"Thrown out of Society": a Soviet Man about Surviving in Stalin''s "Purgatory"
The published fragment of autobiographical reminiscences of Vasiliy Ivanovich Ermolenko (1893-1970) combines the features of personal source and ego-document. The author worked in statistical department in Altai region during 1920s-1950s, and wrote his memoirs in the late 1960s, when he was enjoying his retirement in Novosibirsk. The published fragment refers to 1933, when the Biysk district inspector of economic accounting was arrested on false charges of anti-Soviet activities and was kept in custody for more than four months. The article describes circumstances of this arrest, interrogations conducted for the purposes of inducing self-incrimination, as well as prisoner's behavior in extreme conditions. The most important part is the author's explication of his thoughts and emotions experienced on the verge of death. The text of the memoirs was given for publication by its author's great-granddaughter Daria Ermolenko.