The Gulag dominates histories of Soviet punishment, but lesser-known punitive spaces emerged closer to Soviet cities, acquiring reputations for dissidence and disorder, and leaving contested legacies. The ‘101st kilometre’ denotes the edges of stringently policed Soviet metropolitan zones, often dominated by banished and barred populations (including Gulag returnees, social marginals, and religious and cultural dissenters). This project offers the first interdisciplinary investigation of the 101st kilometre in Soviet and post-Soviet cultures, combining expertise from history, cultural studies, and digital humanities. It will analyse and map 101st-kilometre practices of urban exclusion, migration, community–building, and commemoration across Ukraine, Latvia, Kazakhstan, and Russia.
In collaboration with Dr Miriam Dobson at the University of Sheffield.
