Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russian author and Soviet dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag prison system. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature". His non-fiction work The Gulag Archipelago "amounted to a head-on challenge to the Soviet state" and sold tens of millions of copies.
The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word Gulag originally referred only to the division of the Soviet secret police that was in charge of running the forced labor camps from the 1930s to the early 1950s during Joseph Stalin's rule, but in English literature the term is popularly used for the system of forced labor throughout the Soviet era. The abbreviation GULAG (ГУЛАГ) stands for "Гла́вное Управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х ЛАГере́й", but the full official name of the agency changed several times.
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph Stalin's secret police chiefs, serving as head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) from 1938 to 1946, during the country's involvement in the Second World War. Beria was also a prolific sexual predator, who serially raped scores of girls and young women, and murdered some of his victims.
Butyrskaya prison, usually known simply as Butyrka, is a prison in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow, Russia. In Imperial Russia it served as the central transit prison.
Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel was a Soviet security officer and member of the Soviet secret police. Frenkel is best known for his role in the organisation of work in the Gulag, starting from the forced labor camp of the Solovetsky Islands, which is recognised as one of the earliest sites of the Gulag.
Kengir is a village in central Kazakhstan. During the Soviet era, a prison labor camp of the Steplag division of Gulag in Kazakhstan was set up adjacent to it. The camp, which was situated near the central-Kazakhstan city of Dzhezkazgan, near the Kara-Kengir River, and held approximately 5,200 prisoners, was the scene of a notable prisoner uprising in the summer of 1954. After the camp was closed, a large automotive depot was placed there.
Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov was the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union from January 1946 to March 1953 and again from June 1953 until February 1956. He held the military rank of Colonel General. He was involved in several brutal actions of the Soviet security forces. These actions occurred in the 1940s and were carried out alongside his comrade-in-arms General Ivan Serov.
The Kengir uprising was a prisoner rebellion that occurred in Kengir (Steplag), a Soviet MVD special camp for political prisoners, during May and June 1954. Its duration and intensity distinguished it from other Gulag rebellions during the same period, such as the Vorkuta uprising and Norilsk uprising.
John H. Noble was an American survivor of the Soviet Gulag system, who wrote several books which described his experiences in it after he was permitted to leave the Soviet Union and return to the United States.
The Norilsk uprising was a major strike by Gulag inmates in Gorlag, a MVD special camp for political prisoners, and later in the two camps of Norillag [ITL], Norilsk, USSR, now Russia, in the summer of 1953, shortly after Joseph Stalin's death. About 70% of inmates were Ukrainians, some of whom had been sentenced for 25 years because of MGB accusations of being involved in the "Bandera standard". It was the first major revolt within the Gulag system in 1953–1954, although earlier numerous cases of unrest in Gulag camps are known. It was led by Pavel Frenkiel in 1st camp, by Boris Shamaev in 3rd camp, by Yevhen Hrytsyak in 4th camp, by Pavel Filnev in 5th camp and by Lesya Zelenska in 6th camp.
Gulag: A History, also published as Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps, is a non-fiction book covering the history of the Soviet Gulag system. It was written by American author Anne Applebaum and published in 2003 by Doubleday. Gulag won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the 2004 Duff Cooper Prize. It was also nominated for the National Book Critics Circle prize and for the National Book Award.
Ivan Ivanovich Maslennikov, General of the Army, was a Soviet military and NKVD commander of Army and Front level during World War II. A career Red Army officer, Maslennikov was transferred to NKVD system in 1928, and remained there until the German invasion of 1941, progressing from a counter-guerrilla squadron commander to the chief of NKVD troops. After a mixed career in field troops of World War II and three post-war years, Maslennikov returned to NKVD in 1948 and stayed there, despite political changes, until his suicide in 1954.
The Vorkuta Corrective Labor Camp, commonly known as Vorkutlag (Воркутлаг), was a major Gulag labor camp in the Soviet Union located in Vorkuta, Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. It was in operation from 1932 until 1962.
Art and culture took on a variety of forms in the forced labor camps of the Gulag system that existed across the Soviet Union during the first half of the twentieth century. Theater, music, visual art, and literature played a role in camp life for many of the millions of prisoners who passed through the Gulag system. Some creative endeavors were initiated and executed by prisoners themselves, while others were overseen by the camp administration. Some projects benefited from prisoners who had been professional artists; others were organized by amateurs. The robust presence of the arts in the Gulag camps is a testament to the resourcefulness and resilience of prisoners there, many of whom derived material benefits and psychological comfort from their involvement in artistic projects.
Jānis Mendriks was a Latvian Catholic priest who was killed in a Soviet Gulag during the 1953 Vorkuta uprising.
De-Stalinization comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power, and his 1956 secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", which denounced Stalin's cult of personality and the Stalinist political system.
The following lists events that happened during 1953 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Leonard Latkovski Jr. was a Latvian American professor of history and international studies at Hood College, who championed Eastern European studies, particularly those of his ethnic origin in Latgale, Latvia.
Rechlag also known as Special Camp no.6, Osoblag no. 6 was a Gulag special labor camp headquartered in Vorkuta, Komi ASSR. It was established on August 27, 1948, from camp departments of Vorkutlag and disestablished on May 26, 1954, by joining back into Vorkutlag.
Elena Vladimirovna Markova was a Soviet and Russian cyberneticist, Doctor of Technical Sciences, gulag convict and memoirist.
Soviet Army 
Vorkuta inmates
