Korganova, M. E. EGO-SOURCES ABOUT THE PHENOMENON OF DENUNCIATION IN THE SOVIET LABOR CAMPS OF 1929–1938 // Proceedings of Petrozavodsk State University. 2019. No 6 (183). P. 36–42. DOI: 10.15393/uchz.art.2019.369


Historiography, source studies, methods of historical research

EGO-SOURCES ABOUT THE PHENOMENON OF DENUNCIATION IN THE SOVIET LABOR CAMPS OF 1929–1938

Korganova
M. E. 		Higher School of Economics
Keywords:
Gulag
prisoner’s survival strategies
reports in corrective-labor camps
camp everyday life
whistleblowing
prisoners intelligence work
ego-documents		 Summary: Whistleblowing practice among prisoners in Soviet corrective labor camps is studied as part of a widespread social phenomenon in the Soviet society. The study is based on the revision of two different types of sources: the documentation of the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and the set of ego-documents created by the people who were imprisoned in the Gulag camps during the period from 1929 to 1938. The article analyzes the motives that guided the state security agencies when creating an intelligence network of prisoners in camps and the motives of the prisoners who were engaged as whistleblowers. The study examines the recruitment process of the informants, possible consequences of prisoners’ refusal to work as informants, the sources of whistleblowers recruitment in corrective labor camps, the subjects of the whistleblowers’ reports, the risks and opportunities of such intelligence work for the prisoner. The influence of denouncements on the fate of both the informants and their targets is being studied, as well as the question of a moral and ethical dilemma of denouncing. The author comes to the conclusion that whistleblowing practice can be considered one of the most common forms of cooperation between the prisoners and camp authorities in the Gulag.



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