An Attempt at Shame

Description

Color sketch from Evfrosiniia Kersnovskaia's self-illustrated memoirs of the interior of a prisoner railcar. The image shows passengers on a crowded transport train dealing with normal bodily functions while trying to maintain some sense of the privacy of regular life by holding up a blanket. Kersnovskaia writes in the accompanying text that for people from Bessarabia it was a real torture to deal with these "necessities" in a railcar, because they were brought up to believe that all nakedness was shameful.

Creator

Evfrosiniia Kersnovskaia

Source

Evfrosiniia Kersnovskaia Foundation, Moscow

Bibliographic Citation

Evfrosiniia Kersnovskaia, "An Attempt at Shame." Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives, Item #230 (accessed May 27 2021, 1:13 pm)