Paper 2. Compare/Contrast Paper
Individuals vs. Totalitarian State: Tragic Destiny of Human-Beings in Solzhenitsyn's and Shalmov's Stories
(Topic: Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov on the experience of the camps)
Written by: Bekzhan Zhamikeyev
Year of Study: 1st year SHSS student
Course Name: Introduction to Critical Issues in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Individuals vs. Totalitarian State: Tragic Destiny of Human-Beings in Solzhenitsyn's and Shalmov's Stories
In recent decades, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a lot of secrets were revealed, including the existence of death camps, which were concealed under the name of corrective labor camps. However, no one believed that camps were a place, where millions of inmates died. In addition, most of people never thought that innocent citizens were imprisoned, then tortured, tormented and finally killed during the bloody terror in the USSR. It is not surprising, because any information about camps were under strict control of Soviet Union soldiers and only after the disintegration, they were shown to public.
Nevertheless, the cruelty of executioners, whose actions were reinforced by totalitarian state rules, was discovered by a help of firsthand witnesses, who are wrote books about the life in concentration camps. In that works of prisoners, two major texts caught the attention of people in the world. The first one is "Kolyma Tales", written by Shalamov, which is about people who were used as labor force, by the help of whom, the Soviet Union extracted gold in mines and cut trees in harsh weather. The second one is "GULAG Archipelago", written by Solzhenitsyn, in which he wanted "to help the readers to imagine the unimaginable" horror, which took place in camps. Both of these texts depicts us an opposition between an individual and totalitarian state. In addition, authors tried to show that human-beings...