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The theme of abuse, often sexual abuse, of imprisoned women in Russian literature can be observed throughout literary history, yet is rarely the focus of the work in question. When comparing literary depictions of the imprisonment of female characters, and nonfictional accounts of Russian women, the scope and frequency of the abuse of prosecuted women becomes clear. Narratives of imprisoned women from Leo Tolstoy's novel Resurrection (1899) to Guzel Yakhina's novel Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes (2015) contain similar themes. Younger generations of Russian authors are still commenting on the same suffering of female prisoners raised over 100 years ago. My thesis will explore the depiction of imprisoned women in fictional as well as nonfictional works as it has evolved through Russian literary history. I will analyze Leo Tolstoy's Resurrection (1899), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago (1973), Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Stories (1970-76), Evgenia Ginzburg's memoirs Journey into the Whirlwind (1967) and Within the Whirlwind (1979), and Guzel Yakhina's Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes (2015). A significant portion of my analysis will focus on the abuse, often sexual, of women imprisoned in the Soviet Gulag under Stalin. The issue of psychological trauma of imprisoned women under the Stalinist regime needs further investigation. To stop the violence in modern Russian and Western societies we have to be aware of the atrocities and crimes against women in the last century. I investigate the overlooked accounts of women incarcerated under Stalin, and analyze the sexual abuses specifically inflicted upon female prisoners that were prevalent in camp life. I will examine how Soviet women, proclaimed by the Communist ideology equal to men and protected by the Soviet society, were treated and sexually abused within the Soviet prison system. Furthermore, analysis of pre-Soviet imprisoned women and continuation of the theme by contemporary Russian authors outlines the history of suffering and abuse still being talked about today.
