Drawings From The Gulag

There are some excellent, ‘hard-hitting’ graphic novels available for older readers, e.g. Persopolis and Yossel. These titles can be very successful in terms of transcending politics and taking readers inside the personal understanding or experience of the author/ artist.

In many cases, graphic novels dealing with difficult subject matter are not completely dark, as the spirit or resilience of the central character/ s often acts as ‘a point of light’  in itself. There may also be a certain dark humour and/ or remarkable artwork that, to some extent, shields readers from the full force of the message. For example, Yossel relates the story of the Warsaw Ghetto and Nazi concentration camps through the heroic actions and perspectives of victims who, in themselves, defy any notion that we can all be reduced to brutal compliance.

It is, therefore, unusual to come across a title that is so brutal and so unrelenting that it’s very hard to find any form of escape or redemption ‘on offer’ within either the text or the artwork.

Danzig Baldaev: Drawings from the Gulag

Drawings from the Gulag fits straight into this unforgiving category, by taking readers directly into the world of the former Soviet Union’s prison system, where Stalinism sustained a regime which banished choice and utterly dehumanised both prisoners and their guards.

The author could easily have become a political prisoner in one of Russia’s Gulags, but circumstances beyond his control put him among the guards. This results in a slightly displaced or dissociated perspective, possibly ‘drawn’ by someone who had to record the utter brutality of the Gulags as a personal defence against corruption and compliance.

The artwork is skilled, blunt and unforgiving, showing 130 B&W pen and ink drawings with a common styling. The caption accompanying each image is short and generally serves as a punctuation. (Each caption is shown in English below the images). Taken together, the images and their captions present a fearful account of extreme abuse, violence and violation.

The guards are conditioned to an alternative ‘normality’ where they are encouraged, even required, to corrupt themselves to the point of absolute complicity. Consequently, the guards’ actions leave the prisoners traumatised and dehumanised in a manner that takes them beyond any hope. Once there, many become caught-up in a regime within a regime, which is based largely on criminal status and hierarchy. This supposed counter-culture is bitterly ironic, as it feeds on the very regimentation and brutality that many prisoners argued or fought against before begin sent to a Gulag for their protests.

Throughout the often unpleasant images it’s clear how Gulags, and other comparable systems, are, in many ways, demanding that prisoners come to an acceptance that they are no better than nor different from their oppressors and the oppressors’ regime. It’s difficult to see past this while reading, but the willingness of, (and, perhaps, a need for), the author to bear witness does touch on a form of escape or redemption. As, ultimately, the author’s record of events frustrates and, in some respects, defeats both the totalitarian regime and the complicit.