THE LIBRARIES OF VARLAM SALAMOV OR READING AS A WAY OF SURVIVAL

Reading in prison has its peculiarities. There, nothing is memorized; all attention, all the strength of the mind is concentrated on interrogations, confessions, and the psychological acclimatization to life in prison, with fellow inmates, and with the authorities.

My ability to read quickly had returned. In this library and at Korzhenetsky, I owe at least a partial covering of a huge gap, many years long, in reading, knowledge, and intellect, a gap that is in fact the purpose of imprisonment, of any political imprisonment.

Some love books as if they were people: they meet them, are fascinated by them, and are disappointed by them; they part with them, caress them, throw them away, forget them, rediscover them, acquire them, and lose them. If life prevents them from collecting and locking them away in the prison of a library, they will find other ways to approach them and sometimes to take them along. Even in their dreams.

Salamov (1907-1982), the author of the labor camps, of Kolyma and Siberia, is already familiar to us. Here then is Salamov the reader, the lover of books, through the libraries in the places of exile. The edition is accompanied by a rich photographic material from Salamov's life.

Maybe the authorities knew how “temporary” reading is in prison and therefore were not concerned about the “criminal” content of prison books. After all, there are “scientific laboratories” for studying the psychology of prisoners, and if these studies are not conducted in the camps, they must be done in the educational prisons of the capital. Perhaps the interest of power in the psychology of the imprisoned is limited to the world of common crime.

I read this book with great attention, several times, and the feeling of a reader who passionately enters the world of the author returned to me. That is why it matters to me to remember this particular book. Books returned to me faster than women; books had more power than women.

The exceptional library of Karayev – there was not a single book there that was not worth reading – revived me, armed me for life again; as much as possible.