In the Margins of the Zone: Complicity in Contemporary Russian Writing

• In Event: Victims, Complicity, and Games in Gulag and Prison Culture

Abstract

Russian prison writing naturally describes what happens behind bars and fences, the inner workings of the camp zone, and the psychological states of the incarcerated. But what happens to all those affected by carceral logics in less direct ways? This paper examines how contemporary Russian writers wrestle with the question of complicity under a carceral system by focusing on the friends, family members, activists, and others who, though not jailed, nonetheless exist within the margins of prisons. It analyzes the poetry of Galina Rymbu and Kirill Medvedev and the prose of Oksana Vasyakina to explore this theme and how the tropes of prison writing have extended beyond their traditional settings.

Author

• Jose Vergara, Bryn Mawr College