Throughout The Twentieth Century, Millions Of People Were Subject To The Hardship And OppressiVe Conditions Of Soviet Russia's Gulag...
Despite this claim, however, there remains to be little serious widespread public knowledge of the Gulag amongst ordinary Canadians. While the city of Montreal itself has its own Holocaust Memorial Centre as well as the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, there appears to be a lack of official infrastructure or public memory recognizing the equally oppressive Gulag forced labour camp system of the Soviet Union. There are many reasons that point to the disparity between collective Canadian memory of the Holocaust versus the memory and recognition of the Gulag but there are no reasons why Canadians should not inform themselves on the subject. While the Gulag by now is a known subject under western scholars of Soviet or Russian history, "even the bare facts . . . have not filtered into Western popular consciousness." (Anne Applebaum, Gulag: a History, Anchor Books: New York, 2004. p. xviii.) It is only in the recent years since the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991, that state records and valuable source material from inside Russia has been available to scholars to analyze. Unlike the study of the Holocaust, the study of the Gulag system is still comparatively young or limited in scope as it has not experienced the same amount of time or availability of source material as the Holocaust. The Gulag has also not enjoyed as extensive coverage in the media as the Holocaust has through film and documentaries, with no Gulag film being so widely watched or of having such an impact as Spielberg's Schindler's List. Despite its absence in widespread western popular consciousness, the Gulag was an extremely influential force in the Soviet Union that played a crucial role in Soviet economics, as well as in the lives of its victims and Soviet citizens in general, and remains to be an important component of oppression and violence in the twentieth century that should be studied more fully throughout the world.
Composed as an informative digital memory bank by an undergraduate student of history studying at Concordia University in Montreal, this website seeks to inform Canadians and a broader Western audience on the subject of the Gulag, chronicling its history as well as outlining the economic role it played within the Soviet Union. Encouraging the broader study of the Gulag, this website is intended to provide visitors with a basic knowledge of the Gulag and its place in Soviet society. In recognition of highly intelligent and informative www.gulaghistory.org this site will not cover the living conditions of the camps to an exhaustive degree but will rather focus on the work aspect of camp life and the daily regimen of prisoners in order to give a better understanding of the forced labour and economical aspects of the Gulag. Contextualizing the Gulag amongst the broader framework of twentieth century violence and oppression, this site also offers a comparative analysis of the Gulag forced labour camp systems operating during the Soviet regime with the more familiar concentration camps operating in Third Reich under the Nazis. Using academic sources, this site aims to foster a factual based knowledge of the Gulag in its visitors that is not sensational but treats this serious subject, rife with sobering themes of human oppression, with due respect and sensitivity.
Composed as an informative digital memory bank by an undergraduate student of history studying at Concordia University in Montreal, this website seeks to inform Canadians and a broader Western audience on the subject of the Gulag, chronicling its history as well as outlining the economic role it played within the Soviet Union. Encouraging the broader study of the Gulag, this website is intended to provide visitors with a basic knowledge of the Gulag and its place in Soviet society. In recognition of highly intelligent and informative www.gulaghistory.org this site will not cover the living conditions of the camps to an exhaustive degree but will rather focus on the work aspect of camp life and the daily regimen of prisoners in order to give a better understanding of the forced labour and economical aspects of the Gulag. Contextualizing the Gulag amongst the broader framework of twentieth century violence and oppression, this site also offers a comparative analysis of the Gulag forced labour camp systems operating during the Soviet regime with the more familiar concentration camps operating in Third Reich under the Nazis. Using academic sources, this site aims to foster a factual based knowledge of the Gulag in its visitors that is not sensational but treats this serious subject, rife with sobering themes of human oppression, with due respect and sensitivity.