On April 4, Kateryna Yushchenko took part in a presentation of Andriy Ishchenko’s Ukrainian translation of Anne Applebaum’s book GULAG: A History, according to the President’s press-office.
Ms. Yushchenko said, “This book is an attempt to show us the real face of the Soviet communist regime and its huge, covert and monstrous part – GULAG. It was the basis on which the Soviet system was built. […] The Soviet Union would not have existed for seventy years if there had been no such camps.”
Anne Applebaum is a famous American publicist, columnist and member of the editorial board of The Washington Post.
GULAG: A History was published in 2003 and won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. It is translated into more than twenty languages. The book is a narrative account of the origins and development of the Soviet concentration camps. Based on archives, interviews, new research and recently published memoirs, it explains the role that the camps played in the Soviet political and economic system. It also describes daily life in the camps: how people lived, worked, ate, slept, fought, died and survived. Ms. Applebaum proves that the system of the camps was a large-scale and merciless tool to exploit, oppress and eliminate Soviet peoples.
The book was published by the Kyiv Mohyla Academy Publishing House.
