Comparing Republic And Gulag Voices

Each character from these novels experienced the difficulties of life in the Soviet Union differently. This is because their situations were different. Each character has a different background which affects how their life is impacted by the purges of the 1930’s. In Sofia Petrovna the personal standing and background of Sofia affects how she overcomes the difficulties. Since she was a widowed mother of someone who was a prisoner in the Gulag she had different experiences dealing with government officials than other people would. In Gulag Voices each character had different backgrounds but all ended up in the Gulag system because they were labeled as saboteurs. In the Soviet Union status did not matter when the purges arrived the educated and
uneducated alike were arrested and sent to the camps. Each person experienced the camps differently. Women and men had different experience each camp was run differently. No matter what the background or standing was everyone lived in fear of being arrested by the NKVD.