Gender Peculiarities of GULAG Perception: Comparative Content Analysis of Oral and Written Memories

Goretskaia Ekaterina Mikhailovna Postgraduate, Historical Information Science Department, Lomonosov Moscow State University 119192, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Lomonosovskii Prospekt, 27k4 ekaterina.m.goretskaya@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The memoirs of GULAG prisoners are an underestimated source on the history of repression in the USSR. The relevance of this kind of historical materials is due to the fact that it is the memoir literature, oral memoirs and letters of people who passed through the GULAG that make it possible to understand and feel more deeply what people who found themselves in the camps had to go through, and also complement the dry and incomplete data of official sources, for example, investigation documents.

Memories of the camp stage of life are left by those who managed to survive in prisons and camps. The texts of former prisoners vividly present such topics as working conditions and the system of stimulating work in the GULAG, living conditions, relationships with other prisoners, the economy of the GULAG, camp leisure and others.

The available documents can be divided into the following categories:

1) memoirs of the repressed themselves;

2) memoirs written by close relatives of the repressed according to direct stories, letters, documents stored in families and their own memories;

3) audio, video and text recordings of conversations with GULAG prisoners.

In this study, materials from two of the three categories were used as a source, namely memoirs of prisoners (published on the resource of the Sakharov Center "Memories of the GULAG and their authors") and transcripts of video interviews with the repressed project "My GULAG" of the GULAG History Museum.

Memories – both written and oral – are extremely difficult to analyze due to the many nuances that the researcher has to take into account when working with them. Firstly, written and voiced not directly during the events that took place, but after some time, memoirs and oral memoirs cannot be considered absolutely historically reliable. This is due to the properties of human memory and psychology. According to P. Levy, "human memory is not carved out of stone, it not only weakens over the years, but often memories change or even, on the contrary, become more extensive because they absorb alien elements" ^{[28, p. 134]}.

Secondly, much of what seems insignificant to the author does not get on the pages of memoirs and is not voiced in interviews, although sometimes it can be of great interest to the historian and be the most accurate reflection of historical reality. "The problem of everyday memory," writes N.L. Pushkareva, "is, first of all, that ordinary people do not set themselves the task of remembering something that is ordinary, not surprising, routine for them. In outlining the mundane, individuals of both sexes may find something that - in their own opinion, based on individual or social reasons – is worth skipping, not mentioning. ... When everyday experience is not traumatic, it is rarely subjected to critical reflection and selection in memories" ^{[24, p. 221]}. Nevertheless, many authors and interviewees note that their attitude during the camp period was "to remember, so that later to write!" ^[7] - "there is nothing lower in the world than the intention to "forget" these crimes" ^[25]. So, N.I. Hagen-Thorn, writes: "I ask you to believe: I keep records as a historical document for future generations, there are no embellishments or distortions in them. This is not propaganda, not fiction, this is a record of the experience, this is an attempt by the observer to accurately record what he saw. The way we, ethnographers, are used to during field work" ^[6].  In turn, the writer A. Zhigulin notes that he is "the last poet of Stalin's Kolyma": "If I don't tell, no one will tell. If I don't write, no one will write anymore" ^[15].

Thirdly, if we talk specifically about the memoiristics of the GULAG, it is a difficult task to determine the dates of writing certain memoirs. As a rule, memoirs were written for several years, and sometimes even decades. Published materials almost never have dates of writing, and manuscripts stored, for example, in the archive of the Memorial Society, can be dated very widely (for example, 1968-1988), which does not always correspond to reality.

Nevertheless, we almost always know the date of publication of the memoirs. As Figure 1 shows, the beginning of the active publication of memoirs of former GULAG prisoners occurred at the turn of the 1980s-1990s, when the repressions of the Soviet period were openly talked about, and each of the survivors of the period of camp oppression wanted to share their thoughts and attitude to the GULAG as a whole. A clear peak of publications occurred in 1991, which was probably due, firstly, to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and secondly, to the adoption of the law on the rehabilitation of victims of political repression and the subsequent desire to open the eyes of the general public to the repressions that took place in the USSR.

Fig. 1. Histogram "Dynamics of publication of memoirs of former GULAG prisoners"Fourth, we note that some of the documents and interviews we are working with were created at the request of the regional Memorial societies, as well as the GULAG Museum, and are intended for publication and distribution to the general public.

Nevertheless, many authors (for example, engineer I.P. Aituganov), note that the reasons for writing memoirs lie in the fact that no one is immune from the hardships of the GULAG, and this should not be forgotten: "I am not writing to become a writer. I want Russians to know and remember that slavery can arise next to them. I want my book to bring us closer to self-respect and respect for our neighbor. In my book, the reader will see how easily we voted against the imaginary "enemies of the people", and how the next day we ourselves were taken away into obscurity. Who's next? What awaits us tomorrow?" ^[1].

Fifthly, another nuance that must be taken into account when working with memories is that such sources are always subjective, since they are written or expressed from the personal position of the author and, above all, reflect the author's perception of events that took place in his life. That is why the subject of this study is the authors' ideas about the reality surrounding them. We also note that it is important to take into account biographical, personal information about the authors of memoirs in order to determine what could affect the content of their texts – a similar study has already been conducted earlier ^[9] and showed that there is a certain similarity of biographical characteristics among the authors of memoirs.

Sixth, memoirs, that is, written memories, reflect only the point of view of people of written culture, that is, those who were able to leave such memories. In our case, it is clearly visible that the vast majority of the authors of memoirs are educated people, representatives of the intelligentsia. However, this does not mean that they were the only targets of the repressive policy – in fact, representatives of other strata, as a rule, simply did not leave written memories of surviving in the camp. According to studies ^{[17, 19]}, according to the description of the social portrait of the repressed, it was "ordinary people" who made up the majority of the prisoners. L.A. Lyagushkina writes that, despite the widespread opinion that repression (and especially the Great Terror) was directed against the intelligentsia, "the analysis of the level of education of the repressed makes it possible to doubt according to this version" ^{[17, p. 296]} - "the majority of those repressed in the two regions of the RSFSR, for which we have data, were illiterate, illiterate or with primary education (79%-88%)" ^{[17, p. 296]}. This nuance can be leveled by the fact that this work analyzes not only written memories, but also oral interview materials.

Seventh, an equally important aspect of working with memories is their correct interpretation. It is complicated, first of all, by the fact that "all people and all things were mutilated in the camp without exception" ^[18] - "the same words of the Russian language that were used in the wild meant something else in the camp" ^[18]. The authors write that "under the terrible influence of camp conditions, every person is subjected to deformation" ^[18], and "in order to correctly assess everything that is happening, he (the author of the memoirs – E.G.) should first of all take into account his own abnormality" ^[18].

Nevertheless, as we mentioned earlier, memories have a number of advantages, the main one of which is their very high degree of representativeness in displaying the authors' perception of the events of their lives. They most often do not just talk abstractly about such a difficult time for them, but scrupulously, thoroughly describe those feelings and events that are most vividly imprinted in the soul. Such a vivid and detailed description of human experiences, in our opinion, can not be found in any other kind of sources, which emphasizes the value of memoirs and interview materials.

Despite the fact that memories are extremely difficult to analyze due to the many nuances that the researcher has to take into account when working with them, recently there has been an increase in the interest of researchers in memoir sources, including on the history of the GULAG, associated with the spread of memoir literature, the beginning of the formation of complexes of memoir sources and the development of computer research methods, simplifying the processing of video and audio recordings to translate them into text and allowing you to process large arrays of texts.

The description of the camp stage of life varies depending on the gender of the author – it is noticeable to the naked eye that women write and tell more meticulously and emotionally, while men are more concise and structured. Researchers in the field of gender linguistics and gender history – and, first of all, Natalia Lvovna Pushkareva – claim that there are features of "female" and "male" memory and, accordingly, "female" and "male" images of their experiences in memories.

At the previous stages of our research, memoirs, that is, written memoirs of both male and female prisoners were analyzed using content and network analysis methods ^{[8, 10]}. However, the task of this work is to compare the results of content analysis conducted in groups based on gender, which allows us to identify a variety of gender characteristics in the perception of the camp stage of the authors' life.

In addition, it is important to note that there is another section of comparison in the study, namely, the analysis of the differences between the translation of memories of the GULAG in written (memoirs) and oral (interview materials) speech. Researchers in the field of gender linguistics claim that "oral and written speech in mature form represent two different psychological formations both in functional and structural terms" ^{[11, p. 67]}. In a more carefully verified and prepared written speech (in our case, in the texts of the memoirs of the repressed), which requires considerable intellectual effort, the author's personality, his ethnic and cultural characteristics, way of thinking, and degree of education are revealed more clearly. At the same time, oral speech is "more spontaneous than written speech, less subject to mind control, more mediated by extralinguistic factors than written speech" ^{[11, p. 66]}.

Thus, the purpose of the work is to conduct a comparative content analysis of prisoners' memories, based on the gender aspect, and answer the question - does the perception and translation of the camp stage of life differ between men and women, and also does it depend on the form of fixation of memories - written or oral?

To conduct content analysis, a system of categories and indicators was created, according to which all texts were indexed. The list of categories included such categories as life, power, work, prison, war, death, family, friendship, love, religion, art, children. It should be noted that at one stage of the work we attempted to expand the list of indicators by gender features (that is, the peculiarities of the language of women and men within the same national language, including vocabulary, grammar and style) depending on the gender of the authors of the texts whose markup we produced, but the results were inconclusive – significantly the results of content analysis on different "gender" indicators did not differ from the results of content analysis according to a single, end-to-end system of categories and indicators. 

RESULTS OF CONTENT ANALYSIS OF PRISONERS' MEMOIRS

In the course of the study, frequency tables were constructed for sets of documents of men and women. A comparison of the frequencies of occurrence in the memoirs shows the following.

Fig. 2. Frequency of occurrence of categories in the texts of female prisonersFig. 3. Frequency of occurrence of categories in the texts of male prisoners

Firstly, both male and female texts were dominated by the themes of daily survival in the camp – this is what the leading frequencies of the categories "Work", "Life", "Power" tell us.

At the same time, there are noticeable differences between the perception of camps by men and women: in men's texts, the most common category is "Work", while in women's – "Life".

And this is not surprising, since it was the everyday aspects of life in the camp that women paid the most attention to, because unbearable living conditions tormented them during their entire term. Upon arrival at the camp, the women were greeted by an unsightly picture, which represented a kind of quintessence of camp life: "Stone courtyards for walks, work buildings, a stoker, iron cages in which sick people walk, and elephants could walk, in some places huge black poplars and endless fences, fences, bars - all this is intertwined, piled on top of each other, obscuring one another. Paints: grayish snow, blood-red brick, gray concrete, black branches and lattices" ^{[4, p. 7]}. Philologist N.F. Odolinskaya says that throughout the entire camp term she came up with escape plans in order to "escape from this louse-bug hell, from backbreaking work, from slave humiliation!" ^[21].

In turn, men pay more attention to working conditions. This is due to the fact that men are much more likely than women to be sent to heavy, and sometimes even unbearable general jobs. One of the former GULAG prisoners, talking about how working norms were established in the camp, notes that "the norms were established simply: existing ones were taken at will and increased by one and a half times" ^[20]. At the same time, the camp authorities were not concerned about "neither the lack of mechanization, nor poor nutrition, nor the extreme exhaustion of people and their inability to adapt" ^[20]. Failure to comply with the norm was severely punished – prisoners were deprived of part of the already modest rations, and were also often sent to a penal isolation unit: "Failure to comply with the norm entailed deterioration and reduction of food, an increase in working hours and punishment in the form of imprisonment in isolation" ^[22]. Many prisoners could not withstand such working conditions and, exhausted, ... fell at work" ^[22]. They were "assigned to special barracks, where they reached complete death. They were called income earners, that is, doomed to death" ^[22].      

There was a direct correlation between how "effectively" the prisoners worked and what their conditions of existence were: "— Who is given how much they eat, and bread for the development of a work assignment. You will complete the task by one hundred percent or more — a kilogram of two hundred grams. Prisoners who constantly overfulfilled the daily task were placed in barracks, where single bunks or trestles with bedding" ^[1].

GULAG prisoners focus readers' attention on the fact that, although the work performed by prisoners in the camps was necessary, and many prisoners understood this, the working conditions were specifically such that existence in the camp was "difficult, painful and terrible": "... everything was done so that labor became unbearable", "everything it was done in order to slowly lead people to death." This thesis is also confirmed by A. Navaitis – in his opinion, "the purpose of the camp is not only to use prisoners as labor, but also to break them mentally, destroy them physically."

However, it is important to note that sometimes prisoners perceived labor in the camp not as punishment, but as an opportunity to prove their innocence and loyalty to the Soviet government and the Motherland: "These workers, by the will of evil and tyranny, were thrown into the East Siberian taiga without trial and investigation. They continued to defend their labor honor and the right that they are a part of their people from the flesh. They are the "salt" of the industrial workers and the collective farm peasantry. Separated from their families and society, they helped their people with their whole lives in the fight against fascism. They carried their work with honor. Many died at the hands of their executioners with a clear conscience, did not lose faith in the ideals of life" ^[1].

From the point of view of differences, it is interesting to consider the category of "Friendship" - if it is practically not traced in women's texts, then in men's it occupies the fifth place out of twelve. Civil engineer A.P. Evstyunichev notes that "an established friendship with one or more prisoners is necessary both spiritually and physically. Comrades support morally, help both in everyday matters and at work, protect against attacks and attempts by others. Together, there are more chances to get extra food, clothes, establish a connection with the house ..." ^[14].

A remarkable episode is how, after returning to the barracks after a serious illness, one of the prisoners found himself surrounded by the real care of his cellmates, who were worried about the final recovery coming as soon as possible: "Violinist Georgy Feldgun led me to the bunks, my place was on the second "floor", silently moved the semblance of his bed upstairs, and laid me down at the bottom, because I could not climb up yet. The major sat down next to me: "Nothing, you were reinforced in the infirmary. We've collected a little bread for you here" ^[25].

No less important are the differences in the frequency of occurrence of categories related to the relatives of prisoners – "Family", "Children" and "Love". In the texts of female prisoners, these categories are noticeable – women vividly write about separation from children, parents, husbands. The teacher Kraevskaya M. tells about one camp episode: ""Comrades! Those who have children in orphanages are allowed to write them a letter!" Then I was upset again that Olesik was not in an orphanage. How we rejoiced! Now there was only talk: what to write, how to write. I was happy first of all for Irenka, for Lyuba, for Vera, Natasha, Lena, in a word, for everyone whose children were in orphanages. They collected a piece of paper, pencils, and the mothers began to write. After all, they were allowed to write only a few words! And how much I wanted to know, how much I wanted to write, give warmth and affection to this unfortunate, beloved child! The letters have been written and submitted for verification" ^[16].

Male prisoners leave these issues without proper attention and practically do not mention them in their memoirs. Interestingly, this conclusion can also be confirmed by the results of linguistic research. Researchers Dmitrieva L. M. and Vyazigina N. V. write that "the analysis of the representation of the topic of leisure showed one important difference in the field that was not originally supposed to be analyzed. This area is the theme of friendship, stories about friends. So, it was noted that in women's texts the topic of friendship is not presented, while in men's stories about friends, memories of meeting friends, the fate of friends, etc. are presented quite widely and in detail. Perhaps, in this way, a gender-specific arrangement of values is reflected in the products of speech activity: the priority of family is represented in women, the priority of friendship in men" ^[12].

RESULTS OF CONTENT ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEW MATERIALSAs a result of the study, frequency tables were also constructed for the second group of documents - interviews.

A comparison of the frequency of occurrence in the interview materials shows the following.

Fig. 4. Frequency of occurrence of categories in interviews of male prisonersFig. 5. Frequency of occurrence of categories in interviews of female prisoners

Again, as in the case of memoirs, in the stories of former GULAG prisoners, the leading categories are "Life" and "Work".

At the same time, again, as in the results of the analysis of memoirs, in men's texts the leading category is "Work", while in women's – "Life".

Z.I. Vyskrebentseva tells about the camp life as follows: "They lived in a barrack, there were two hundred people in the barrack. Such two-tiered, such two-layer bunks ..., such small compartments as if. Of course, all the other amenities on the street, life was. The food was such that you can only eat if you really want to eat. As we joked, they said: "In the soup, grain after grain is chasing with a baton"" ^[5].

Also in the interview there are comparisons of German concentration camps with Soviet camps: "I have not been to a German camp, but in this case they are coming close. There (the Germans) had furnaces - we didn't have furnaces for burning, but the regime is terrible, terrible..." ^[5].  In the memoirs, in turn, there are also similar comparisons: "This inscription ("labor makes free") on the gates of German concentration camps is a mirror image of our ITL (correctional labor camp): you will work (for free, for your native Soviet government), you will improve — you will be free!" ^{[13, p. 95]}.

Men in interviews, as in memoirs, talk more about work. So, V.A. Belikov shares his memories of working in logging: "Because they sawed while I was still there, I still found them, they sawed by hand. There was such an onion saw, such as a bow, and a narrow blade. Here she was sawed. And there it was necessary for each prisoner, there they worked in teams, they had to give three cubes for each. This is cut down, chopped off and sawed into pieces, and so that this one has three cubes for each. It was impossible" ^[3].

The artist A.P. Artsybushev talks about which of the camp jobs it was better not to get into: "In no case, not to any leadership, where you have to drive someone, someone to work… Not for any food, not for any bases, nowhere — it's death. The best thing is the infirmary. There are highly cultured doctors there. And there you can help a lot of people" ^[2].

In the next – third and fourth - places in terms of occurrence are the categories of "Power" and, surprisingly, "Family". However, gender differences are also revealed here – in male interviews, the category of "Power" is higher, and in female interviews – "Family".

If we consider the category of "Power", then numerous episodes of criticism of the Soviet government by former prisoners immediately catch the eye. A.P. Artsybushev recalls one episode that, in his opinion, describes the entire system of Stalin's camps: ""The penal guards who rebelled, tell the head of the camp that "we can't work like this, we are dressed like this, so fed, such a depth of the stone deposit." Maltsev [the camp commander] stood with his back to the people. He did not deign to turn to the people who are exposed in front of him. After listening, he, without turning around, said: "And we have gathered you here not to work, but to suffer." Got in the car and drove away. So he expressed with this phrase the whole system of Stalin's camps" ^[2].

Philologist A.L. Shandalov, in the context of the authorities, recalls the feelings he felt when announcing Stalin's death: "The operative of the camps, Parshin, said in a broken voice: "Stalin died yesterday..." He cried. And we laughed–only to ourselves. We had a presentiment of big changes, although we didn't know anything. I believed that it was going to complete liberalization – so to speak, to a complete rejection of this terrible past, of this communist system" ^[27].

Interestingly, former GULAG prisoners talk about their families in interviews, mainly talking about the pre- or post-prison period of their lives. Apparently, while serving their sentence, all the efforts of the GULAG prisoners were aimed only at survival, and the forces – both physical and emotional – were simply not enough for exhausting suffering at home and past life. For example, M.A. Tumanova movingly tells about the moment of meeting with his family after his release: "They met me. Mom and girls. But they didn't recognize me anymore. ... And so Mom, Ira and Lenuska meet me at the train station. My God, my girls, my dear girls" ^[26].

V.A. Belikov also talks about family in the context of post-camp life. He talks about how his family begged him to apply for rehabilitation: "My son, wife, and relatives all the time: Well, you write, - I say, "well, why should I write? If I'm going to write, it means I'm asking. And why should I ask if I'm not to blame?". And they know more about me than they need to – I was sitting there, everything is thoroughly known there: What I am, where I've been, what I've been doing. Therefore, everything is absolutely clear there" ^[3].

It is important to note that the results of the content analysis of interview materials, compared with the results of the content analysis of written memoirs, significantly less clearly demonstrate gender differences in the perception and broadcasting of the camp stage of life by prisoners. This demonstrates a comparison of the results of the analysis of the frequencies of joint occurrence in interviews of male and female prisoners - in Figures 6 and 7, higher frequencies of joint occurrence are marked with red shades, while lower ones are blue.

Fig. 6. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories in interviews of male prisonersFig. 7. Frequency of co-occurrence of categories in interviews of female prisoners

The most striking interrelations of categories in the interview materials for both men and women prisoners are "Family"-"Children", "Work"-"Life" and "Death-Power".

The only significant difference is the presence of a strong "War"–"Power" connection in male interviews, as opposed to female ones.

Also noteworthy are two more differences from the results of the content analysis of the memoirs. Firstly, the low frequency of occurrence of the category "Friendship" in the speech of male prisoners (although according to the results of the content analysis of memoirs, this category, as we mentioned earlier, ranked 4th in terms of occurrence.  Secondly, quite high frequency of occurrence of the category "War" in the speech of both female and male prisoners. Hypotheses about the reasons for these differences are still ahead for our research, so far we can only assume that the differences may be related to the peculiarities of oral and written speech, as well as the approach to moderation of the conversation by interviewers (that is, with what questions and what they asked the interviewees).

***Comparative content analysis of written and oral memoirs of former GULAG prisoners shows the following results.

Memories, regardless of the form of their fixation – oral or written, are the most important source for studying the perception and translation of camp life during the era of repression in the USSR. It is important to note that in this case, a mass source is actually analyzed – a significant collection of memories left by GULAG prisoners. This circumstance weakens the influence of the subjective factor and allows us to obtain both general conclusions extended to the totality of the perception of the camp stage of life by the authors of memoirs, and to identify the features of the texts of individual groups of authors, primarily in the gender context. A set of methods, and above all, the method of content analysis, allows you to work with a collection of memories and interview materials as mass sources.

The results of the content analysis of memoirs and oral memoirs are similar - most often former prisoners recall the categories "Work", "Life" and "Power", since it is the themes of the daily struggle for life that have left the most traumatic mark on their souls. Nevertheless, there are particular differences, the reasons for which lie in the peculiarities of oral and written speech.

In oral memoirs, gender differences in the perception and translation of camp life are almost imperceptible. The analysis of the frequency of joint occurrence of categories in male and female interviews shows almost identical results. The most striking interrelations of categories in the interview materials for both men and women prisoners are "Family"-"Children", "Work"-"Life" and "Death-Power". The only significant difference is the presence of a strong "War"–"Power" connection in male interviews, as opposed to female ones.

In the memoirs, typical gender differences are noticeable – low frequency of occurrence of "family" categories, frequent episodes of criticism of power in "male" texts, great emotionality and scrupulousness of describing events in "female" texts. Human categories ("family", "children", "love") are practically not found in the texts of male prisoners, although these categories play an important role in the texts of female prisoners. We see a similar picture when comparing the frequency of occurrence of the categories "friendship" and "prison". In the texts of women, these topics are practically not raised, while in men's texts these categories seem significant.The obtained conclusions about the difference between oral and written memories, on the one hand, confirm the hypothesis prevailing in historiography that the features of the author of the text are more clearly visible in written speech – his personality, cultural characteristics and way of thinking.

On the other hand, the question remains open why, according to linguists, there are practically no gender differences in the perception of the camp stage of life in the more spontaneous and less structured oral speech ^{[11, p. 66]} - this question remains outside the brackets of the current work, but we hope to reveal it at the next stages of the study.

Thus, the analysis allows us to assert that despite the particular gender differences in the perception and translation of the camp stage of life by men and women in written and oral memories, the global view of former prisoners on the period of repression does not depend either on gender or on the form of fixation of memories. N.L. Pushkareva writes that "the insignificant is not fixed collective memory" ^{[23, p. 294]}, and indeed - the more texts of memoirs and transcripts of memories and the larger the group of texts studied, the more common features of the perception of camp life appear. This confirms the hypothesis about the massive nature of large arrays of thematically similar texts.