I read today of a fascinating historical event, the Kengir uprising, and am surprised that a movie has not yet been about Kengir. It would make for exciting, dramatic, and ultimately tragic material.
In May and June of 1954 the prisoners in a Soviet prison labor camp called Kengir in what is now Kazakhstan rebelled against their captors and seized the entire camp. They had 40 days of glorious freedom, until the uprising was finally crushed by the authorities.
What makes this especially interesting is that most of the prisoners were there for political reasons, and as a result what they did with their short-lived freedom is nothing short of remarkable. Art, music, and democratic government all flourished during until the end of the 40 days.
Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn chronicled the Kengir uprising in his book the Gulag Archipelago, which I personally intend to obtain and read soon. One particularly chilling fact from this book - more than 25% of the entire population of Leningrad was sent to the Gulag's between 1930-1939.
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