Dan Healey is an expert on the social and cultural history of modern Russia and the Soviet Union. He is the author of Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia, Bolshevik Sexual Forensics, and Russian Homophobia from Stalin to Sochi. He is professor emeritus of modern Russian history at the University of Oxford.
“This book, based upon wide-ranging archival research . . . presents quite a few glimmers of light amidst the darkness offering ample evidence that, despite the undeniable brutality at the heart of the system, the Gulag hospital or clinic could still sometimes manage to be ‘a place of healing.’”—Michael Biddiss, British Society for the History of Medicine “The Gulag Doctors is a prodigiously researched and elegantly written study of the practice of medicine in Stalin’s notorious labour camps. This pioneering work allows the reader to peer into this previously secret backstage of the Gulag with all its deadly contradictions.”—Lynne Viola, author of The Unknown Gulag “With its evocative life-stories of doctors, nurses and medical researchers from across the Soviet Union, this masterfully researched and beautifully written book immerses us in the personal, political and professional dilemmas of patient care and medical ethics within, and beyond, the Gulag.”—Polly Jones, author of Revolution Rekindled “The Gulag Doctors confronts a central paradox of the Stalinist Gulag: brutal exploitation of prisoners coexisted with a substantial health care apparatus intended to preserve their labour power. Using personal narratives, Healey leads us into the heart of this paradox and paints a profoundly human picture of an inhumane system.”—Alan Barenberg, author Gulag Town, Company Town