gulag meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

gulag

noun

UK /ˈɡuːlɑɡ/ · US /ˈɡuˌlɑɡ/

Etymology Borrowed from Russian ГУЛА́Г (GULÁG), the acronym of Гла́вное управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х лагере́й (Glávnoje upravlénije ispravítelʹno-trudovýx lageréj, “Chief Administration of Corrective-Labor Camps”), the government agency in charge of the Soviet Union’s network of forced labour camps, which was established in 1918 and formally abolished in 1960: see GULAG.

Historical Also GULAG: the system of all Soviet labour camps and prisons in use, especially during the Stalinist period (1930s–1950s).

One important difference between the GULAG system and the Nazi concentration camps was that a person sentenced to five years of hard labor in a Soviet labor camp could expect, assuming he or she survived, to be released at the end of the sentence.[2006?], David Hosford, Pamela Kachurin, Thomas Lamont, “Day 1 Content Essay: The Establishment and Scope of the GULAG System”, in GULAG: Soviet Prison Camps and Their Legacy […], [U.S.A.]: National Park Service; Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, →OCLC, archived from the original on 31 Oct 2021, page 7, column 1:

Broadly A prison camp, especially one used to hold political prisoners.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration has continued to insist that Abrego Garcia is a dangerous gang member in order to justify sending him to an overseas Gulag that has been accused of torturing inmates.2025 April 10, Adam Serwer, “The Confrontation Between Trump and the Supreme Court Has Arrived”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 11 Apr 2025:
The subtext of Knowles’s tweet was also clear: [Nayib] Bukele has partnered with the Trump administration to hold immigrants deported from America, with no due process, in El Salvador’s most notorious gulag.2025 June 14, Christopher Mathias, “JD Vance threatened to deport him. The ‘menswear guy’ is posting through it”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 17 Jul 2025:

Also, Broadly, Figuratively A place where, or political system in which, people with dissident views are routinely oppressed.

Derived terms: gulaglike

gulag

verb

Also, Figuratively, Informal To compel (someone) into a forced labour camp or a similar place of confinement or exile.

Regulative censorships can be amended or revolutionized in ways that raise or lower bodycounts, numbers of books banned or citizens ghettoed or gulaged.1988, Sue Curry Jansen, Censorship: The Knot that Binds Power and Knowledge (Communication and Society), New York, N.Y.; Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 8:
The marriage would be the last good thing in [Spencer] Haywood's life for a long time. He was gulaged to basketball Siberia—the now-defunct New Orleans franchise—for his failure to resurrect the Knicks, but at [Kareem Abdul-]Jabbar's urging the Lakers acquired him in 1980.1993 September, Nelson George, “Haywired”, in Jonathan Van Meter, editor, Vibe, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc. Ventures, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 116, column 3:

4 more examples

Such a situation touches off in the reader a powerful sense of historical déjà vu: witch hunts, Gestapo roundups, the McCarthy era, Argentinian death squads, [Francisco] Franco and the murder of [Federico] Garcia Lorca, the KGB and the disappearance of Isaac Babel, the gulagging of Osip Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova, to name just a few.1998, Peter Makuck, “Dangerous Difference: W[illiam] D[e Witt] Snodgrass’s The Death of Cock Robin”, in Philip Raisor, editor, Tuned and Under Tension: The Recent Poetry of W. D. Snodgrass, Newark, N.J.: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses, →ISBN, page 31:
[Abraham Michael] Rosenthal's reign was described by many as a period of paranoia and terror at the [New York] Times—one reporter said, "He was like the Czar; people would get gulaged at the drop of a hat."2001, Larry Gross, “Journalism’s Closet Opens”, in Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America (Between Men—Between Women), New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 118:
He wanted American Christians to pay reverence to the greater glory of the USSR, which, in his mind, was not a nation blowing up churches, gulaging the religious, shooting priests, locking up nuns with prostitutes—declaring nus "whores to Christ"—and pursuing what Mikhail Gorbachev later correctly described as a "war on religion."2012 October, Paul Kengor, “Frank’s Writings in the Chicago Star (1946–48)”, in The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor, New York, N.Y.: Threshold Editions/Mercury Ink, →ISBN, page 138:
Knowledge that does not serve the state ideological apparatus or the dominant ruling, economic, intellectual or political force is knowledge or ideas that are consciously suppressed and "gulaged".2017, Susan S. M. Edwards, “Cyber-grooming Young Women for Terrorist Activity: Dominant and Subjugated Explanatory Narratives”, in Emilio C. Viano, editor, Cybercrime, Organized Crime, and Societal Responses: International Approaches, Cham, Switzerland=: Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISBN, page 30: