In 1923, the Soviet state decided to create a prison camp on the Solovki archipelago, the site of a former monastery.
It became the laboratory of the Gulag, where the techniques of labour-camp exploitation were developed.
Prisoners died by the hundreds both within the walls of the monastery and in the frozen forests beyond.
Yet the camp's activities in cultural re-education were surprisingly extensive.
With the connivance of part of the administration, Solovki became a unique cultural citadel.
Legenda Intellectual life and literature at solovki 1923-1930: the paris of the northern concentration camps, paperback/andrea gullotta
