Miriam Dobson's guest appearances

Miriam Dobson

New Books in History

New Books in Russian and Eurasian Studies

New Books Network

New Books in Policing, Incarceration, and Reform

David Shimer

Gill Bennett

Lynne Viola

Mark Edele

Michael Mandelbaum

Ronald Suny

Kathryn Ciancia

Gleb Tsipursky

Karl Schlögel

Waitman Beorn

Krista Goff

Olga Gershenson

Olga Velikanova

William D. Prigge

Eliyana R. Adler

OwlTail

Gulag Returnees

Examinations of the Soviet gulag are a cottage industry in Russian studies. Since 1991, a torrent of books have been published examining the gulag’s construction, management, memory, and legacy. Few scholars, however, have investigated how Soviet citizens reacted to the return of over four million prisoners from labor camps and colonies between 1953 and 1958. How were they received? How did they reintegrate themselves into Soviet society? How did the specter of the “gulag returnee” impact policy on crime and social regulation? To answer these questions we have to turn to Miriam Dobson‘s Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform After Stalin (Cornell UP, 2009).In Dobson’s book we don’t find the heroic gulag returnee (“Khrushchev’s zeks,” as Stephen Cohen affectionately calls them) who was unjustly persecuted under Stalin for his political views. Rather, Dobson gives us a tragic figure who finds himself indelibly scarred by his years in exile. Soviet citizens seemed to have cared little as to whether the returnee was a political or an ordinary criminal, innocent or guilty. People viewed all the returnees as suspicious outsiders, marked as such by their gulag slang, prison tattoos, and coarse appearance. They were, in a word, a problem, one that eventually caused a series of moral panics. For Dobson, Stalin’s death, Khrushchev’s denunciation of him, and the release of his victims did not (alas) evoke a collective sigh of relief within the body politic.Rather these acts inaugurated an era of confusion and anxiety articulated in society’s attempts to make sense of the gulag returnee’s place in the post-Stalin order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Examinations of the Soviet gulag are a cottage industry in Russian studies. Since 1991, a torrent of books have been published examining the gulag’s construction, management, memory, and legacy. Few scholars, however, have investigated how Soviet citizens reacted to the return of over four million prisoners from labor camps and colonies between 1953 and 1958. How were they received? How did they reintegrate themselves into Soviet society? How did the specter of the “gulag returnee” impact policy on crime and social regulation? To answer these questions we have to turn to <a href="http://www.shef.ac.uk/history/staff/miriam_dobson.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Miriam Dobson</a>‘s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801447577/?tag=newbooinhis-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform After Stalin</a> (Cornell UP, 2009). In Dobson’s book we don’t find the heroic gulag returnee (“Khrushchev’s zeks,” as Stephen Cohen affectionately <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Fates-Lost-Alternatives-Stalinism/dp/0231148968/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1262195712&amp;sr=8-1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">calls</a> them) who was unjustly persecuted under Stalin for his political views. Rather, Dobson gives us a tragic figure who finds himself indelibly scarred by his years in exile. Soviet citizens seemed to have cared little as to whether the returnee was a political or an ordinary criminal, innocent or guilty. People viewed all the returnees as suspicious outsiders, marked as such by their gulag slang, prison tattoos, and coarse appearance. They were, in a word, a problem, one that eventually caused a series of moral panics. For Dobson, Stalin’s death, Khrushchev’s denunciation of him, and the release of his victims did not (alas) evoke a collective sigh of relief within the body politic.Rather these acts inaugurated an era of confusion and anxiety articulated in society’s attempts to make sense of the gulag returnee’s place in the post-Stalin order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>Support our show by becoming a premium member! <a href="https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history</a>

Miriam Dobson, “Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform After Stalin” (Cornell UP, 2009)

Examinations of the Soviet gulag are a cottage industry in Russian studies. Since 1991, a torrent of books have been published examining the gulag’s construction, management, memory, and legacy. Few scholars, however, have investigated how Soviet citizens reacted to the return of over four million prisoners from labor camps and... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Examinations of the Soviet gulag are a cottage industry in Russian studies. Since 1991, a torrent of books have been published examining the gulag’s construction, management, memory, and legacy. Few scholars, however, have investigated how Soviet citizens reacted to the return of over four million prisoners from labor camps and... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>Support our show by becoming a premium member! <a href="https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies</a>