— Alan Barenberg is a well-respected scholar with an excellent monograph under his belt and a good presence on social media. Emily D. Johnson is also a well-respected scholar and has experience editing volumes. — The history and legacy of the Gulag is of continuing importance and interest in Soviet, Russian, and Eastern European studies. — Gulag studies represents a unique opportunity for a collection such as this. While many edited volumes might claim to put contributors in conversation, this volume was conceived primarily as a conversation and therefore the contributors have responded to the work of fellow collaborators within their own chapters. This sense of conversation is underscored by brief summary thoughts on each section provided by distinguished scholars in the field. In this way, it also bridges generational divides between "new wave" scholars using exciting approaches available through digital scholarship and established scholars who helped to define the primary theoretical questions of the field. — The volume will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, criminology, literature, and history. While the work does not include comparisons between Russian and Soviet penal institutions and those in other areas, individuals who study such institutions will find the volume useful. Some sections of the book may also be used in course packs for advanced university classes on Soviet history, literature, or criminology.

The Soviet Gulag was one of the largest, most complex, and deadliest systems of incarceration in the 20th century. What lessons can we learn from its network of labor camps and prisons and exile settlements, which stretched across vast geographic expanses, included varied institutions, and brought together inmates from all the Soviet Union's ethnicities, professions, and social classes?

Drawing on a massive body of documentary evidence, Rethinking the Gulag: Identities, Sources, Legacies explores the Soviet penal system from various disciplinary perspectives. Divided into three sections, the collection first considers "identities"—the lived experiences of contingents of detainees who have rarely figured in Gulag histories to date, such as common criminals and clerics. The second section surveys "sources" to explore the ways new research methods can revolutionize our understanding of the system. The third section studies "legacies" to reveal the aftermath of the Gulag, including the folk beliefs and traditions it has inspired and the museums built to memorialize it. While all the chapters respond to one another, each section also concludes with a reaction by a leading researcher: geographer Judith Pallot, historian Lynne Viola, and cultural historian and literary scholar Alexander Etkind.

Moving away from grand metaphorical or theoretical models, Rethinking the Gulag instead unearths the complexities and nuances of experience that represent a primary focus in the new wave of Gulag studies.

1. Introduction: Gulag Studies since the Archival Revolution, by Alan Barenberg and Emily D. Johnson
Part I: Identities
2. Religious Identity, Practice, and Hierarchy at the Solovetskii Camp of Forced Labor of Special Significance, by Jeffrey S. Hardy
3. Censoring the Mail in Stalin's Multi-ethnic Penal System: The Use of Languages Other Than Russian in Soviet Inmate Correspondence, by Emily D. Johnson
4. "Who are you in life?": The Gulag Reputation System and its Legacies Today, by Gavin Slade
5. The Real Gulag: Commentary on the "Identities" Section, by Lynne Viola
Part II: Sources
6. "They won't survive for long": Soviet Officials on Medical Release Procedures, by Mikhail Nakonechnyi
7. Applying Digital Methods to Forced Labor History: German POWs During and After the Second World War, by Susan Grunewald
8. Framing Gulag Memoirs: A Distant Reading, by Sarah J. Young
9. Researching the Gulag in the Era of "Big Data": Commentary on the "Sources" Section, by Judith Pallot
Part III: Legacies
10. The Role of Nature in Gulag Poetry: Shalamov and Zabolotsky, by Josephine von Zitzewitz
11. "I would very much like to read your story about Kolyma": Georgii Demidov, Varlam Shalamov, and the Development of Gulag Prose, 1965-67, by Alan Barenberg
12. The Necropolis of the Gulag as a Historical-Cultural Object: An Overview and Explication of the Problem, by Irina Anatolievna Flige (translated by Josephine von Zitzewitz)
13. Sites and Sounds of the Camps: Commentary on the "Legacies" Section, by Alexander Etkind
14. Afterword, by Alan Barenberg and Emily D. Johnson
Index