Solovki was exiled both under the Russian Empire (this practice was introduced by Ivan the Terrible) and during the Soviet Union. The labor camp on the Solovetsky Islands has a very long and horrific history. The history of the largest correctional camp in the USSR on the territory of the islands of the Solovetsky Archipelago, famous prisoners and conditions of detention will be discussed further.
Monastery Prison
Prisons at Orthodox monasteries are a very unusual (and probably even unique) phenomenon in the history of the Russian Empire. At various times, Nikolo-Karelsky (Arkhangelsk), Trinity (in Siberia), Kirillo-Belozersky (on the Northern Dvina River), Novodevichy (in Moscow) and many other large monasteries were used as places of detention. Solovetsky should be recognized as the most striking example of such a prison.
The monastic political and church prison existed in the Solovetsky Monastery from the sixteenth to the beginningtwentieth century. Spiritual and secular authorities considered this place a reliable place of detention due to the remoteness of the Solovetsky Islands archipelago from the mainland and extremely unfavorable climatic conditions, which made it extremely difficult for prisoners to escape.
The Solovki monastery itself was a unique military engineering structure. The harsh northern climate (the archipelago consists of six large and several dozen rocky small islands near the Arctic Circle) opposed the plans of the masters.
The work was carried out only in summer - in winter the ground froze so hard that it was impossible to dig a grave. Graves, by the way, were subsequently prepared from the summer, roughly counting how many prisoners would not survive another winter. The monastery was built of huge stones, the gaps between which were filled with brickwork.
Escape from the Solovetsky Monastery was almost impossible. Even if successful, the prisoner would hardly be able to cross the cold strait alone. In winter, the White Sea froze, but it was also difficult to walk several kilometers on ice cracking due to underwater currents. The coast for 1000 km from the monastery was sparsely populated.
Prisoners of the Solovetsky Monastery
The first prisoner in Solovki was hegumen of the Trinity Monastery Artemy - a supporter of an extensive Orthodox reform, who denied the essence of Jesus Christ, advocated the rejection of the veneration of icons, searched for Protestant books. They did not keep him very strictly, for example, Artemy could move freely around the territory of the monastery. The abbot, taking advantage of the lack of rules for keeping prisoners, escaped. Probably help him with this. The fugitive crossed the White Sea on a ship, successfully reached Lithuania, and subsequently wrote several theological books.
The first real criminal (murderer) appeared on Solovki in the Time of Troubles. It was Peter Otyaev, the destroyer of churches known to the entire Muscovite kingdom. He died in the monastery, the place of his burial is unknown.
By the twenties of the 17th century, violators of the law began to be systematically sent to the Solovetsky Monastery. Solovki was exiled for rather atypical crimes. In 1623, the son of a boyar found himself here for forcibly tonsuring his wife to monasticism, in 1628 - the clerk Vasily Markov for corrupting his daughter, in 1648 - priest Nektariy for urinating in the church while intoxicated. The latter stayed in the Solovetsky Monastery for almost a year.
In total, from the time of Ivan the Terrible until 1883, there were from 500 to 550 prisoners in the Solovetsky prison. The prison officially existed until 1883, when the last prisoners were taken out of it. Guard soldiers remained there until 1886. In the future, the Solovetsky Monastery continued to serve as a place of exile for church ministers who were guilty of something.
Northern labor camps
In 1919 (four years before the creation of SLON - special purpose camps), the emergency commission for combating sabotage established several labor camps in the Arkhangelsk province. During the civil war therethose who escaped the fate of execution, or those whom the authorities planned to exchange for their supporters.
Counter-revolutionaries, speculators, spies, prostitutes, fortune-tellers, White Guards, deserters, hostages and prisoners of war were to be placed in such places. In fact, the main groups of people who inhabited remote camps were workers, city dwellers, the peasantry, and small intelligentsia.
The first political concentration camps were the Northern Special Purpose Camps, which were later renamed the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camps. ELEPHANTS became "famous" for the cruel attitude of the local authorities towards their subordinates and firmly entered the repressive system of totalitarianism.
Creation of the Solovetsky camp
The decision that preceded the creation of a special purpose camp dates back to 1923. The government planned to multiply the number of camps by building a new one on the Solovetsky archipelago. Already in July 1923, the first prisoners from Arkhangelsk were redirected to the Solovetsky Islands.
A sawmill was built on Revolution Island in the Kem Bay and it was decided to create a transit point between the Kem railway station and the new camp. SLON was intended for political and criminal prisoners. Such persons could be sentenced both by ordinary courts (with the permission of the GPU) and by the judicial bodies of the former Cheka.
Already in October of the same year, the administration of the Northern Camps was reorganized into the Administration of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON). The prison was transferred to the use of all the property of the Solovetsky Monastery, which was closed by threeyears earlier.
Ten years of existence
The camp (ELEPHANT) began to grow very quickly. The scope of the Department's activities was initially limited only to the islands of the Solovetsky Archipelago, but then expanded to Kem, the territories of Autonomous Karelia (coastal regions), the Northern Urals, and the Kola Peninsula. Such territorial expansion was accompanied by a rapid increase in the number of prisoners. By 1927, the camp contained almost 13 thousand people.
The history of the SLON camp has only 10 years (1923-1933). During this time in the hold (according to official data) 7.5 thousand people died, of which about half in the famine of 1933. One of the prisoners, collaborator Semyon Pidgayny, recalled that ten thousand prisoners (mainly Don Cossacks and Ukrainians) died at 8 kilometers only during the laying of the railway to the Filimonovsky peat diggings in 1928.
Prisoners of the Solovetsky camp
Lists of prisoners of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON) have been preserved. The official number of prisoners in 1923 was 2.5 thousand people, in 1924 - 5 thousand, in 1925 - 7.7 thousand, in 1926 - 10.6 thousand, in 1927 - 14.8 thousand, in 1928 - 21.9 thousand, 1929 - 65 thousand, in 1930 - 65 thousand, in 1931 - 15.1 thousand, in 1933 - 19.2 thousand. Among the prisoners, the following prominent personalities can be listed:
- Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev (pictured below) is a Soviet academician. He was exiled to Solovki for a five-year term for counter-revolutionary activities.
- Boris Shryaev is a famous Russian writer. The death pen alty for him wasreplaced by ten years in the Solovetsky camp. In the camp, Shiryaev participated in the theater and a magazine, published "1237 lines" (a story) and several poetic works.
- Pavel Florensky - philosopher and scientist, poet, theologian. In 1934, a special convoy was sent to the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp. In conclusion, he worked at the plant of the iodine industry.
- Les Kurbas - film director, Ukrainian and Soviet actor. He was sent to Solovki after the reform of the camp, in 1935. There he staged performances in the camp theater.
- Yulia Danzas - historian of religion, religious figure. Since 1928 she was kept in the Solovetsky camp (SLON). There is evidence that she saw Maxim Gorky on Solovki.
- Nikolay Antsiferov - culturologist, historian and local historian. He was arrested and sent to the SLON camp as a member of the counter-revolutionary organization Voskresenye.
Camp reform
Solovki Camp (SLON) General Directorate of State. Security disbanded in December 1933. The property of the prison was transferred to the White Sea-B altic camp. One of the divisions of the BelB altLag was left on Solovki, and in 1937-1939 the Solovetsky Special Purpose Prison (STON) was located here. In 1937, 1,111 camp prisoners were shot in the Sandormokh tract.
Camp Leaders
The chronology of the SLON camp over the ten years of its existence includes many shocking events. The first prisoners were delivered on the Pechora steamboat from Arkhangelsk and Pertominsk, in 1923Decree on the creation of a camp, which was supposed to accommodate 8 thousand people.
On December 19, 1923, five prisoners were shot and three were wounded while walking. This shooting received publicity in the world media. In 1923 and 1925, several Decrees were adopted regarding the tightening of the regime for the detention of prisoners.
The leaders of the camp at different times were the organizers of the Stalinist repressions, employees of the Cheka, OGPU, NKVD Nogtev, Eichmans, Bukhband, A. A. Invanchenko. There is little information about these individuals.
Former prisoner of the Solovetsky camp I. M. Andrievsky (Andreev) published his memoirs, which indicate that during his stay in SLON as a psychiatrist, he participated in medical commissions that from time to time examined civilian workers and prisoners. The psychiatrist wrote that among 600 people, severe mental disorders were detected in 40% of those examined. Ivan Mikhailovich noted that among the authorities, the percentage of individuals with mental disabilities was higher than even among murderers.
Camp conditions
The living conditions in the SLON camp are appalling. Although Maxim Gorky, who visited the Solovetsky Islands in 1929, cites the following testimonies of prisoners about the regime of labor re-education:
- we had to work no more than 8 hours a day;
- elderly prisoners were not subject to assignment to too hard corrective labor;
- all prisoners were taught to read and write;
- received for hard workrations.
A researcher on the history of the camps, Yuri Brodsky, pointed out in his works that various tortures and humiliations were used against prisoners. Prisoners dragged heavy stones and logs, they were forced to shout the proletarian anthem for many hours in a row, and those who stopped were killed or forced to count seagulls.
The memoirs of the warden of the SLON camp fully confirm these words of the historian. Also mentioned is the favorite method of punishment - "mosquito stand". The prisoner was undressed and left tied to a tree for several hours. Mosquitoes covered him with a thick layer. The prisoner fainted. Then the guards forced other prisoners to pour cold water on him or simply ignored him until the end of his sentence.
Security level
The camp was one of the most reliable. In 1925, six prisoners made the only successful escape in history. They killed the sentry and crossed the strait in a boat. Several times the escaped prisoners tried to land on the shore, but nothing came of it. The fugitives were discovered by the Red Army, who simply threw a grenade into the fire so as not to detain and escort the prisoners back. Four of the escapees died, one had both legs broken and his arm torn off, the second survivor received even more terrible injuries. The prisoners were taken to the infirmary and then shot.
The fate of the camp founders
Many who were involved in the organization of the Solovetsky camp were shot:
- I. V. Bogovoy. Proposedthe idea of creating a camp on Solovki. Shot.
- The man who raised the flag over the camp. Hit the ELEPHANT as a prisoner.
- Apeter. Chief of the prison. Shot.
- Nigtev. The first head of the camp. Received 15 years in prison, was released under an amnesty, but died almost immediately after that.
- Eichmans. Head of the SLON. Shot on suspicion of espionage.
It is interesting that one of the prisoners, Naftaly Frenkel, who offered innovative ideas for the development of the camp, moved up the career ladder. He retired in 1947 from the post of head of the railway construction camps as a lieutenant general of the NKVD.
In memory of the Solovetsky camp
The thirtieth of October 1990 was declared the Day of the Political Prisoner in the USSR. On the same day, the Solovetsky stone, brought from the islands, was installed in Moscow. There is an ELEPHANT museum-reserve on the archipelago, memorial stones are also installed in St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, on the Big Solovetsky Island, in the city of Jordanville (USA).
Whatever the story, it gave birth to us.
This phrase was said by Georgy Alexandrov - Soviet statesman, academician. So, no matter how terrible individual pages of the history of the USSR were, it was these events that led to today. At present, the word "elephant" is no longer associated with a totalitarian regime (there is, for example, the "Elephant" math camp), but one should know and remember history in order to avoid its repetition.
