Soloveckaja vlast'

"The first thing he sees on entering is the legendary company commander Koerielko. Koerielko jumps on a cask and says: '…you were not sent here for correction: you can not straighten a humpback! You will write your letters home as follows: I live, I am healthy, I can not complain! Period!'" Thus, Alexander Solzjenitsyn describes the arrival in the reeducation camp on the Solovietsky-isle in his book The Gulag Archipelago. The book masterly sets down in words the atmosphere of the camp.

For the first time, penetrating images of this oppressive atmosphere can be seen in Soloveckaja Vlast'. The film is completed with interviews with former prisoners.

The fact that documentary material about the camps is available is less odd than it would seem at first sight. When the communists took power in 1917, they were soon aware of the power of the camera as a means of propaganda. Therefore, shots were taken of various politically relevant issues like the Solovky-camp. This film, made in 1927-28, was to show the humane way in which criminals and political opponents were 'corrected'. Soloveckaja Vlast' shows that nothing came of these fine intentions. On the contrary, mutual relationships in Solovky gradually but totally became corrupted, and the camp grew into a supplier of cheap labourers. This made it the omen of new relationships in the Soviet Union under Stalin.


"…an atmosphere which is as yet unknown in the country, but which is the future atmosphere of the archipelago (Soviet Union), being created in Solovky.

Alexander Solzjenitsyn