Discussants: Matthias Kaltenbrunner (Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich) and Charles Shaw (Central European University, Vienna)

In her book "Coerced Labour, Forced Displacement, and the Soviet Gulag, 1880s-1930s", Zhanna Popova examines the history of convict labor and forced displacement in Russia to shed light on the emergence of the Gulag - one of the central symbols of twentieth-century mass political violence.

This study offers an innovative long-term, social historical perspective on how the practices of forced labor and displacement were interconnected and evolved over time, becoming the foundation of the Russian penal system. Drawing on archival research in Western Siberia, Moscow, and Saint Petersburg, Popova has traced the long lineages of the uses of convict labour for statist goals. Paying keen attention to the spatial dimensions of punitive practices, she discusses the wide array of punishments that combined forced labour with displacement, as well as the numerous, if often largely unsuccessful, attempts to reform the penal system. This book situates the Russian imperial penal system and the Gulag within the global history of convict labour and forced displacement, offering a nuanced understanding of long-term continuities and ruptures in their development.

30.9.2024