Platonov: a sentence from Kotlovan (stuchit)

[Julie Draskoczy]

Another great explanation of the "knocking code" in Soviet prisons (here in the late 20s/early 30s) can be found in Vatslav Dvorzhetskii's camp memoir Puti bol'shikh etapov (Moscow: Vozvrashchenie, 1994).  It gives the alphabet chart and all.

Best,

Julie Draskoczy

----- Original Message ----
From: Alina Israeli <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 9:16:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Platonov: a sentence from Kotlovan (stuchit)


Yes, after I sent the message I remembered that as well.  
Petropavlovaskaya krepost' was notorious for its system of knocks and  
the alphabet grid and also in some literature there are stories of  
how it was actually done, for example in Roman Gul's book: http:// 
www.kuzbass.ru/moshkow/koi/RUSSLIT/GUL/kotovsky.txt

On Jan 21, 2008, at 8:02 PM, William Ryan wrote:

> Re the last sentence of the Krestovskii text cited by Alina  
> Israeli, the use of a 'knocking' alphabet in Russian prisons  
> features in Sheila Brain's novel, The Turkish Automaton, 1899. She  
> gives the actual code in ch. 17. In her  preface she writes that  
> she got the details from J[acob] Gordon, Mes prisons en Russie  
> [1861, library note says translated from Russian - Gordon was a  
> Polish political prisoner, and according to the title page of his  
> book, a US citizen]. The 'alphabet' is a variant of the Polybius  
> square. Try 'Russian Prison Knock cipher' on Google, or 'Nihilist  
> cipher' in Wikipedia which states, wrongly it would seem, that it  
> was originally used in the 1880s.
>
> Will Ryan
>
>

Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387     
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu




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