THE PHANTASMAGORIA OF KARLAG: NEGOTIATING PENAL SPECTRALITY IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

This study explores how local communities in Kazakhstan engage with the physical and emotional remnants of Karlag, one of the largest Soviet Gulag camps, through the frameworks of penal spectrality, haunting, and phantasmagoria. While existing literature on Gulag memory emphasizes formal sites of commemoration or state narratives, this research examines the everyday practices, ghost stories, and reinterpretations of ruins that shape popular memory. Based on data from Aktailak village for the CAG project, including interviews, expert testimony, and a quasi-experimental focus group, this capstone analyzes three interconnected modes of engagement: pragmatic distancing, cultural distancing, and phantasmagoric entanglement. The findings reveal that locals reuse Karlag ruins for practical needs, participate in museumification and official narratives, yet also generate ghost stories and horror-infused recollections that blur the boundaries between memory and imagination. These spectral interactions do not simply reflect forgetting but illustrate how post-Soviet societies negotiate traumatic pasts through both distancing and emotional proximity. By introducing the concept of penal phantasmagoria, this study offers new insights into the affective and imaginative ways memory persists in landscapes of repression.