My own friend in the psychiatric gulag - he died
While mourning the loss of the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn, I think back to a good friend in St. Petersburg, Russia.
My friend’s name was Ol’ga and she had lovely, waist-length blond hair. She was so typically Russian, loved to drink and could drink me under the table, enjoyed art and good poetry and literature. Yet underneath was that sadness that so many Russians carry with them. In some ways, I think it’s part of the Russian soul.
No matter how drunk you are, how crazy you get singing drunken songs, no matter how happy you are in the moment, it’s always under the surface. Melancholy.
I actually didn’t know the person who died in the psychiatric gulag in the 1980s. It was Ol’ga’s husband, a man who died before I knew her. He had been quite an accomplished artist, a great talent. But he didn’t always paint “approved” art. He was a dissident and used his art to criticize the communist leadership.
He was warned, but some Russians refused to conform. Eventually, they are taught a lesson, sent to a gulag, or sent to a psych ward. My friend’s husband was pronounced severely mentally ill and sent to a psychiatric gulag.
She visited him as often as they would allow, and his spirits were high. They could control his person, but could never control his mind, despite the heavy drugs and other tortures.
One day, on her scheduled visit, she arrived at the “hospital” and was told her husband had died. Just like that, told in the same way you’d tell someone “Nice hat.” He had hung himself, they said.
She simply walked away, went through the motions of burying her husband’s body, and day by day the sorrow lessened. She didn’t become a martyr for dissidents and scream “They killed my husband.”
In the Russian tradition, she simply accepted her lot in life and pushed on. But she knew there was no way her husband killed himself. He had reasons to live, and he wasn’t despondent. They killed him and called it a suicide. It wasn’t unheard of. Sometimes it’s apparent that you can’t break someone, and it’s easier to just get rid of them.
That’s how her husband met his end. Convenience of the state.
He was, after all, mentally ill.
