SHALAMOVS TESTIMONY

This essay consists of two parts - historical and philosophical one. In the historical part, the author provides the reasoned overview of Kolyma, i.e., a system of Soviet labour camps in northeastern Siberia. The view is based on a Russian novelist and poet - who spent there a dozen or more years - Varlam Shalamov's 'Kolyma Tales'. In the philosophical part, the author tackles the issue of to what Kolyma does not testify, and to what it does testify. It does not testify - contrary to the sentimental myth - that in the order of values, a good man surpasses and will surpass an evil man, even in Kolyma. It does not testify either - contrary to the liberal myth - that Kolyma is exclusively a product of totalitarisms. It testifies instead that the human being is evil.