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Anecdote in the opposite direction: Varlam Shalamov was a Russian writer who spent over a decade in various Gulags and then wrote many semi-autobiographical sto
by majos 7y ago
Anecdote in the opposite direction: Varlam Shalamov was a Russian writer who spent over a decade in various Gulags and then wrote many semi-autobiographical stories about them. In one he observed that he saw many wives join their husbands in the camp after the husband was sentenced, even though the wife could remain free, but that he never saw a husband do the same.
I don't know what to make of that anecdote. Maybe it means nothing. But it has stuck in my mind ever since I read it.
- Mediterraneo10 7y agoThe women joining their husbands could serve as a survival stategy for the women. If you were a member of a family of the intelligentsia, and your husband was arrested, it was likely just a matter of time before they arrested you, too. Leaving Moscow or Saint-Petersburg for that kind of voluntary internal exile was thus a way for women to escape the notice of the authorities and keep their own records clean.
- majos 7y agoMakes sense. But why wouldn’t currently-free husbands do the same?