Child Mortality and Disease in Karlag, 1941: A Comparison of Prisoners’ and Free Workers’ Children
Saktaganova Z. Gladysheva A. Ventsel A.
15 December 2025ELM Scholarly Press
Yearbook of Balkan and Baltic Studies
2025#8Issue 2192 - 217 pp.
The article analyses archived statistical data illustrating mortality rates for the children of female prisoners, as well as the children of free labourers in Karlag in 1941. For a comparative view of the problem of child mortality in the Gulag in 1941, the article uses data from two other camps in the Gulag system, Vyatlag and Bureilag. The general trends and differences in the mortality rates of the children of mothers who were prisoners, and mothers who were free labourers, were analysed. It appears that that the number of children in Karlag agricultural camp in 1941 was significantly higher than in forest and railway industry camps, and the overall mortality rate of children of imprisoned mothers was lower on average. Almost two-thirds of the children who died in Karlag in 1941 were children of female prisoners. In addition, the morbidity of children of incarcerated mothers was much higher than that of the children of free labourers. The peak of the morbidity and mortality in Karlag was April 1941.
children in the correctional labour camps , children of Karlag , children of the Gulag , children’s homes , conditions of detention , Gulag , infant mortality in correctional labour camps , Karlag , Karlag medical and sanitation services
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Archaeology, Ethnology and Native History, Director of the Centre for Ethnocultural and Historical Anthropological Studies at E. A. Buketov Karaganda State University, Karaganda, Kazakhstan
E. A. Buketov Karaganda State University, Karaganda, Kazakhstan
Research Fellow in Ethnology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Tartu, Estonia
Archaeology
E. A. Buketov Karaganda State University
Research Fellow in Ethnology
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