Memorias de una actriz en el gulag

Tamara Petkevich enjoyed a privileged childhood in the beautiful but impoverished Petrograd of the first years of the Soviet regime, within a family of revolutionary convictions affiliated with the Bolshevik Communist Party. Still, when she was seventeen, the nameless vertigo of the Great Purge swept her father into the center of her emptiness. Once he was arrested, the entire family became "enemies of the people". For this reason, years later, Tamara was sentenced to seven years of hard labor in the gulag. In her headlong descent into the abyss she knew all the circles of Stalinist hell, surviving in indescribable conditions, subjected to a ruthless and insane logic that had decided in advance who was to blame for her. There were many tasks she carried out during her stay in the gulag: production controller in a factory, member of a quarry brigade, nurse... However, although Petkevich became a professional actress years after her release, it was on the stages of the fields where he learned his trade. His is a unique story that testifies to the power of art to save lives. Petkevich goes from one difficulty to another without ever losing his courage, his desire to live and his ability to love. With an almost cinematic look and impeccable narration, this fast-paced work makes us direct witnesses of her struggle, and that of many of her companions, to preserve her dignity in the darkness of the gulag. Thanks to an unusual frankness, she transmits to us the most vivid memories of those around her: from the betrayal of those closest to her to the invaluable and selfless help of some strangers. Revealing, beautiful and intelligent, this memoir is not only a first-hand record of the atrocities committed in Stalinist Russia, but also an urgent testimony to the radical rejection of any dictatorship.