Letters from the camps: the experience of “saving yourself” of priest Anatoly Zhurakovsky (1897-1937)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze letters from the camps of priest Anatoly Zurakovsky (1897-1937). The relevance of this topic is due to the recent attention of researchers to such issues as politics of memory, sociocultural trauma, as well as the influence of political repression on survival tactics in extreme conditions of war and imprisonment in forced labor camps. The study of subjectivation tactics in the camp and letters from the camp is possible by using the method of “historical poetics”, which focuses on the integrity of the text, the formal side of the letters. As a result of studying the letters of the priest Anatoly Zhurakovsky, the first attempts were made to formally analyze the camp letters concerning the peculiarities of the prisoner's subjectivation, and the religious (Christian) practice of “saving oneself” in the extreme conditions of the camp world was examined. The letters of A. Zhurakovsky allowed him to form and preserve his “Self”, to normalize the experience of trials in the camp. The preservation of oneself and one’s personality in the destructive conditions of the camp was carried out by A. Zhurakovsky also within the framework of the Christian tradition of “caring for oneself”, which included communication with God, ascetic experience, solitude, and intensive mental work.