Today is the anniversary of the Qissa Khwaani Bazaar massacre. On April 23, 1930, British troops opened fire on hundreds of non-violent Pashtun protestors at Qissa Khwaani Bazaar in Peshawar, British India (now in Pakistan). Between 200 and 400 people were killed.
The protestors belonged to the Khudai Khidmatgar movement, who fought for social reforms and Pashtun self-determination through non-violent means. Activists and workers from the movement had experienced massacres earlier – in Takkar and Hathikhel. Their last massacre took place in 1948 in Babbra, where around 600 people were fired upon and killed by the newly-formed Pakistani government.
The atrocities of the British empire and the early Pakistani government have long been forgotten by most. Still, every year, elders and students in northwestern Pakistan gather to honor the sacrifices of the Khudai Khidmatgar activists. As the saying goes: never forgive and never forget.
on this day, I would like to commemorate the extensive Jewish resistance that existed in almost every Nazi-occupied nation. from the streets of Warsaw, where Jewish resistance perplexed and bewildered the Nazis so much that a top German general lost his job because of it (and where we inadvertently inspired the Warsaw Uprising) to Sobibor, where Jews killed SS guards and burned a death camp to the ground, enraging the Nazis so much that they ordered the camp’s remains bulldozed into the ground, to Treblinka, where Jews escaped through the barbed wire into freedom and managed to survive to meet the Red Army the next year.
Jews did not go passively into the gas chambers. Abba Kovner, Mordechai Anielewicz, the Bielski brothers, and many others ensured that.
the image will always live in my mind: during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a Jewish woman armed with two pistols approached General Jurgen Stroop’s command group and opened fire. Stroop’s flame troops set her on fire, but she continued shooting until she collapsed. as Stroop walked over to gloat, she spat on his shoes.
the united states is responsible for the denial of the armenian genocide. to be clear, turkey is the mostto blame for the systematic revision of history, but the united states is entirely complicit in that revision. the armenian cause–that is, the violent persecution of armenians, which began in the late nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth, culminating in the armenian genocide–was wildly popular in the united states and much of the christian west. if you’re american, your grandparents or great-grandparents may remember the “starving armenians” whose infamous, ongoing tragedy became dinnertime encouragement to clean their plates. you can read about america’s overwhelming response to overseas armenian persecution as it happened in peter balakian’s the burning tigris(available here in full, for free). you’ll also find an interesting breakdown of the movement to deny the armenian genocide and america’s participation in that movement in the epilogue, “turkish denial of the armenian genocide and america’s complicity” (372).
the u.s. government (“turkey is not endeavoring to undermine our institutions, to penetrate our labor organizations by pernicious propaganda, and to foment disorder and conspiracies against our domestic peace in the interest of a world revolution” (376) – secretary of state charles evans hughes, “[anticipating america’s] cold war alliance with turkey” several decades in advance); u.s. corporate community (“the armenians were moved from the inhospitable regions where they were not welcome and could not actually prosper but to the most delightful parts of syria [well, if the der zor desert counts as such]…where the climate is as benign as in florida and california whither new york millionaires journey each year for health and recreation…. and all this was done at great expense of money and effort” (376) – retired u.s. admiral colby chester, his eyes fixed on promised turkish oil); and even hollywood (“after a series of exchanges between the two governments, the state department yielded to turkey’s demand and got MGM to drop the project [a movie based on the forty days of musa dagh, a novel about the armenian genocide]” (377)); enabled the denial of the armenian genocide, such that by the 1930s the armenian genocide, once an important part of american public discourse, “was a narrative lost to the public” (377).
a global armenian consciousness emerged in the 1960s, one dedicated to the memory of the armenian genocide. in the united states, “armenians came out en masse to remember and to educate the world” (378). in response, the turkish government and turkish diaspora organizations kicked off their own campaign, one designed to counter “armenian nationalist propaganda” supposedly invented by “aged armenians…most of them already aged eighty or more” whose “[coached] statements are of no use whatever for historical research,” according to one turkish pamphlet. american academics like princeton professors bernard lewis and norman itzkowitz and ucla professor stanford j. shaw and his wife, ezel kural shaw, authors of the ottoman empire and modern turkey famously joined the movement, rewriting history (sometimes even rewriting themselves, like bernard lewis). an infamous instance of turkish state-sponsored denial was exposed in the 1990s, when heath lowry (also a princeton professor) was revealed to be on the turkish government’s payroll while writing “articles and op-ed columns denying the genocide…[and lobbying] in congress to defeat successive armenian genocide commemorative resolutions” (383). you can read the full (and much more complicated) story in the burning tigris, pages 383-385.
turkey’s strategic importance during the cold war (and armenians’ irrelevance, especially because the armenian soviet socialist republic was hardly america’s cold wartime ally) meant that the united states was unwilling to officially recognize the armenian genocide. a 1984 armenian genocide commemoration resolution was defeated with president ronald reagan’s help when “the turkish government threatened to close down u.s. military bases in turkey and to terminate defense contracts with u.s. firms” (387). even after the end of the cold war, turkish influence on american politics with respect to the armenian genocide was significant. in 2000, when the house of representatives subcommittee on international relations and human rights passed a nonbinding resolution asking then-president bill clinton to refer to the mass murder of armenians as “genocide” in his annual april 24 statement, the turkish government “warned the united states that it would close its air bases to u.s. planes, including those near the iraqi border, and cancel weapons contracts with the united states” and “told the united states that the passage of such a resolution would ruin u.s. relations with turkey” (389). do i even need to spell out what happened next?
the denial of the armenian genocide, like the genocide itself, was and issystematic. the turkish government (with the help of the united states government) has done its absolute best to quash recognition of the mass murder of 1.5 million armenians as genocide. this is a fight in which american citizens have a stake, and a say. (which is not to suggest that non-americans don’t. you are part of this, too.) please, please use your voice for the better of an unremembered people and their unremembered genocide. read a book, or three. talk to people about what you’ve learned, and demand that it become part of your state or district’s social studies curriculum. counter denialism where you come across it. do not allow armenians’ narrative to be once more lost to the public.
Okay, I knowHP fandom hatesthe way Slytherin was treated in the books, with all its implications. I knowJKR’s belief that all blood supremacists go to Slytherin sounds implausible and dodgy. I know there are kids who have been mocked/side-eyed for being Pottermore-sorted into Slytherin. Hell I know that I’m pretty ehhhh on JKR’s Pottermore reveal that Peter Pettigrew was actually probably a Slytherin. There’s a lot of worthy criticism to be made there & an understandable instinct to want to redeem the house from its less than savoury reputation.
Wizarding culture is fucked up and we shouldn’t shy away from admitting that. There’s a difference between being a Slytherin in our world and being a Slytherin in their world. You are not part of wizarding culture and not subject to the problems that comes with that.
Which is a position reallyworth keeping in mind in anyfandom discussion, especially one concerning Slytherin and its position in HPverse.
2) There have been a couple of posts floating around, defending Salazar Slytherin that I’ve seen lately (x,x), claiming that canon + history are somehow ‘evidence’ that Salazar Slytherin had the ‘right’ idea - and that therefore, canonically, Slytherin was a nice guy and not a bigot. And that is completeandutterbullshit.The rest of this essay is a copy of a response to the original post that I’ve made before, but I’m posting it again because apparently this idea refuses to die a permanent death.
There’s a distinction to be made between headcanon and canon here. You’re free to headcanon Salazar Slytherin however you want, but it’s disingenuous to suggest that there is ‘canonical proof’ for a headcanon when the bulk of canon, well, contradicts it. However, it also pays to be critical about howyou’re headcanoning something and to ask yourself whyyou’re headcanoning Salazar Slytherin’s racism/bigotry away & what you achieve by it - and even more importantly, what real world issues does it feed into/reflect?
3) JKR wrote the persecution of muggleborns as a really reallyclear parallel for anti-semitic persecution through the ages. It’s reallyhard to ignore that when you have things like the Muggleborn Commission (and Mary Cattermole’s trial in Deathly Hallows), propaganda titled with things like “Muggleborns and the Threat they Pose to Wizarding Society”, or hell, even the twisted version of muggle studies the Carrows teach the kids in DH - muggles are wild animals etc. Now, suggesting Salazar Slytherin’s views made ‘sense’ because witches were being persecuted c. the 10th century is
a) historically inaccurate, therefore, completely baseless,
b) is canonically inaccurate because wix in canon have used a variety of spells to save themselves from death, notably, Wendelin the Weird who used Flame-Freezing charms to save herself from burning & the Duc de Trefle-Picques who escaped beheading (and faked his death) using a Disillusionment charm on his head and
c) it suggests that his assertion that muggleborns were a ‘real’ threat were rightand by extension, that that language of justification is all right, as long as a ‘case’ can be made for a ‘threat’ - which has all kinds of really messed up implications re. the real world where the language of ‘threat’ is used repeatedly to justify violence against immigrants, racial minorities, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, sexual minorities and yes, was used to justify the Holocaust (this is basicallythe thesis of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that the Jews were behind some big ‘conspiracy’ to take over the world, which is one of the texts Hitler built his campaign on).
d) the real world implications areimportant here because HP hasa huge social element to it and if HP fans are going to pat themselves on the back for being more socially aware & tolerant than other fans, then its worth being aware about what kind of views in our society Salazar Slytherin’s declaration that muggleborns were a threat to wizard society (despite them being a relatively powerless minority) is meant to reflect.
e) in doing so, you’ve actually fallen hook, line and sinker for Salazar Slytherin’s own propaganda.
Cool?
Cool.
And now, the really long essay in which I cover all the arguments I’ve seen in favour of Salazar Slytherin in depth using canon, Pottermore & historical & academic sources to talk about why Salazar Slytherin has no foot to stand on. A summary of the arguments I make:
A bigot is alwaysa bigot, no matter how much they talk about ‘threat’ and ‘risk’. This language has been used in the past to exclude minorities, Salazar Slytherin uses it to exclude muggleborns - there’s a really clear principle here.
Salazar Slytherin lived in the 10th century, the witch hunts did not start until the late fourteenth century and really only intensified during the 16th and 17th centuries. Incidentally, the worst of the hunts took place in Germany and not in Britain, though the Scottish witch hunts of the 17th century were pretty bad.
The people of the middle ages held a lot of contradictory views on magic and religion, so even though a bunch of texts concerning folk religious and magic practices were destroyed (though there are lots of exceptions to this) they weren’t only a) studying the Bible and nothing else and b) folk magic really was a thing even during the medieval period.
Witch burnings were mostly to do with getting rid of unwanted people/people who were felt to be ‘burdens’ or ‘undesirable’ but had no real ‘crimes’ that they could be put away for. Socially marginalized groups usually bore the brunt of this persecution. A lot of money-making was involved as well. Actual magic was not always the point of contention.
JKR has independently confirmed that a) Salazar Slytherin’s views were statistical outliers for his time and b) that the belief that muggles were dangerous really only gained traction afterthe establishment of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692.
JKR has also independently deconstructed the idea that witches and wizards had anything to fear by the way persecution in the 14th century, using the character of Wendelin the Weird to do so.
Cuthbert Binns is an unreliable narrator, the wizarding world is highly corrupt and prejudiced - JKR literally spent seven books telling us this was so.
JKR independently confirmed, on Pottermore, that Salazar S. placed the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. Also, really, there’s a big difference between a safety room (e.g. a nuclear fallout bunker) and a room that has stone pillars made of snakes, snakes with emeralds for eyes and one giant statue of Salazar Slytherin whose mouth opens when you say “Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.” in Parseltongue. Sounds more like a shrine to myself, made by Salazar Slytherin to me tbqh.
David Cameron, Donald Trump & Tony Abbott use this same language of ‘risk’ and ‘danger’ to society to explain why immigrants shouldn’t be allowed into their countries; that’sba s i c a l l y what Salazar Slytherin’s views boil down to in the end.
Hit read more because it’s really long. Feel free to reblog this.
Okay, I knowHP fandom hatesthe way Slytherin was treated in the books, with all its implications. I knowJKR’s belief that all blood supremacists go to Slytherin sounds implausible and dodgy. I know there are kids who have been mocked/side-eyed for being Pottermore-sorted into Slytherin. Hell I know that I’m pretty ehhhh on JKR’s Pottermore reveal that Peter Pettigrew was actually probably a Slytherin. There’s a lot of worthy criticism to be made there & an understandable instinct to want to redeem the house from its less than savoury reputation.
Wizarding culture is fucked up and we shouldn’t shy away from admitting that. There’s a difference between being a Slytherin in our world and being a Slytherin in their world. You are not part of wizarding culture and not subject to the problems that comes with that.
Which is a position reallyworth keeping in mind in anyfandom discussion, especially one concerning Slytherin and its position in HPverse.
2) There have been a couple of posts floating around, defending Salazar Slytherin that I’ve seen lately (x,x), claiming that canon + history are somehow ‘evidence’ that Salazar Slytherin had the ‘right’ idea - and that therefore, canonically, Slytherin was a nice guy and not a bigot. And that is completeandutterbullshit.The rest of this essay is a copy of a response to the original post that I’ve made before, but I’m posting it again because apparently this idea refuses to die a permanent death.
There’s a distinction to be made between headcanon and canon here. You’re free to headcanon Salazar Slytherin however you want, but it’s disingenuous to suggest that there is ‘canonical proof’ for a headcanon when the bulk of canon, well, contradicts it. However, it also pays to be critical about howyou’re headcanoning something and to ask yourself whyyou’re headcanoning Salazar Slytherin’s racism/bigotry away & what you achieve by it - and even more importantly, what real world issues does it feed into/reflect?
3) JKR wrote the persecution of muggleborns as a really reallyclear parallel for anti-semitic persecution through the ages. It’s reallyhard to ignore that when you have things like the Muggleborn Commission (and Mary Cattermole’s trial in Deathly Hallows), propaganda titled with things like “Muggleborns and the Threat they Pose to Wizarding Society”, or hell, even the twisted version of muggle studies the Carrows teach the kids in DH - muggles are wild animals etc. Now, suggesting Salazar Slytherin’s views made ‘sense’ because witches were being persecuted c. the 10th century is
a) historically inaccurate, therefore, completely baseless,
b) is canonically inaccurate because wix in canon have used a variety of spells to save themselves from death, notably, Wendelin the Weird who used Flame-Freezing charms to save herself from burning & the Duc de Trefle-Picques who escaped beheading (and faked his death) using a Disillusionment charm on his head and
c) it suggests that his assertion that muggleborns were a ‘real’ threat were rightand by extension, that that language of justification is all right, as long as a ‘case’ can be made for a ‘threat’ - which has all kinds of really messed up implications re. the real world where the language of ‘threat’ is used repeatedly to justify violence against immigrants, racial minorities, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, sexual minorities and yes, was used to justify the Holocaust (this is basicallythe thesis of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that the Jews were behind some big ‘conspiracy’ to take over the world, which is one of the texts Hitler built his campaign on).
d) the real world implications areimportant here because HP hasa huge social element to it and if HP fans are going to pat themselves on the back for being more socially aware & tolerant than other fans, then its worth being aware about what kind of views in our society Salazar Slytherin’s declaration that muggleborns were a threat to wizard society (despite them being a relatively powerless minority) is meant to reflect.
e) in doing so, you’ve actually fallen hook, line and sinker for Salazar Slytherin’s own propaganda.
Cool?
Cool.
And now, the really long essay in which I cover all the arguments I’ve seen in favour of Salazar Slytherin in depth using canon, Pottermore & historical & academic sources to talk about why Salazar Slytherin has no foot to stand on. A summary of the arguments I make:
A bigot is alwaysa bigot, no matter how much they talk about ‘threat’ and ‘risk’. This language has been used in the past to exclude minorities, Salazar Slytherin uses it to exclude muggleborns - there’s a really clear principle here.
Salazar Slytherin lived in the 10th century, the witch hunts did not start until the late fourteenth century and really only intensified during the 16th and 17th centuries. Incidentally, the worst of the hunts took place in Germany and not in Britain, though the Scottish witch hunts of the 17th century were pretty bad.
The people of the middle ages held a lot of contradictory views on magic and religion, so even though a bunch of texts concerning folk religious and magic practices were destroyed (though there are lots of exceptions to this) they weren’t only a) studying the Bible and nothing else and b) folk magic really was a thing even during the medieval period.
Witch burnings were mostly to do with getting rid of unwanted people/people who were felt to be ‘burdens’ or ‘undesirable’ but had no real ‘crimes’ that they could be put away for. Socially marginalized groups usually bore the brunt of this persecution. A lot of money-making was involved as well. Actual magic was not always the point of contention.
JKR has independently confirmed that a) Salazar Slytherin’s views were statistical outliers for his time and b) that the belief that muggles were dangerous really only gained traction afterthe establishment of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692.
JKR has also independently deconstructed the idea that witches and wizards had anything to fear by the way persecution in the 14th century, using the character of Wendelin the Weird to do so.
Cuthbert Binns is an unreliable narrator, the wizarding world is highly corrupt and prejudiced - JKR literally spent seven books telling us this was so.
JKR independently confirmed, on Pottermore, that Salazar S. placed the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. Also, really, there’s a big difference between a safety room (e.g. a nuclear fallout bunker) and a room that has stone pillars made of snakes, snakes with emeralds for eyes and one giant statue of Salazar Slytherin whose mouth opens when you say “Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.” in Parseltongue. Sounds more like a shrine to myself, made by Salazar Slytherin to me tbqh.
David Cameron, Donald Trump & Tony Abbott use this same language of ‘risk’ and ‘danger’ to society to explain why immigrants shouldn’t be allowed into their countries; that’sba s i c a l l y what Salazar Slytherin’s views boil down to in the end.
Hit read more because it’s really long. Feel free to reblog this.
“First, the war wasn’t genocidal until Ozai became a moron and decided to contradict the point of conquering a continent by burning it down. Air nomads don’t count, that was specifically to kill the Avatar. Second, benders are by and large, soldiers. Third, as the other dude put, they were likely after Hama, an escaped waterbender. That he killed an innocent is shitty but happened because she told him she was the one he was after.
I think we’ve finally found it, folks. The coldest take in the universe, here for your viewing (dis)pleasure.
turkey and azerbaijan are attacking armenia right now, and it’s 1915 all over again because the world is distracted and people are too busy wondering if they’re gonna live or die, and who gives a shit about my country anyway? my mum told me to tell my friends and explain to them what’s happening and that we are the victims in this war because azerbaijan is spreading lies and people are believing their lies and i told her, what good is that going to do? do you think anyone’s going to come to our aid? is russia going to help us? is america? is england? erdogan said they will finish what their ancestors started, and he means genocide. he means ethnic cleansing. he means to massacre every last one of us. and in doing so admitted to the very same thing turkey has spent 105 years denying. i don’t know who to tell and what good telling people will do because we’re a small, insignificant country, and we have nothing to offer to the people in power, the handful who rule the world. so i sit here with my pain and i feel helpless. i know there’s twitter threads and links to petitions and people being urged to contact their senators, and sorry if im being pessimistic, but azerbaijan has been attacking us for the last 22 years, and though we defend ourselves, we can’t do anything to stop them. they’ve violated ceasefires (and geneva conventions) multiple times. i don’t think they’ll rest until every last one of us is dead.
we just want peace. we just want to live peacefully. we’re not asking for a lot here.
hey either reblog this or unfollow me
Watching this happen I’ve been so scared there is going to be another genocide and nobody would notice. My whole life I’ve hated how forgettable armenian people seem to be to the world. Protect armenian people or rot, please don’t turn a blind eye to us again. And same as above, reblog or unfollow.
here are some cold hard facts for those interested:
1. after losing the war in 1994, the az government spent the next nearly 30 years on a) dehumanizing armenians, b) blaming armenians and losing the war for the terrible socioeconomic state of the people in this oil-rich country while president and his family steal all of the money their oil produces, c) pushing armenophobic propaganda on the population since kindergarten age, d) oppressing and humiliating the other ethnic minorities living on its territories, e) regularly violating the ceasefire of 1994 whenever the internal situation get tense and the ppl get angry, f) selectively sending the youths of said ethnic minorities to the bloodiest parts of the frontline whenever said ceasefire violations happen, g) suppressing free speech, arresting journalists, harassing and threatening those who dare to voice their discontent, etc.
2. in early 1920s, josef stalin, in order to appease the new turkish “republic” and its leader ataturk, with the hopes of using turkey as the base for spreading the communist revolution further into asia, passed artsakh (also known as nagorno karabagh) with its 95% ethnic armenian population onto the new created turkic azerbaijan republic (a country that did not exist before 1918, that’s what newly created means), despite the opposition from the people of the region in question and the republic of armenia.
3. during the 70 or so years that artsakh was part of the azerbaijan republic as an autonomous region, the gov of azerbaijan did everything they could to a) suppress the development of the region, b) change the demographic of the region by moving turkic population to artsakh
4. in 1980s, the people of artsakh, utilizing their rights stipulated in the soviet constitution, petitioned both moscow and baku to be allowed to reunite with armenia. as a response to this, the azerbaijan government started large-scale repressions against the organizers and activists of the reunification movement. arrests on made up charges, threats and violence followed (more info on all that in the link provided below)
5. the people of artsakh then held a referendum as was their right under soviet constitution, and more than 90% of it’s population voted in favor of seceding from the azerbaijan republic. the response to this were the anti-armenian pogroms in baku and sumgait ( https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-01-18-mn-305-story.html)
6. all this grew into the first artsakh war, which azerbaijan lost, as mentioned in point 1.
to sum it up: artsakh was never a part of the independent azerbaijan republic, during it’s brief 70-year forced az control its indigenous armenian people were oppressed via various government policies, the people of artsakh deserve to live a free and happy life in their homeland, free of threats and fear of annihilation that is sure to happen if azerbaijan takes control of the region
to them, it’s just a territory and they want that territory without the people.
for further reading, check out this comprehensive timeline of the artsakh history up to 2017( when it was written)
while you are at it, read up on the armenian genocide and keep in mind that turkey, specifically for this war, moved syrian jihadists to azerbaijan to fight against armenia and artsakh. read up on the kind of internationally banned ammunition azerbaijan has been using against the civilians in artsakh capital, and then maybe make your judgement.
oh, and if anyone tries to frame this as an islam vs christianity thing, send them to hell, regardless of the side they claim to support, bc this isn’t it.
I reblogged a post about this yesterday, but is there something we can do other than spreading awareness?
spreading awareness is HUGE because azeris are spreading lies (mainly on twitter bc apparently thats the only social media they’re allowed to use atm? i haven’t verified this but it checks out with the dictator in powet lol) and it’s really really really important for us to counter their lies with FACTS. like there’s far few of us and we don’t have any bots lmao so it’s really hard to get people to listen to us.
cardi b apparently made a post about it, talking about how there’s a genocide going on in armenia, and azeris started harassing her so she sort of backtracked and said something like “i didn’t know there was two sides to this” and like it’s not the only person they’ve done this to!
this video on twitter actually explains their tactics (the girl in the video is basically translating azeri post) how they target people who speak out in support of armenia and make them rescind their support.
so yeah. it’s important for us to fight against the misinformation. and i think i have no respect for any armenian person who chooses to not engage because the internet is our battlefield. this is where we fight because it’s the least we can do. (note i said armenian person, because i don’t think its fair to ask this of people who don’t have a personal stake in this war).
I’m probably writing this post a week too late, but all those Western people/media comparing Putin to Hitler instead of Stalin, who was also a fascist AND ordered a genocide of Ukrainian people in 1930s, made me realise that maybe, perhaps, the West conveniently forgot about all war crimes and other monstrosities that Stalin commited. And maybe, perhaps, that’s one of the reasons that the West doesn’t really ‘get’ Eastern Europe and that too many “takes” on current war in Ukraine is just - ok I will use that word - disgusting.
Of course, conveniently for Putin, we don’t have time now to learn all history of Eastern Europe. But if you want to educate yourself and try to understand why Eastern Europe is so ‘hysteric’ about Russia now AND to understand today Russia more, I recommend you read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It’s a short novel - I believe between 100 and 200 pages - that describes one day in gulag camp and is based on experiences of the author himself. Gulag camps - if you don’t know - were forced labour camps in Siberia during USSR (and it’s really telling that English Wikipedia calls them “forced labour camps” while Polish one just outright calls them “concentration camps”), but the history of sending criminals and political opponents to Siberia dates waaaaaay back to tsarist Russia (and is still continued today). I believe most Eastern Europeans have that one person in family that was sent to Siberia, bc anyone could be sent if they were unlucky enough (in my case it was both my grand-grand-grandma and grand-grand-grandpa). That’s one of the reasons - I believe - we are so scared of Russia, because of generational trauma that is an effect of years and sometimes centuriesof oppression. As I remember it, the book is pretty disturbing, so please be warned, but if I could read it at age of 15, so can you.
Here’s a list of books about the GULAG system, if you’re interested in this theme.
1)Anne Applebaum - GULAG. It’s a non-fiiction book about the history of the soviet forced labour camps in Russia from it’s begging in ‘20 to it’s very end. Pulitzer Prize.
Later, she wrote a book about Holodomor - Stalin’s own way of ‘calming’ Ukraine by creating a famine. This genocide killed millions of Ukrainians.
3) Varlam Shalamov - Kolyma Stories.Shalamov was imprisioned not once but twice, and did his time in one of the most horrofic camps in Magadan Oblast.
4) Eugenia Ginzburg - Journey into the Whirlwind. A woman’s experience in the GULAG system. Later one of russian’s most finest theaters made a play out of this story and Jesus Christ, I saw it and I cried my eyes out. Ginzburg is also a mother of a russian writer Vasiliy Aksenov.
