gulag

American  

[goo-lahg] / ˈgu lɑg /

noun

(sometimes initial capital letter)

1. the system of forced-labor camps in the Soviet Union.

2. a Soviet forced-labor camp.

3. any prison or detention camp, especially for political prisoners.

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Gulag British  

/ ˈɡuːlæɡ /

noun

1. (formerly) the central administrative department of the Soviet security service, established in 1930, responsible for maintaining prisons and forced labour camps

2. (not capital) any system used to silence dissents

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gulag Cultural  

1. A system of prison camps inside the former Soviet Union used for political prisoners. Under Joseph Stalin, millions of prisoners in these camps died from starvation and maltreatment. This system was given worldwide attention in the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Gulag is an acronym in Russian of the name meaning Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps.

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Etymology

Origin of gulag

1970–75; < Russian Gulág, acronym from Glávnoe upravlénie ispravítelʾno-trudovýkh lageréĭ Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps

Compare meaning

How does gulag compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• gulag vs. concentration camp

Example Sentences

As dark as the novel becomes, “the real darkness of the gulag there was so bleak that I had to cut it out,” the author has said.

From The Wall Street Journal

The numbers that they were putting out there were larger than all of the people that went through the Russian gulags during the Soviet era.

From Salon

His 2011 memoir, “The Consolations of the Forest,” detailed his months of solitude in a remote cabin in Siberia, a region perhaps best known for its freezing gulags.

From The Wall Street Journal

They included 2003's I Am David, about a boy who escapes a gulag in Bulgaria, and the comedy Bringing Down the House, starring Steve Martin, from the same year.

From BBC

The weakness of the regime, to the point that it collapsed like a soggy paper bag, was disguised by the fearsome and repressive gulag it still maintained.

From BBC

Related Words

• gas chamber
• internment camp
• prison camp