Jacques, the Frenchman : memories of the Gulag / by Jacques Rossi and Michele Sarde ; edited by Golfo Alexopoulos ; translated by Kersti Colombant ; preface by Michael David-Fox.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rossi, Jacques, author.

Sarde, Michèle, author.

Contributor:

Alexopoulos, Golfo, editor.

Colombant, Kersti, translator.

David-Fox, Michael, writer of preface.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political prisoners--Soviet Union--Biography.

Political prisoners.

Concentration camps--Soviet Union.

Concentration camps.

Political persecution--Soviet Union.

Political persecution.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (365 pages)

Place of Publication:

Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, [2020]

Summary:

Jacques Rossi is one of Stalin’s most well-known victims. Author of The Gulag Handbook, a fascinating encyclopedia of the Soviet forced labor camps, Rossi spent twenty years in interrogation, prison, and Gulag detention. Born to a prominent Polish father and French mother, the young Jacques became attracted to communism as a blueprint for radical social reform. He spent years in the communist underground in interwar Europe, agitating for the revolution, but he was arrested during Stalin’s Great Purges in 1937. This book represents a conversation between Jacques Rossi and Michèle Sarde, professor emerita at Georgetown University, and weaves together personal reflections and historical analysis. Rossi’s remarkable life (1909–2004) spanned the twentieth century and sheds important light on the tumultuous history of Europe – the appeal of communism in the interwar period and beyond, the mentality of party members, the effects of mass repression, everyday life in Stalin’s Gulag, and the problem of rights for former prisoners during the Khrushchev era. As he abandoned his internationalist communist beliefs, Rossi increasingly identified as French, embracing the name his fellow prisoners gave him in the Gulag, "Jacques the Frenchman." Rossi’s reflections on his own political beliefs, his frustrations with those who could not accept the truth of his brutal experiences in the Soviet Union, and his life as a witness to one of the twentieth century’s worst crimes offer a fascinating history of Stalinism and its legacies.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Introduction

The Meeting

1. Never Again

2. The Established Order

3. The Future of the Worldwide Proletariat Is More Important than One’s Career!

4. The Fugitive

5. Secret Agent

6. Let Them Stuff Themselves with Caviar! They Won’t Grow Old!

7. Early Indications of an Announced Arrest

8. The Trap

9. From the Dog House to the Train Station

10. We Don’t Torture Foreigners

11. Confess, Filthy Fascist!

12. On Interrogations

13. Everyday Life at the Butyrka Prison

14. The Story of a Blind Man and Coffee with Milk

15. The Verdict: Now We’re Going to Put into Practice Marxist-Leninist Theory

16. Destination Unknown

17. Transit: May Your Memory Be Your Only Travel Bag!

18. An Operatic Voice on the Yenisei

19. Dudinka: The End of the World

20. The Polar Night

21. Surviving

22. Yes, I Am a Communist and You Are Too; Only Between Us There Is Barbed Wire

23. How Jacques the Frenchman Ceased to Be a Communist

24. The Friends of the People

25. Continuing in Spite of Oneself

26. The Rebel: The First Hunger Strike

27. In the Central Prison of Alexandrovsk

28. The Beginning of the End

29. “I Choose Samarkand”

30. “Sir, You Are Dripping Snow on My Floors!”

31. In Central Asia: The Man Who Came from a Country with No Collective Farms

32. To Comrade Khrushchev [Stop] I Jacques Rossi [Stop] a Free Citizen [Stop] Am Starting a Hunger Strike [Stop] with No Time Limit and Until Death

33. Communist Poland: Origins of The Gulag Handbook

34. Seeing Paris Again

35. Life after Communism

Afterword to the English Edition: A Man of Secrets

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4875-3317-9

OCLC:

1139708457