Alexander Dolgun
This article includes a improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (December 2019) ) |
Alexander Dolgun | |
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Born | Alexander Michael Dolgun 29 September 1926 The Bronx, New York, U.S. |
Died | 28 August 1986 , U.S. | (aged 59)
Nationality | American |
Known for | Gulag survivor |
Alexander Michael Dolgun (29 September 1926 – 28 August 1986) was an American survivor of the Soviet Gulag who wrote about his experiences in 1975 after being allowed to leave the Soviet Union.
Pre-Gulag years
Alexander Dolgun was born on 29 September 1926 in
Gulag
On 13 December 1948,
He survived several months of torture and kept his sanity using tactics such as measuring various distances in his cell as well as distances he covered walking; he estimated that in his time there, the distance he covered walking was enough to take him from Moscow across Europe and halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. His time in Sukhanovka brought him to the brink of death, and he was transferred to the hospital at Butyrka prison to recuperate. His whereabouts were known by Truman, Eisenhower and the US government, but they did nothing for fear of Soviet authorities further harming Dolgun due to fragile US-Soviet relations.
Dolgun was finally given a 25-year sentence in the
After prison
After his release from prison in 1956, Dolgun returned to Moscow. Under his release conditions he was not allowed to contact American authorities. Dolgun discovered that both his mother and father had been tortured in an effort to pressure them to implicate him, driving his mother to insanity and she was placed into an asylum, released in 1954. His father was arrested according to Article 58.10 (anti-Soviet propaganda: allegedly, he said that American cars are better than the Soviet ones), sentenced for 10 years, served in Mordovia camps, released in 1955.[1] He took a job translating medical journals into English for the Soviet Health Bureau and befriended several notable Gulag survivors, including Georg Tenno and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn included some of Dolgun's experiences in his work The Gulag Archipelago.
Dolgun married Irene in 1965 and they had a son, Andrew, in 1966. His mother died in 1967, and his father in 1968. In 1971, through the efforts of his sister, Stella Krymm, who escaped from the Soviet Union in 1946, and Ambassador
Health and death
Dolgun's health was severely harmed by his experience and he suffered from numerous ailments. In 1972, he received back pay of US$22,000 ($160,248 in 2023) from the U.S. Embassy for the period of service from 1949 to 1956 and complained that he was paid "peanuts" for his time and should have, at the least, received interest on his salary.[citation needed]
Dolgun died on 28 August 1986, aged 59, in Potomac, Maryland, of kidney failure. He was survived by his wife and son.[citation needed]
See also
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
- Dolgun, Alexander, and Watson, Patrick, "Alexander Dolgun's Story: An American in the Gulag."
- "American Tells of his Arrest and 8 years as a Soviet Captive." The New York Times. 28 December 1973.
- "Alexander Dolgun; American was held 8 years in the Gulag." The New York Times. 29 August 1986.