The Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University is pleased to announce the publication of The Torture Camp on Paradise Street by Stanislav Aseyev. Rendered beautifully into English by Zenia Tompkins and Nina Murray, this account offers a painful and intimate glimpse into the experience of political prisoners held by pro-Russian separatists and Russian forces. Aseyev's remarkable record is a testament to the human spirit and its ability to endure unthinkable cruelty and escape with the courage to continue standing up for a nation under siege.
Book Description
In The Torture Camp on Paradise Street, Ukrainian journalist and writer Stanislav Aseyev details his experience as a prisoner from 2015 to 2017 in a modern-day concentration camp overseen by the Federal Security Bureau of the Russian Federation (FSB) in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. This memoir recounts an endless ordeal of psychological and physical abuse, including torture and rape, inflicted upon the author and his fellow inmates over the course of nearly three years of illegal incarceration spent largely in the prison called Izoliatsiia (Isolation). Aseyev also reflects on how a human can survive such atrocities and reenter the world to share his story.
Since February 2022, numerous cases of illegal detainment and extreme mistreatment have been reported in the Ukrainian towns and villages occupied by Russian forces during the full-scale invasion. These and other war crimes committed by Russian troops speak to the genocidal nature of Russia’s war on Ukraine and reveal the horrors wreaked upon Ukrainians forced to live in Russian-occupied zones. It is important to remember, however, that the torture and killing of Ukrainians by Russian security and military forces began long before 2022. Rendered deftly into English, Aseyev’s compelling account offers a critical insight into the operations of Russian forces in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
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Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature
"One of the guards[...] sometimes brought his dog along with him to work, and would occasionally let the dog come and stay in our cell or hang around while we walked for exercise so that anyone who wished could pet him. To a person from the outside, this might seem like a trivial thing. But believe me, when I first touched that dog, it was like I had stepped into a ray of divine light, so deeply were ordinary human emotions locked up inside me by then."
from Chapter 20, "The Man with the Dog"
About the Author
Stanislav Aseyev is a Donetsk-born Ukrainian writer and journalist. He is the author of a collection of poetry, a play, and a novel. Under the penname Stanislav Vasin, he published short reports in Ukrainian press about the situation on the ground following the outbreak of Russian-sponsored military hostilities in Donbas. Arrested and unlawfully imprisoned by separatist militia forces for “extremism” and “spying,” Aseyev was held captive and subjected to mistreatment and intermittent torture for over two and a half years.
Also by Aseyev: In Isolation: Dispatches from Occupied Donbas.
Table of Contents
Translators’ Note
Background
Foreword
The Torture Camp on Paradise Street
• Chapter 1. The Arrival
• Chapter 2. Isolation and the Prison Code
• Chapter 3. Fear
• Chapter 4. Pure Evil
• Chapter 5. The Hour of the Quiet Ones
• Chapter 6. Madness or Normalcy?
• Chapter 7. Time in Captivity
• Chapter 8. The Blue Light: To Kill Yourself or Not?
• Chapter 9. Torture: A Personal Experience
• Chapter 10. What Broke Me
• Chapter 11. Sex in Isolation
• Chapter 12. The Escape
• Chapter 13. A Hunger Strike Is Not a Way Out
• Chapter 14. Why There Was Never an Uprising
• Chapter 15. Mouseville: Writing in Spite of
• Chapter 16. God Behind Bars
• Chapter 17. Humor in Captivity
• Chapter 18. Who Are These People?
• Chapter 19. A Strange Survey
• Chapter 20. The Man with the Dog
• Chapter 21. An Exercise in Death and Freedom
• Chapter 22. Not in Prague
• Chapter 23. White Nights
Writings From Isolation
• Author’s Note
• Christ in a Gulag
• Named after Vladimir Lenin
• Something about Someone
• Heroes of the Tocsin
• To a Future Me
• The Bell
• Of Pipes and Men
• An Essay about a Volcano
• An Atheist’s Prayer
List of Illustrations
Publication of this book has been made possible by the Ukrainian Research Institute Fund and the generous support of publications in Ukrainian studies at Harvard University by the following benefactors:
• Ostap and Ursula Balaban
• Jaroslaw and Olha Duzey
• Vladimir Jurkowsky
• Myroslav and Irene Koltunik
• Damian Korduba Family
• Peter and Emily Kulyk
• Irena Lubchak
• Dr. Evhen Omelsky
• Eugene and Nila Steckiw
• Dr. Omeljan and Iryna Wolynec
• Wasyl and Natalia Yerega
You can support our work of publishing academic books and translations of Ukrainian literature and documents by making a tax-deductible donation in any amount, or by including HURI in your estate planning. To find out more, please visit https://huri.harvard.edu/give.