“My writing is no more about camps that St-Exupéry's is about the sky or Melville's, about the sea. My stories are basically advice to an individual on how to act in a crowd... [To be] not just further to the left than the left, but also more real than reality itself. For blood to be true and nameless.”.

Varlam Shalamov

Read about the goals of our project here.

Josefina Lundblad's article about The 2011 Shalamov Conference: “Life and work, world literature and Soviet history. Exploring the moral necessity of Varlam Shalamov” in Baltic Worlds (15 october 2011)

During two scorching hot days in the middle of June, a diverse assembly of scholars from Russia and beyond converged in Moscow in search of answers to two questions: What is Varlam Shalamov? And why do we need him?.

Robert Chandler, “Varlam Shalamov and Andrey Fedorovich Platonov” (13 july 2011)

“Shalamov and Platonov portray worlds in which an extraordinary degree of cruelty is seen as commonplace. In other respects, however, these two great writers are antithetical to one another. While Platonov takes us deep inside both the bodies and the souls of his characters, Shalamov portrays his characters from the outside” (in Russian).

Review of the recent Shalamov Conference: (9 july 2011)

The Culture Channel, the website pedsovet.org, and the Yaroslavl regional newspaper “The Golden Ring” review the recent conference: “The Life and Works of Varlam Shalamov in the Context of World Literature and Soviet History” (in Russian).

The fourth issue of The Shalamov Papers has been published (28 june 2011)

The newest issue of The Shalamov Papers (No. 4) features new research by new voices in the field as well as well-known international scholars from Russia, Germany, Switzerland, USA, Australia, and Sweden. The issue also includes new material from the Varlam Shalamov archive and little-known memoirs about him. This edition is dedicated to the memory of Irina Pavlovna Sirotinskaya, Shalamov’s friend, publisher, and heir to his literary archive (in Russian).

Review by Ilya Smirnov of the recent international conference “The Life and Works of Varlam Shalamov in the Context of World Literature and Soviet History” and of the 4th edition of The Shalamov Papers, published by the editorial board of shalamov.ru (25 june 2011)

“Shalamov ranks Che Guevara along with Gagarin, guided by the same principles that made him a staunch opponent of the Stalinist regime. Shalamov himself stated that he ‘participated in the great yet ultimately unsuccessful battle for a genuine renewal of life’” (in Russian).

Reread Shalamov! (21 june 2011)

Why is Varlam Shalamov studied more by people abroad than in Russia? Why is this writer so important for an understanding of our past and present? What is the basis of the conflict between Shalamov and Solzhenitsyn? Commentary by Sergey Solovyov, editor-in-chief of Skepsis magazine and head of the website shalamov.ru (in Russian).

The program of the International Conference “The Life and Works of Varlam Shalamov in the Context of World Literature and Soviet History” (June 16 — 19, 2011) (2 june 2011)

“At present the specifics of Soviet history, the cultural experience of the epoch, and the historical memory of the Stalinist period are the focus of work by scholars in a wide variety of fields in the humanities. The life and oeuvre of Varlam Shalamov are inevitably at the center of such discussions. His works are not easy to understand: they require knowledge of the historical and literary context and, most importantly, an interested reader who recognizes the full scope of the historical trauma that Stalinism inflicted on our country. Without Shalamov it would be simply impossible to understand this trauma or to prevent it from happening again” (in Russian).

The letters we are publishing from Shalamov to Elena Lopatina highlight yet again Shalamov’s immense respect for the revolutionaries who fought against the autocracy. Shalamov was particularly concerned about those he felt had not received sufficient recognition, such as Natalya Klimova, Maria Oshanina, and, of course, German Lopatin, grandfather of Elena B. Lopatina. The letters also reveal relatively new details about Shalamov’s return from Kolyma and his research in the field of History in th (22 may 2011)

Was it genetically easier for Perovskaya and Figner to enter the ranks of the revolutionaries? Perovskaya was the daughter of the Governor-General and this is the reason for the [illegible] simplicity of her transition to terror. Oshanina was from the provinces, from Orlovo, and more than biographical data is needed to explain her selfless refusal to compromise than for big-city flowers like Perovskaya and Figner. Oshanina was sent abroad as a high-ranking agent. She conducted the Degayevsy Affair extremely intelligently, energetically, and decisively. Oshanina is one of the authors of the letter from the Executive Committee to the tsar — the last one after March 1, 1881 (in Russian).

New photos have been added to the section “The Final Years. 1978-1982” (15 may 2011)

The photos were sent to us by Mikhail Iosifovich Levin, who treated Shalamov in the Hospital No. 67 (1978). Among the photos are pictures of Shalamov’s inscriptions in books he gave to the doctor.

Two letters from Varlam Shalamov to Natalya Vladimirovna Kind, a close friend of N. I. Stolyarova, have survived. It is at her house that most of the known tape recordings of Shalamov reading his works were made. (3 may 2011)

“After yesterday’s get-together I wanted to tell you so much, to ask you so many questions. Everything happened so incredibly fast. I am very uptight when I read my own works – I can’t even see, which you, no doubt, noticed a long time ago - on the first evening that I spent at your house” (in Russian).

News archive: 2011, 2009

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The copyright to the contents of this site is held either by shalamov.ru or by the individual authors, and none of the material may be used elsewhere without written permission. The copyright to Shalamov’s work is held by Irina Sirotinskaya. For all enquiries, please contact ed@shlamov.ru.