“Kremlin Rules: Nationalism of Putin’s Era Veils Sins of Stalin’s,” by Clifford Levy, New York Times (26.November.2008)
Mr. Trenin said he believed he had enough information to make the case that he should receive access to the secret documents. He lobbied officials for permission to conduct a full investigation into the events there, and to establish a memorial.
But it was too late. Mr. Putin had become president. The F.S.B. would not allow access to the records, and at subsequent meetings in 2002 and 2003, city officials, who had close connections to the security services, would not help Mr. Trenin either.
“He had an absolute absence of interest,” Mr. Trenin said of one city official, a former K.G.B. agent. “There was this sense of, it happened, it was there, no need to look any further.”
The former K.G.B. agent, Aleksandr A. Melnikov, who is a deputy mayor, said in an interview that Kashtak represented an enormous calamity, but that “it had been studied in depth.”
Mr. Melnikov said he was surprised to hear of Mr. Trenin’s difficulties.
“Today, there is no problem obtaining access to the archives of that period, absolutely not,” Mr. Melnikov said. “If they encounter a problem, they can appeal to me. I will provide every assistance to them to get the material that they are interested in.”
Told of Mr. Melnikov’s comments, Mr. Trenin sighed. “That’s absurd,” he said.
The best work on the topic remains Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History.
I would put The Gulag Archipelago above Gulag: A History. Solzhenitsyn wrote from inside it, and Applebaum did not.
That’s one of Solzhenitsyn’s weaknesses, as well. Applebaum had access for a time (until Pres. Putin closed them) to the KGB archives, which Solzhenitsyn did not, as well as access to former camp guards, many different prisoners, administrators, and others. The result is not a replacement to Solzhenitsyn’s works, but a work in a different genre.
Applebaum discusses precisely this issue in the beginning of the book; how prison memoirs from inmates give one perspective, and archival research, interviews with the various participants (including guards and administrators), another.