Soviet Prison Tattoos

Soviet Prison Tattoos 1. Blank Welcome back. Want someone for next week. A number of you expressed interest last term and I’d like to see you back it up. 2. Soviet Prison Tattoos By this I mean the tattoos worn by prison inmates in the USSR. There is no real message in this talk – just an introduction to an interesting and unexpected subculture What’s going on with these tattoos – why are they special? Rich culture and much meaning conveyed by the imagery of the tattoos: as one inmate put it (in Russian): ‘You can tell a lot about someone from looking at their tattoos; every tattoo means something. You can read them like a book.’ 3. Subculture Semiology The idea of groups of people making their own visual language is not new – I’m sure many of you are familiar with the handkerchief semiology in gay and SMBD communities. Wear hanky out your back pocket to indicate your sexual preferences and fetishes. The information is in the colour: red means you like fisting, blue means oral sex. You can find huge listings of colour codes. Placement also matters. Left – on top / dominant. Right – on bottom / submissive. E.g. my hanky: green – prostitution (buy/sell). 4. Tattoos and Meaning Now let’s move on to tattoos In the “West” (industrialised, ex-European colonies), we understand them to be decorative / aesthetic, like piercings or jewellery. But in many cases there are meanings behind such markings You may have heard of Otzi, a corpse which had been preserved in the Alpine ice for 5300 years. He had tattoos on his joints, which turned out to be for warding off arthritis. 5. Tattoos and Meaning (2) Famous Yakuza tattoos. Yakuza is the Japanese mafia, and a tradition emerged (1600s) of getting full body tattoos in beautiful colours and detail. Tattoos still associated with criminal activity in Japan, but the taboo is fading. A similar thing happened in Australia, which was a former penal colony of the British Empire. Captain ISC talk 01/02/13 6. Tattoos and Meaning (3) In the UK and the US, teardrop tattoos are used to indicate a number of things – from murder to loss of a loved one or having been raped in prison. From these examples [flick through], we see there are many associations between tattoos and criminality. But the practice finds its linguistic acme in the USSR. 7. Soviet Prison Code Earlier we heard that tattoos allowed inmates to read one another’s’ histories. What their crime was, how long they served and where. Also tells you their position in the prison hierarchy – some tattoos carried a lot of authority. Tied in with the Vory V Zakone, champions of the criminal underworld. The name means Thief-in-the-Law (“Law” is the Thieves’ Code in this context). The Vory follow the Thieves’ Code. 8. Soviet Prison Code (2) Image 9. Soviet Prison Code (3) Image 10. Soviet Prison Code (4) Image 11. Soviet Prison Code (5) Image 12. Soviet Prison Code (6) Image 13. Soviet Prison Code (7) There’s a whole dictionary of symbols for interpreting the pictures. You can find this on Wikipedia (“Criminal Tattoo”). 14. Downcasts If you were considered a coward or caught assisting the authorities, you may be branded a “downcast”. These were the lowest class of inmate, and were sometimes forcibly tattooed in very obvious ways. This word is “rab”, meaning “slave”. Other crimes were being a child molester or being unable to pay gambling debts. Captain ISC talk 01/02/13 15. Transgressing of the Thieves’ Code Don’t: video clip. (1.00-2.00) So if you are deemed to be unworthy of the tattoo, you may lose it along with your skin. It could be sliced off with a knife, or with a shard of glass. It could be scored so that the scars disfigure the image. You could be beaten and raped. 16. Artists A lot of the tattoos we’ve seen have been very skilled and intricate. Tattoos are illegal in Soviet prisons, and had to be applied furtively with rudimentary or cobbled-together equipment. For the artist, it was a way of surviving in the prison – his trade earned him respect. Let’s watch a two-minute clip from a documentary. (11.50-13.55) 17. Documentation My sources Forced prison warden Danzig Baldaev makes drawings from 1948 until 1986. First interest in the issue. I haven’t used any of his drawings here because I thought the photos were more punchy; but if you want to know more about the history, you must look him up. Photographer Sergei Vasiliev documents in the 1990s and 2000s. Documentary film “The Mark of Cain” (2007) about the experience in Soviet prisons makes extensive reference to tattoos, through interviews with inmates. This is where I took the clips from. 18. Now If you watch “The Mark of Cain”, towards the end there’s a bit where all the old- timers start to gripe about the loss of culture. Types of crime have changed, and the prison population is no longer unified under a code. With the undermining of the Thieves’ Code, tattoos have lost their significance – anyone can get a tattoo, without being forced to defend it. My reading is this: the prisons used to be worlds unto themselves. No matter who you are outside the walls of the gaol, once you are admitted you leave your old status at the gates and begin again at the bottom. Then you have to prove yourself to your superiors. In recent years, and especially with the fall of Communism, prison society has become increasingly connected to the outside world. A person’s wealth, influence and social standing are brought with them into prison. The old order is thus destroyed. Captain ISC talk 01/02/13 .

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