[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 105 (Wednesday, July 23, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1490-E1491]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          NIKOLAI IVANOVICH GETMAN: ARTIST OF THE SOVIET GULAG

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 23, 1997

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the 
accomplishments of Soviet born artist, Nikolai Getman, a refugee of the 
Soviet Gulag, the immense series of prison camps that extended across 
the length and breadth of the former Soviet Union. His paintings have 
given us a unique insight into the ghastly life of the Gulag. This 
exhibition, a collection of paintings depicting life at the Gulag, is 
of immense historical importance. Over the past several months the 
Jamestown Foundation, a nonprofit organization which focuses on the 
former Soviet Union, has raised funds to bring these paintings to the 
United States and save them from possible destruction. The paintings 
will be available for viewing in the Rotunda of the Russell Senate 
Office Building between July 21 and July 25.

[[Page E1491]]

  In 1946, Soviet police imprisoned Nikolai Getman in the Gulag, the 
Soviet Union's state operated system of prisons and forced labor camps. 
He is one of the millions of victims of Josef Stalin's purges and 
political repressions. Getman's crime was that he had been present in a 
cafe with several fellow artists, one of whom drew a caricature of 
Stalin on a cigarette paper. An informer told the authorities about the 
drawing, and the entire group was arrested for anti-Soviet behavior. 
Getman spent 8 years in Siberia at the Kolyma labor camp where he 
witnessed one of the darkest periods of Soviet history. Although he 
survived the camp, the horrors of the Gulag were burned into his 
memory. Upon his release in 1954, Getman returned to his career as a 
painter, painting prominent members of state.
  In secret, however, he drew many pictures depicting his memories of 
the camps. He told no one, not even his wife, what he was doing because 
to do so meant risking imprisonment or even death. Despite the danger, 
he undertook the project believing that he must record the plight of 
the millions of dead prisoners so their fate would not be forgotten. 
For more than four decades, Getman worked at his task of creating a 
visual record of the Gulag. During those years, his secret collection 
grew to 50 paintings which depict all aspects of life in the camps.
  The Getman collection is outstanding. It is the only known visual 
record to exist of this tragic period in Soviet history. If film or 
other visual representations of the Soviet Gulag existed, they have 
been largely destroyed or suppressed. The Getman collection stands 
alone as a most unique historical document.
  Getman, now 79, lives in Oryol, Russia. He feared that when he died 
his paintings would be destroyed or sold off. He asked the Jamestown 
Foundation to assist him in moving the paintings to a place of safety 
in the West and to develop a plan for their preservation and 
exhibition. After 6 months of effort, the paintings are now safely in 
the United States.
  It is important that Nikolai Getman's painting act as a public 
reminder, a means of education, and a testament to the more than 50 
million people who died in one of the most vicious and brutal acts of 
political repression. Getman's perservance, determination, and bravery, 
as well as the hard work of the people at the Jamestown Foundation, 
have guaranteed that the visual record of the atrocities exists despite 
concerted attempts on the part of the Russian authorities to make the 
memories disappear. Mr. Speaker, I take great pride in the fact that 
the first exhibition of such important works will take place inside the 
U.S. Congress.

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