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Literature

Varlam Shalamov
writer
born June 18, 1907, Vologda, Russia; died Jan. 17, 1982, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.
Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov, a Russian writer best known for a series of short stories about imprisonment in Soviet labour camps, was born in Vologda, Russia to a family of an orthodox religious minister and a teacher. In 1923 he graduated from the academic gymnasium of St. Alexander's. Being a son of a priest, Varlam was not accepted to a university. Only in 1926, after having worked for 2 years, he bacame a student of law at Moscow State University. While studying there, he joined a Trotskyist-leaning group and on February 19, 1929 was arrested and sentenced to three years of hard labor in the town of Vishera, in North Urals, convicted of publishing Letters to the Party Congress, a document purported to be Lenin's will. The tract's harsh criticism of Josef Stalin earned the author three years of hard labor in the Urals. He was released in 1931 and worked in the town of Berezniki in construction.
Shalamov returned to Moscow in 1932, working as a journalist and publishing stories, including his first short story "The three deaths of Doctor Austino" (in 1936). In January 1937, he was rearrested for counter-revolutionary Trotskyist actions" and sent to Kolyma, also known as "the land of white death", for five years. He was given an additional ten years for calling Ivan Bunin a "classic Russian writer". The conditions he endured were extreme, first in gold mining operations, and then in coal mining. He was repeatedly sent to punishment zones for his political "crimes" and for his attempt to escape.
Shalamov's life was saved by a doctor who took an interest in his well being, and arranged to have him receive medical training. Being able to work indoors greatly improved his health, and chances for survival. Shalamov began writing poetry.
In 1951 Shalamov was released from the camp, and continued working as a medical assistant for the forced labor camps while still writing. In autumn 1953 he was permitted to go to the Kalinin Oblast, near Moscow. Shalamov was allowed to return to Moscow after having been officially rehabilitated in 1956.
From 1954 to 1973 Varlam Shalamov worked on his book of short stories of labor camp life, "The Kolyma Tales". The stories are bleak and desiccated because the conditions of Kolyma were the most horrific of all the camps.
In 1957, Shalamov became a correspondent for the literary journal "Moskva," and his poetry began being published. His health, however, deteriorated because of the years spent in the camps, and he received an invalid's pension. Varlam Shalamov proceeded publishing poetry and essays in the major Soviet literary magazines.
One of the greatest writers in all of Slavic literature, Varlam Shamalov died on January 17, 1982, in a nursing home and was buried at Kuntsevo Cemetery, Moscow.
Now the house that initially belonged to the Vologda diocese and where the Shalamovs family used to live houses a small museum exposition. It is a two-storeyed building dating from the 18th century. Varlam Shalamov was born in this house and lived here untill 1924. One of the writer's works describes historical and artistic image of the house, life of the clergy and his own family. The residents of Vologda revere the memory of the outstanding writer. Every year Vologda becomes home to the so-called Shalamov's readings timed to coincide with the writer's birthday. There is a commemorative marble plaque on the house where Varlam Shalamov used to live.