Arsenii Formakov, a Russian-Latvian poet, educator, novelist, journalist, and cultural figure was arrested on July 30, 1940 in Daugavpils, Latvia. The “anti-Soviet character” of some of his writings made him a target for repression in the sweep that followed the Soviet invasion. He confessed in exchange for a visit with his pregnant wife, after which he was sentenced to eight years of hard labor and deported to Kraslag (Krasnoiarsk). Formakov was released in 1947, and allowed to return to his family if he promised to serve as an informer. His freedom was short-lived. Like so many other Gulag returnees—automatically suspect by virtue of having been in the camps—Formakov was re-arrested in the 1949 wave of terror. This time he ended up in Omsk, where he stayed until his 1955 release. Emily Johnson shares Formakov's journey with us through his Gulag correspondence with his family, providing informed context critical to our understanding of this inmate-writer.

In a solid introductory essay, she probes a number of fundamental questions raised by this collection. For example, in a letter to his wife on the fourth anniversary of his arrest, Formakov states, “if they had told us then what we would have to bear, I would have committed suicide … and I would have been a fool” (59). Most of his correspondence before and after this does not nearly so candidly address the depredations to which he alludes here. Rather, it attests to Formakov's supreme survival skills (manifest in the optimistic latter lines).

It is apparent that Formakov was a privileged prisoner who worked with the authorities, participating in propaganda in the camps. In return for these services, he received survivable assignments and appears to have been able to correspond more or less freely. Survival seems to have been a guiding force in Formakov's development. In the thirties, he was co-owner and editor of a Daugavpils newspaper that managed to stay open under the Ulmanis regime, so already then, Formakov was well-versed in self-censorship and adaptation. This skill is intelligible in his letter-writing. Johnson points out that Formakov's letters do not, for instance, mention the “full horror of the camp world”(10), the culture of violence, or the general terrorization of the camp population. That is not particularly surprising, nor unusual for prisoner correspondence. However, some of Formakov's letters proceed a step further to suggest that those in camp fared almost better than those who were free during the war and 1946–47 famine. He regularly writes about being allotted considerable rations, for example in May of 1945: “two portions of cabbage soup and porridge, 1700 grams” (136), butter, honey, potatoes, pork fat … such information might be taken at face-value, especially given that Formakov was an over-achiever in camp.

In a 1944 letter, he tells his family that he fulfills norms by 200–300 percent, lives in a dorm, and everything is “fantastically good” (55). In January 1945, he writes that in his settlement the barrack doors are almost always open, and people can visit each other and the bathrooms freely. This description of the Gulag almost sounds like summer camp, or at least a text out of the pages of Pravda—such propaganda was good for the authorities and not bad for the letter-writers either.

Gulag Letters answers important questions regarding the policies and practices surrounding correspondence from the Gulag. Formakov's settlement permitted mingling with free laborers, which facilitated (additional) smuggling of mail, so while some letters reached the camp censors, some did not. Johnson offers particularly revealing insight into the institution of camp censors, who could hardly serve as efficient gate-keepers, because they were so underpaid and overworked. She tells us, for example that in 1950 in Kraslag, one senior censor had a back-log of 1,844 letters (21).

A critical theme that Johnson addresses is the unabashed pro-Soviet tone and Formakov's ability to “speak Bolshevik” (41). In June of 1945, after five years of confinement, he writes, “I have changed a great deal in this time, and I am thankful to the camp for much that I have learned here” (136). Elsewhere he instructs his son to be a “loyal son to our great motherland and serve it faithfully” (137). On the basis of these letters it is difficult to discern whether Formakov had merely accommodated to, or actually assimilated these values. He seemed to exhibit sincere enthusiasm about his Cultural-Educational work in the camp. On the other hand, Johnson tells us that Formakov had written “anti-Soviet” novels, which were discovered in the search prior to his 1949 arrest. Moreover, Formakov provided eye-witness testimony to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn for his Gulag Archipelago. One wishes that Johnson had offered more analysis of the significant question regarding his attitude toward the Soviet authorities, which was at best, ambivalent. That caveat aside, this collection offers powerful testimony to the influence of the state on the individual, and is a notable addition to Gulag survivor accounts.