Lovely Planet. Camp Stories

The book by writer Georgy Georgievich Demidov (1908-1987) contains selected stories about the life of prisoners in the GULAG. Demidov himself was a prisoner in the Kolyma camps: in 1938, the young physicist was arrested and spent fourteen years in Kolyma. His fate is reflected in the work of Varlam Shalamov ("The Life of Engineer Kipyreev", "Special Order", "Ivan Fedorovich"; the play "Anna Ivanovna" is dedicated to Georgy Demidov). Demidov is called a writer of the Tolstoyan school: he is meticulous and precise, and his texts can be perceived as historical sources. They can be used to study not only the camp life and customs but also the feelings and emotions of people experiencing hell. At the same time, a distinguishing feature of Demidov the writer is his ability to see the uplifting traits in any person.