Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya

Eufrosinia Antonovna Kersnovskaya (Russian: Евфросиния Антоновна Керсновская; January 8, 1908—March 8, 1994) was a Russian woman who spent 12 years in Gulag camps and wrote her memoirs in 12 notebooks, 2,200,000 characters, accompanied with 680 pictures.

She wrote 3 copies of the work. In 1968 her friends typed samizdat copies, repeating the pictures on the back sides of the sheets. Excerpts from the work were first published in Ogonyok and Znamya magazines in 1990, as well as in The Observer (June 1990). After that, German and French publications followed. Finally, in 2001 the complete text, in 6 volumes, was published in Russia.

1 Biography 2 Some drawings 2.1 Children in Gulag 2.2 Women in Gulag 2.3 Hospital 2.4 Other 3 Bibliography 4 External links 5 See also

Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya was born in Odessa to an aristocratic family. During the Russian Civil War the family moved to their estate to Bessarabia to become farmers. Bessarabia was soon united with Romania. In 1940 it was annexed by the Soviet Union, and the Kersnovskaya family (Eufrosinia and her mother) were repressed as former landowners. She was exiled to Siberia as an exile settler (ссыльнопоселенец) to work at logging. She attempted to escape, but she was caught and sentenced to death. The sentence was replaced by 10 years of labor camps, which she spent in the Norillag (Норильлаг, Norilsk labor camp) at mining works.

After discharge she lived in Yessentuki and wrote her memoirs during 1964–1968.

Her memoirs illustrated by hundreds of drawings presents unique insight into the life of the Soviet Union and especially the life of Gulag. They are also remarkable for the quality of the drawings.

See commons:Category:Eufrosinia_Kersnovskaya for more.

All drawings on this page are available courtesy to Kersnovkaya foundation. See image description pages for the details

Birth in a prison car for Bessarabian deportees	Killing Her Baby (a prisoner trying to kill her baby by choking him with her own milk; later Kersnovskaya managed to stop the killing)	The hungry child cried but did not ask for food, he understood...	Let me feed my child for the last time
Children of Yasha Nalivkin	Underaged criminals	Fight with under-aged criminals

Night Search

The squire is me

You don't want to work

Away you go, the ugly woman

Prison hospital.

Removing a cast

Doctor Miller

Doctor Saltykov

My father is a freeman, he is in prison	Still life Price of Blood (in the prison, blood donors were given extra food rations)	Doors of the eatery opens	Question
On this day we were well-fed	Meeting	Somebody should be praying for you	Stakhanovite or Triumph of a Boor
Taiga	Village	Retirement village	Village that became a cemetery
Beautiful Village	Interrogation	A Court of Law	Meeting in a prison cell
Banya	Baptism	Lustrator	Professor Fedorovsky
You are healthy. Go to work.	Welcome (to the morgue)	Tombs	Mines after rescue
Fight	Toilet	Rail road maintenance	Don't trust me, I am a snitch
Taking Timber out of a Mineshaft

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya

• Керсновская Е.А. "Наскальная живопись". - М.: КВАДРАТ, 1991;
• Kersnovskaja Е. "Ach Herr wenn unsre Sünden uns verklagen". - Kiel: NEUER MALIK VERLAG, 1991.
• Кersnovskaja Е. "Coupable de rien". - Paris: PLON, 1994.
• Керсновская Е.А. "Сколько стоит человек". - 6 volumes, Moscow, ООО "МОЖАЙСК-ТЕРРА", 2000-2001.

• (Russian) How Much Is a Person Worth?

• "Children Are Our Wealth", "The Tale of the Lithuanian Niobe," "Azerbaijani Criminals and European Denseness." Excerpts from How Much Is a Person Worth?

• Nikolai Getman
• Vedem