Semenov Mikhail A.,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Novosibirsk, Russia), e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Morbidity and Mortality in Prisons of the USSR During the Great Patriotic War
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2018-2-18
The article deals with the morbidity and mortality of prisoners in prisons of the USSR during the Great Patriotic war. The article presents data on the dynamics of general and intra-prison morbidity. Taking into consideration the growing gap between these indices, differences in their dynamics, the author concludes that the health condition of people entering prison played ever increasing role in the prisoners’ morbidity; emphasizes that the proportion of people with diseases and exhaustion increased during the War, which is an evidence of social vulnerability of a number of population groups during the War. The article analyzes the incidence of individual diseases in their dynamics. It is concluded that diseases caused by starvation, scurvy and beriberi, and typhoid and typhus fevers demonstrated a sharp rise during the War. The analysis of the dynamics of tuberculosis revealed that its decline in 1941 – 1942 was caused by the mass release of the chronically ill from prisons. There was an increase in diseases caused by the prisoners’ detention conditions: colds, boils, scabies. The decrease in the incidence of dysentery and acute gastrointestinal diseases is shown. The author describes the structure of morbidity in prisons of the USSR in the war years, mortality from a number of diseases; emphasizes the reduction of mortality in 1944–1945 from tuberculosis, scurvy and beriberi, dysentery, acute gastrointestinal diseases; considers the movement of mortality in both relative and absolute values. Based on the statistical data analysis the author concludes that the death rate in prisons depended upon two factors: the increasing cachexia of citizens and problems with the provision of prisons in 1942–1943. It is shown that with the normalization of supply, the death rate in prisons began to decline.
Publishing: 19/12/2018
How to cite: Semenov M.A. Morbidity and Mortality in Prisons of the USSR During the Great Patriotic War // Historical Courier, 2018, # 2. Article 18. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2018/ISTKURIER-2018-2-18.pdf
Links: Issue 2 2018
Keywords: prisons; GULAG; morbidity; mortality; Great Patriotic War