BEAUTY IN HELL: CULTURE IN THE GULAG
Prisoners
The SLON was a ‘special purpose’ camp, created to pave the way for the profitable use of forced labour throughout the USSR. The people sent to the Solovki by the Soviet state were a particular category of prisoner.
Other than some common criminals, the ‘population’ of the camp comprised mainly of people connected to Tsarist Russia and the White Army, the clergy, representatives of other branches of the left such as Socialist Revolutionaries and Anarchists, members of the bourgeoisie and of the nobility. Among them were representatives of the intelligentsia and many people who were, or were to become, prominent in the history of Russian culture: writers, scholars, scientists, composers and painters.
Below are the biographies of the most notorious SLON prisoners and the protagonists of the camp’s intellectual life. The Prisoners Grid tab gives some information about the prisoners pictured above.
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Life in the Camp
Prisoners Grid
Line 1 (L-R)
1) Mikhail Rozanov (1902-1989), writer
2) Ol'ga Adamova-Sliozberg (1902-1991), economist
3) Igor' Chernavin (1887-1949), ichthyologist
4) Mikhail Poloz (1891-1937), politician
5) Archbishop Petr (Zverev), (1878-1929), clergyman
6) Boris Rudanovskii (1907-1937), economist
7) Grigorii Poliakov (1876-1938), ornithologist
8) Nikolai Gor'skii (?-?), navy officer
Line 2 (L-R)
1) Aleksei Zakhvatkin (1905-1950), biologist
2) Ivan Ozerov (1869-1942), economist
3) Ekaterina Olitskaia (1899-1974), politician
4) Pavel Florenskii (1882-1937), clergyman, philosopher, scientist
5) Evgenii Pluzhnik (1898-1936), poet, playwright
6) Viktor Kharodchinskii (1913-1937), politician
7) Valer'ian Pidmogil'nyi (1901-1937), writer
8) Mikhail Martynov (1898-1937), economist
Line 3 (L-R)
1) Nikolai Vinogradov (1876-1938), ethnographer
2) Iurii Chirkov (1919-1988), geologist
3) Sergei Shchegol'kov (1915-2004), locksmith
4) Vladimir Zotov (1903-1978), set designer
5) Mikhail Nikonov-Smorodin (1889-1964), agronomist
6) Lev Martiukhin (1914-1996), builder, poet
7) Ivan Solonevich (1891-1953), journalist
8) Sozer'ko Mal'sagov (1893-1976), army official
Line 4 (L-R)
1) Mark Voronoi (1904-1937), poet
2) Ol'ga Vtorova-Iafa (1876-1959), pedagogue
3) Dmitrii Likhachev (1906-1999), academic
4) Lada Mogilianskaia (1899-1937), poet
5) Mikhail Frolovskii (1905-1943), poet
6) Vladimir Lozina-Lozinskii (1885-1937), clergyman
7) Viktor Vasil'ev (1916-2002), poet
8) Evgeniia Mustan'gova (1905-1937), literary critic
All images in the grid are © Solovki State Historical, Architectural and Natural Museum-Reserve, apart from those of Dmitrii Likhachev and Nikolai Vinogradov which are © International Memorial Moscow.