US.

In her gulag memoir Light at Midnight, Wallach explained that she decided to write her story because “I strongly believe that the psychological and physiological factors of prison or camp existence–‘prison mentality’ […] exist not only under the circumstances described here. Many people have experienced them in entirely different settings–or they may face them tomorrow.” Wallach was sent to Vorkuta on false charges of espionage for the USA. Despite the Cold War political implications of her imprisonment, in her book she draws broader conclusions about how unjust imprisonment affects women in particular, given patriarchal structures in society. Her thoughts are curiously mirrored by the ponderings of a recent author of prison literature, Jane Dorotik, who was unjustly imprisoned for murder in California for over twenty years in the 21st century, until her conviction was finally overturned. Dorotik writes about “the prison mentality” as a pervasive and devastating “culture of dominance” that involves hierarchical forms of oppression in which gender inequality plays an important part.

In their works, Wallach and Adamova-Sliozberg describe social mechanisms that pressure women into submission not only in prison camp, but also after release. Their thoughts about unfreedom in freedom reveal how patriarchal practices limit female ex-convicts’ search for autonomy. These authors’ observations offer insight into mechanisms of gender inequality that continue to affect women’s lives even today. Sociologists in the US corroborate how women are more severely affected than men by the stigma experienced by those released from prison. 

Through its interdisciplinary and comparative approach, this paper contributes to a broader debate about gendered power relations in society and their repercussions for women in prison contexts and for female ex-convicts’ search for autonomy and freedom.