Nějaké otázky?! - Vzpomínky kolymského vězně – Vilenskij Semjon (2019)

In his memoirs Some Questions?!, the Russian writer and poet, founder and long-time chairman of the association of former political prisoners "Vozvraščenije," Semjon Samuilovič Vilenskij (1928–2016) reflects on the years 1948–1955, which he spent in Soviet prisons and Gulag camps, primarily in the Kolyma region of the Far East. He intersperses his text with insights into both his adolescence, mapping the circumstances leading to his imprisonment, and the time after his release, when he began systematically collecting materials documenting the tragic history of Kolyma. The book is composed of a series of micro-stories that connect into a logical whole throughout the reading. The author was very young during his imprisonment, which makes his memories unique – they are filled with love, humor, and faith in other people. The book also includes a selection of Vilenskij's poetry, which similarly draws on themes of imprisonment, suffering, and forced labor. Semjon Vilenskij was from Moscow, where he began studying philology in 1945. In 1948, he was arrested, accused of anti-Soviet agitation and terrorist activities, and sentenced to ten years in corrective labor camps. During the investigation, he was, among other things, imprisoned for three months in the Moscow prison Sukharevka, notorious for its brutal...