GULAG in the memories of prisoners: gender and chronological aspects of content analysis

Goretskaia Ekaterina Mikhailovna Postgraduate, Historical Information Science Department, Lomonosov Moscow State University 119192, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Lomonosovskii Prospekt, 27k4 ekaterina.m.goretskaya@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The political repressions of the Soviet period affected all socio-political strata and groups of the population. According to the law "On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression", the repressions start from the day of the October Revolution – October 25 (November 7), 1917, and end in 1991, that is, they continue throughout the existence of the Soviet Union.

The periodization of political repression in the USSR was and remains an urgent issue in the study of the GULAG. According to historian A.V. Bakunin, when determining the main stages of political repression in the USSR, it is necessary to proceed from the periodization of Soviet totalitarianism, which includes three main stages ^{[4, p. 5]}:

• formation (genesis) of totalitarianism (1917-1929),
• the domination (apogee) of totalitarianism (1929-1953),stagnation and the collapse of totalitarianism (1953-1991).
• These major stages of the development of totalitarianism in the USSR and, accordingly, the repressive policy, can be divided into smaller stages in accordance with the key objects and circumstances of repression.

So, immediately after the October Revolution and up to the end of the civil war, repressions affected primarily representatives of opposition political parties and organizations, as well as "representatives of the former ruling classes and the intellectual elite of the country" ^{[19, p. 3]}. The period of 1923-1929, in turn, is marked by "an attempt by the Bolsheviks to move to a rule-of-law state" ^{[4, p. 5]}, as a result of which political repression briefly weakened, but by the second half of the 20s revived with renewed vigor in relation to the participants of the white movement, peasants, officers of the former tsarist army, etc..

Speaking about the stage of domination (apogee) of totalitarianism, we note that it is also possible to distinguish several stages of repression. The stage of 1930-1934 is distinguished by the completion of the process of formalizing the policy of the Soviet government in relation to the use of repression to achieve their own goals: "Not only a powerful political and ideological pressure, but mainly a repressive apparatus, a system of lawlessness, violence and terror from top to bottom, was called upon to raise society to the realization of utopian goals and at the same time to secure and strengthen the totalitarian government. She adopted all the experience, principles, forms and methods of work of the Cheka-GPU, tightening and significantly expanding the scale of violence and terror in society" ^{[4, p. 9]}. During this period, due to collectivization, the layer of the peasantry suffered the most – "according to minimal estimates, about 1 million peasant farms were "dispossessed" and 6 million peasants and their family members were repressed" ^{[19, p. 3]}. Bakunin writes that "as a result, the resistance of the peasantry to the totalitarian regime was broken, and the most active part of it is repressed" ^{[4, p. 10]}.

The next stage, 1935-1941, is characterized by the preparation and conduct of the great terror. Its beginning is associated with the murder of Kirov, which led to the organization of mass political trials against "enemies of the people" and to a "witch hunt", as a result of which "about 8 million Soviet people passed through the GULAG in the 30s" ^{[4, p. 11]}.

The stage of 1941-1945 is associated with the Great Patriotic War, when the commanders of the Red Army, representatives of the working class, intelligentsia, peasantry, as well as representatives of small nations were subjected to repression.

After the victory in the Great Patriotic War, another stage of repression unfolds against those who "show dissent against the existing socio-political system or serve the totalitarian regime poorly" ^{[4, p. 14]}.

Stalin's death marked the beginning of a period of stagnation and the collapse of totalitarianism, and with it a new round in the development of repressive politics. Despite the fact that already in the 50s many of the political prisoners were rehabilitated, the repression, albeit on a smaller scale, continued. Thus, "in the 50s - 80s, participants of the dissident movement and dissidents were subjected to criminal prosecution, exile, placement for compulsory treatment in special psychiatric hospitals of a closed type, unjustified deprivation of civil rights, expulsion from the USSR" ^{[19, p. 4]}. Repressions against dissidents and dissidents continued until 1991 G.

After 1991, mass publication of memoirs of former prisoners of Soviet camps began, and it is the memories that are the main source for our research. At the previous stages of the study, it was found that "the description of the camp stage of life differs depending on the gender of the author – it is noticeable to the naked eye that women write more scrupulously and emotionally, while men write more briefly and structurally" ^{[15, p. 162]}. As part of the current work, we hypothesize that the perception and transmission of memories of the camps may be influenced by the period or stage of repression in which the prisoners served time. 

The documents in the collection of memoirs used in this study are accompanied by additional biographical information about each author, which contain various data, among which there are also dates of arrest of GULAG prisoners. A prosopographic database was built on the basis of these references ^[16]. The database has become a source of attributes-characteristics about each of the authors of the texts included in the memoir collection under study. Among the attributes can be distinguished, for example, the years of the authors' life, occupation, sentence, etc. But in the context of this study, the attribute "Date of arrest" is of particular interest, on the basis of which subgroups of documents by gender and dates of arrest of the authors corresponding to the periodization indicated above were identified. Thus, the documents were divided into subgroups by gender and years of imprisonment – "1918-1922", "1923-1929", "1930-1934", "1935-1941", "1942-1945", "1946-1953", "since 1953".

At the previous stages of our study, the memories of both male and female prisoners were analyzed using content and network analysis methods. The purpose of this stage of work is to conduct a comparative content analysis of prisoners' memories, based on gender and chronological aspects, and to answer the question - does the perception and broadcast of the camp stage of life by men and women differ depending on the period or stage of political repression, what exactly and why?

***

To conduct content analysis, a system of semantic categories and indicators was created, according to which all texts were indexed. The system includes categories such as death, family, prison, friendship, love, war, children, work, life, religion, art, power. 

In the course of the study, frequency tables were constructed for sets of documents of men and women by chronological groups. In the subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1918 to 1922" there were 7 documents in which 4708 text fragments were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators. In the subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1918 to 1922" there were 3 documents in which 3766 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators.

Fig. 1. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1918 to 1922"

Fig. 2. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,

subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1918 to 1922"

A comparison of the frequency of occurrence of categories in these subgroups shows the following.

The most striking relationship in both male and female texts (which is traditional for our study) is the connection of the categories "Work" and "Power".

Repressed supporter of the White Movement and writer B.N. Shiryaev, telling about the Solovetsky special purpose camp, where he was sent to serve a 10-year sentence, writes that "now new workers are drawn here, too, from all over Russia, but no longer a Saint, but a recuperator, who scattered her holy soul on the violent winds, Soviet Russia, which overthrew the cross and bowed to the star" ^{[28, p. 35]}. Speaking about the nascent camp system, he notes that "in these early years of the first Soviet penal servitude, the GPU has not yet understood the economic benefits of the widespread use of slave labor" ^{[28, p. 51]}. Continuing the thought, he says that at the early stage of repression, "the "political" in Solovki until 1926 lived separately, in the Savvatievsky skete, in much better conditions, did not carry work and enjoyed the help and patronage of a representative" ^{[28, p. 56]}.

No less noticeable is the traditional relationship between the categories "Work" and "Life". GULAG prisoners write that "in winter, in the cold, they were driven to work before light, in the dark, and kept in the yard, near the mine, for at least two hours, while the authorities went to all barracks and corners, looking for and expelling to work those who were ill and did not want to go out" ^[23]. At the same time, for offenses or refusal to work, prisoners were waiting for an even greater deterioration in living conditions – "they also froze in the old monastery plank dovecote, where they were locked up in the cold in their underwear for refusing to work" ^[28]. "More than thirty years have passed, and the frost passes over the skin and now, as I remember, how not hours, not days, but years passed in this inhuman, wild life, and people died like flies in autumn, from hard work, from hunger, from the burning consciousness of their innocence and undeserved shame and punishment" ^[23] – summarizes the peasant-Tolstoyan D.E. Morgachev.

The high frequency of occurrence of the category "Power" is also observed in women's texts – some girls were seriously interested in the policy pursued by the Soviet government. Many of them, for example, the writer T.M. Cardinalovskaya, read banned books and magazines: "I learned from the magazine "Byloye" that revolutionaries in prison declared a hunger strike as a means of combating the prison regime – this method of protest was useful to me later when I myself was arrested" ^{[20, p. 52]}. As you can see, the prisoners mention that the hunger strike at that time was a fairly effective method of fighting for their rights in the camp.

Nevertheless, many prisoners note that it was during that period that the foundation of all further repressive policies was laid. K.N. Golitsyn says that "in the era of war communism, before the short-lived flower of the NEP had time to bloom, the authorities clearly showed that they would not stop at the most cruel means if they helped to achieve goals. The breaking of the usual social forms, the persecution of religion, hunger and cold, arrests, shootings – all this, unprecedented and unheard of could give rise – agree! – any feelings you want: horror, indignation, indignation, but by no means sympathy and sympathy" ^{[14, p. 166]}.

         It should be noted that "outliers" are noticeable on the graph of frequencies of joint occurrence, especially for female texts – high, atypical for the study of the frequency of occurrence of the categories "Death", "War", "Art". These outliers are caused by a small number of texts that fall into this subgroup – on a smaller number of texts, individual characteristics of the author's texts appear more clearly.

In the subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1923 to 1929" there were 11 documents in which 13174 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators. In the subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1923 to 1929" there were 23 documents in which 43673 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators.

Fig. 3. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1923 to 1929"

Fig. 4. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,

subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1923 to 1929"

Both on the male and female graphs of the frequency of joint occurrence of categories, the usual connections of the categories "Work" – "Life" and "Work" – "Power" are noticeable.

Of the unusual connections that I would like to dwell on, the connection "Power" – "War" in men's texts attracts attention. Basically, the authors who fell into this group criticize the government in the context of influencing the victory in the civil war.

         The repressed engineer I.L. Abramovich writes that "with the help of state–owned, obedient historians, Stalin created a whole complex of false versions about the betrayal of a number of party leaders and at the same time a legend about his outstanding role in the October Revolution, the Civil War and the construction of socialism in the USSR" ^{[1, p. 5]}. He continues, saying that "as a result of the removal from the leadership (and then repression) of opposition members, people who did not play any significant role in the preparation and conduct of the October Revolution or in the civil War were promoted to leading positions in the party and the country" ^{[1, p. 52]}.

In the subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1930 to 1934" there were 12 documents in which 14055 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators. In the subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1930 to 1934" there were 22 documents in which 27256 text fragments were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators.

Fig. 5. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1930 to 1934"

Fig. 6. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,

subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1930 to 1934"

The main connections in both male and female texts are "Work" – "Power" and "Work" – "Life".

At the same time, the role of the category "Art" in combination with the category "Work" is also observed in women's texts.

This is due to the fact that this subgroup includes the memoirs of many women who found themselves in camp art – for example, as actresses or artists. Female prisoners talk about the "indulgences" they received while working as artists in the camps: "In view of the value of the works and materials, for periods I was allowed to work late and sleep in the workshop ... And the privilege of solitude and spending the night in the workshop was for me a gift of fate and a holiday of memories" ^{[2, p. 35]}. Working in an art workshop was a real salvation for them, because "when there are no orders, common work is hard, rough – dragging stones, digging the ground, working in the kitchen, washing latrines" ^{[2, p. 66]}. The whole camp life, including everyday life and work, for people of art was connected with creativity and performances on stage. "Paradoxical as it may sound, there was art in the camp, in the hardest, most terrible conditions" ^{[5, p. 172]}.

Talking about the theater in the camps, women pay attention to the cast. In addition to completely "camp" theaters that arose "on the basis of a cultural brigade, the so-called concert brigades of the QUO, cultural and educational department" ^{[5, p. 173]}, consisting exclusively of prisoners, there were other formations – "very strong troupes that half consisted of prisoners and half of freelancers" ^{[5, p. 173]}. p. 173]. In addition, it is noted that many theaters functioned only on fragile female shoulders: "Let me remind you: the scenery, costumes, decorations, decoration – all by the poor hands of women themselves. Only women. Both lovers and old men were played by the same women. There are no men" ^{[24, p. 268]}.

It was very difficult to get into the active cultural brigade or the camp theater troupe, but it opened up significant prospects for the prisoners, and they also had a chance for a relatively quiet life filled with art.

Actors from the camps were recruited into theater troupes for the most part by the leaders or directors of camp theaters, who were often prisoners themselves. The actors who got into the theater continued to be grateful to these people until the end of their days. About one of the directors, the author writes: "He saved me in the literal sense of the word, he pulled me out of the camp, out of the prospects, as they say, of general work and insisted that I be taken to the theater, although I still knew absolutely nothing to do, except to play some kind of student program on the piano" ^{[5, p. 172]}.

         And indeed, there was something to be grateful for. Prisoners who played in the theater had much more freedom of movement compared to their cellmates. In addition, their living conditions were much better than those of ordinary prisoners, which primarily concerns nutrition: "we took bread with us, and we somehow managed to get by in the theater: someone received parcels, someone went to nearby shops, got something, well, in In general, I didn't feel hungry" ^{[5, p. 172]}.

In the subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1935 to 1941" there were 91 documents in which 59110 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators. In the subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1935 to 1941" there were 214 documents in which 218456 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators.

Fig. 7. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1935 to 1941"

Fig. 8. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,

subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1935 to 1941"

Again, one can observe the standard high frequencies of the occurrence of the categories "Work", "Life", "Power", but there are also noticeable increased frequencies of joint occurrence in female texts of the categories "Death" and "Power".

GULAG prisoner, historian A.L. Voitolovskaya, vividly illustrating the bloodiest period of repression, writes that "in just one winter, the black chains of prisoners who passed by us on Vorkuta turned into a large column. All aged 30-40 years. Each separately and all together they could lift a great burden of useful deeds on their shoulders, and they are destined to become a mountain of corpses. The value of one life is immeasurable. The death of everyone in the prime of life is a grief. It was not individual human lives that perished here, but the beautiful best part of the revolutionary generation perished. Is it possible to measure the value of these losses? Their spiritual passion gave birth to creativity. Their fiery word was the alarm of the revolution at the moment of its formation and victories. Their high moral qualities were the germ of the moral principles of the future. They are our epoch in the period of the highest take–off" ^{[13, p. 169]}.

In the subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1942 to 1945" there were 27 documents in which 16567 text fragments were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators. In the subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1942 to 1945" there were 102 documents in which 100614 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators.

Fig. 9. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1942 to 1945"

Fig. 10. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,

subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1942 to 1945"

In men's texts, the category of "Power" stands out vividly – talking about the probable causes of repression of this period, engineer A. A. Bobrov notes: "... this was done with a double purpose: to concentrate specialists of different profiles and such a high class in Norilsk, so that later in the shortest possible time in incredibly difficult conditions of the north to design and build a giant mining and metallurgical industry and, if possible, exterminate, including by natural death, potential enemies of the Soviet government" ^{[8, p. 250]}.

In addition to the categories "Power", "Life" and "Work", which are traditional for the study of high frequencies of occurrence, the category "War" is distinguished in male texts.

         The texts mainly contain criticism of the Soviet leadership and its decisions during the Great Patriotic War, as well as the attitude towards the participation of the Soviet Union in the war. Thus, A.A. Valyum says that "the prisoners, however, did not even hide the fact that, having been captured or occupied, on pain of starvation, some of them worked for the Germans, others served in the military formations created by the Germans, others, not understanding the national policy of the Soviet state, took part in nationalist movement" ^{[12, p. 120]}. The repressed literary critic A.V. Belinkov asserts that "all the catastrophes that have broken out in the world: wars, persecution of people, the tension of the international situation are the fruit of communist ideas" ^{[6, p. 260]}.

In women's texts, in turn, the increased frequency of occurrence of the categories "Family" and "Children" is noticeable – women vividly write about separation from children, parents, husbands. Linguist L.I. Bogoraz tells: "Then we said goodbye, my son followed me into the yard, and when the car (a passenger car, not a Black Raven) started, he ran after her a little. He was then seventeen and a half years old. When I saw him running after the car, I felt like a blow to the heart and thought: how could I leave him?" ^{[9, p. 89]}.

In the subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1946 to 1953" there were 49 documents in which 42766 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators. In the subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1946 to 1953" there were 214 documents in which 15,1007 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators.

Fig. 11. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1946 to 1953"

Fig. 12. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,subgroup "men, dates of arrest from 1946 to 1953"

In women's texts, again, as in the previous period, an increased frequency of the joint occurrence of the categories "Family" and "Children" is noticeable. The famous actress and singer T.I. Leshchenko-Sukhomlina tells about her friend, a prisoner of the GULAG: "Dying of polar jaundice, she instructed me, if I survived, to see her son Sasha in Moscow, to give him greetings from her mother, which I later performed when I was already released" ^{[22, p. 457]}.

         The artist A.A. Andreeva tells that even in the camps people tried to show feelings and fell in love: "But life is life, and feelings are feelings. And a person is a living person. Despite the indescribable conditions for meetings, people still crawled under the wire, met, scary, ugly, humiliating, somewhere over a cesspool, under a fence... But still they met, they clung to each other... and women got pregnant. And gave birth. There were "mom camps" where a pregnant woman was sent, she gave birth there and was with the child for two years, then the child was taken to an orphanage, and the mother was sent back to the camp" ^{[3, p. 184]}.

         The authors, former prisoners, often demonstrate what a catastrophic impact the GULAG had on entire families: "By that time, the repression had scattered our whole family: a 77-year-old grandfather, along with his daughter and her family, was exiled to Prokopyevsk, his father went underground (arrested in 1949), his brother Ivan wandered through the villages, helped the lads in in the forest, and then went to Nikolaev to the shipyard, my mother and three small children lived in other people's huts – ours was taken away, other tenants were moved in, Riga was burned down, and the stable was dismantled" ^{[30, p. 85]}.

         Actress T.K. Okunevskaya confirms this thesis, saying that "the prison is full - not full, as in the 48th, but the holy place is never empty – all the cells are full ... I wonder what kind of decree is rampant now... the security guards live by decrees coming from the very top: arrest those who have been abroad; arrest children whose parents were arrested and shot in the 37th year, even if they are only 17 years old, like Lenochka Kosareva; arrest all under-aged "former" children; arrest all those who communicated with foreigners; arrest all those who allow themselves to live not on the orders of... like this our head of personnel in the theater, terry the head of the security service, persuaded me to join the party...I ridiculously approach all the decrees... they have a class sense developed like a predator's sense of smell... to arrest again those who were arrested in the 37th year and accidentally released... " ^{[25, p. 311]}.

         Both female and male texts show an increased frequency of occurrence of the category "War". The prisoners also talked about the impact of the Great Patriotic War on the popularity of the Soviet government and the party leadership. It is noted that "in the first month of the war, pure and bright patriotism embraced the broadest Russian masses" ^{[26, p. 13]}, who "were ready to sacrifice the last silverware for the war" ^{[26, p. 13]}.

         In addition, there are numerous stories about the attacks of the Germans, during which correctional labor camps were in the occupied territory. People found themselves in a difficult situation, because "both of them are enemies for us, because these also declared us provocateurs and fascists and spies" ^{[27, p. 215]}.

         The war had a direct impact on the lives of prisoners, because "political prisoners were not released into the war" ^{[27, p. 215]}. And even when the war ended, "a decree was issued not to release" ^{[27, p. 215]}. That is, people were forced to continue serving time "until further notice", which became a big blow for them: "It is very difficult to sit without a term, and I got sick. I started having seizures, like falling" ^{[27, p. 215]}.

The prisoners note that the war had a significant impact on their life and work, which explains the high frequency of joint occurrence of the category "War" with the categories "Life" and "Work". The life in the camps, as well as the attitude of the bosses, changed significantly with the advent of the war – realizing the scale of the war, the prisoners tried to help the front. Ballerina L.L. Bershadskaya writes that "women worked in a factory where they sewed underwear for the Soviet Army" ^[7]. The bosses made encouraging speeches every day: "Friends! Comrades! Our sons, brothers, fathers are fighting at the front, shedding blood, defending the Motherland! We are obliged to help with our work..." ^[17] and "We are prisoners – this is grief, but remember that the most terrible grief is war! Our relatives in the wild are also starving, but they work and give all their strength, helping the Red Army to smash the enemy" ^[17].

Women argue that in exile and correctional labor camps they "experienced a heavy feeling from the fact that in such a difficult time for the Motherland they could do nothing, absolutely nothing for the front, for the defense of the country." ^{[18, p. 298]}. At the same time, men "drove wheelbarrows instead of fighting at the front or working at defense enterprises in the rear" ^{[18, p. 299]}.

In the subgroup "women, dates of arrest since 1953" there were 5 documents in which 4394 fragments of text were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators. In the subgroup "men, dates of arrest since 1953" there were 61 documents in which 89477 text fragments were indexed in accordance with the system of categories and indicators.

Fig. 13. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,subgroup "women, dates of arrest since 1953"

Fig. 14. Frequency of joint occurrence of categories,subgroup "men, dates of arrest since 1953"

Talking about the government during this period, the authors note the softening of the regime: "... the mood of the state machine itself changed: there was no more revolutionary fervor and zeal – Stalin shot him in the 30-40s" ^[10].

In addition, since this group mainly includes the memories of representatives of the dissident movement, hatred of the Soviet government is noticeable: "We did not plan to create some new system in return - we needed an explosion, a moment of the highest tension of forces, when it would finally be possible to destroy all these evil spirits, when suddenly all over Moscow will rise in OUR entire growth and irresistibly will go to storm all these Lubyanka, party committees and ministries" ^[10]. Often in memoirs there are also instructions on how to behave during interrogation: "never admit to anything, especially membership in the organization; do not recognize other members if they show; hide their views and pretend to be a Soviet person: act out surprise, bewilderment, indignation and other psychological techniques during interrogation" ^[10].

The increased frequency of occurrence of the category "Religion" is interesting, especially in women's texts. Through the allegories and other artistic means of the text of the human rights activist Z.A. Krakhmalnikova, one can see the attitude to Soviet anti-religious propaganda: "Man hates God. He wants to kill Him. First he kills God in himself, then he wants to kill Him in me, and if I don't let him kill my God, he puts me in prison, in a camp or exiles me to the desert" ^{[21, p. 6]}. Teacher O.I. Yafa notes that in the camp "more than for daily bread, they starved for mental food, and yearned for beauty, and sought God, and were tormented by eternal "cursed" questions..." ^{[29, p. 94]}. Z.A. Krakhmalnikova writes: "My struggle for freedom in prison it could only begin after God had mercy on me and helped me overcome fear" ^{[21, p. 126]}.

But in men's texts there is also a mention of God – but in a figurative sense: "Faith in the party as a church is a characteristic feature of the party members of the 20–30s; mystical faith in Stalin as God is a feature of the popular consciousness of the 30-40s and 50s. This mystical belief in the infallibility of the people, class, party, "collective", the belief that "we" are always right before "I", is beneficial to any totalitarian system and is encouraged by it" ^{[11, p. 35]}.

***

Content analysis of memoirs of former GULAG prisoners in subgroups by gender and stage of political repression allows us to draw the following conclusions. 

As in the previous stages of the study, the categories of "Power", "Life" and "Work" dominate in all subgroups of documents, regardless of the stage of political repression and the gender of the authors of the memoirs. This confirms the thesis that in the memory of former prisoners, first of all, memories associated with daily survival in the camp and overcoming inhuman living and working conditions leave an imprint.

At the same time, it can be noted that in small subgroups by the number of incoming documents, for example, in the subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1918 to 1922", significant deviations in the frequency of occurrence are observed – bright connections of atypical categories are revealed. Conversely, the more texts and the larger the studied subgroup, the more common features of the perception of camp life appear. This confirms the hypothesis about the massive nature of large arrays of thematically similar texts.

In addition, local deviations from general trends are observed in a number of subgroups. So, for example, in the subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1930 to 1934", an increased frequency of occurrence of the category "Art" with other categories is noticeable, which may be due to the fact that it was from 1934 that cultural and educational units (EHF) spread throughout the GULAG system and cultural and educational departments appeared (Status QUO), regulating leisure time in camps.

Another interesting observation is that in the texts of authors who served time during the post-war stage of repression (from 1946 to 1953), the increased frequency of occurrence of the category "War" is noticeable.

From the point of view of gender differences, the conclusions we made at the previous stages of the study are confirmed ^[15] – in women's texts, the frequency of occurrence of "human", family categories ("Family", "Children", "Love") is on average higher than in men's. In turn, in male texts, regardless of the stage of repression, significantly higher frequencies of occurrence of the category "Power" are noted than in female texts.

Nevertheless, the deviations discussed above cannot be called significant. Despite the presence of particular features inherent in individual subgroups in the frequencies of the common occurrence of categories, in the aggregate, the stage of political repression affected the perception and transmission of memories of the camp stage of the life of former prisoners insignificantly.

In summary, we note that the memoirs of former GULAG prisoners are an actual and irreplaceable source for studying the memory of the GULAG, and a set of methods for working with the collection of memoirs allows you to obtain and systematize extensive information about the perception and translation of the camp stage of life.