Trilogie o Čechoslovácích v táborech Gulagu
Trilogy on Czechoslovaks in the Gulag Camps

Summary/Abstract: In the three volumes published under the common title "Čechoslováci v Gulagu" [Czechoslovaks in the Gulag] (Prague, Česká televize – Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů 2017, 2018 and 2019), the authors Jan Dvořák, Jaroslav Formánek and Adam Hradilek chart the fate of Czechs and Slovaks who had been interned and in some cases executed in the Soviet camps in the period between the 1920s and 1950s (the first volume’s subtitle is "Životní osudy krajanů postižených politickými represemi v Sovětském svazu [Life Fate of the Compatriots Suffering Political Repressions in the Soviet Union], the two following volumes were both published with the subtitle "Příběhy krajanů popravených či vězněných v Sovětském svazu" [Stories of Compatriots Executed or Interned in the Soviet Union]). These were compatriots who had settled in the Soviet Union, immigrants who believed in communist ideas and arrived in the country, which was building communism, between the two world wars, refugees fleeing from Nazism after the German occupation of the Czech lands in March 1939, inhabitants of Subcarpathian Ruthenia after its annexation to the USSR or people dragged from Czechoslovakia by the Soviet security services after the liberation of the country in 1945. The three volumes have a uniform concept, structure as well as visual appearance and present in total thirty-six individual or collective stories. The book trilogy is directly linked to the three-part Czech TV documentary entitled "Čechoslováci v gulagu" [Czechoslovaks in the Gulag], broadcast in 2017, which was written and directed by Marta Nováková. The reviewer discusses the entire project, which she believes significantly contributes to our knowledge of this tragic chapter of Czechoslovak history and brings together some extraordinary stories of the victims of the Stalinist regime. She also appreciates the visual form of the publication with its numerous unique photographs and reproduced documents, seeing it as an equally important part of the publications. She expresses some reservations about the work’s concept and raises issues for further research on this theme.

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