As early as the 1920Ìs, RussiaÌs prisons and gulag began to attract the attention of researchers. The prisoners of the Stalinist Gulag, or "Zone," as it is called, had developed a complex social structure that incorporated highly symbolic tattooing as a mark of rank. The very existence of these inmates at prisons and forced labor camps was treated by the state as a deep secret, and their tattoo art was considered a forbidden topic.
Since the introduction of Glasnost and the new freedoms of the press, striking figures have been published: from the mid-1960Ìs to the 1980Ìs, thirty-five million people were incarcerated. In the last decade, RussiaÌs prison population has exploded; overcrowding has reached unimaginable proportions. Few other nations have had such a massive prison population. The most conservative estimates suggest that in the last decades, over thirty million of Russiaºs inmates have had tattoos“even though the process is against the law inside prison.
According to The Book of Genesis, God placed a mark on the worldºs first murderer before sending him into exile. The mark of Cain proclaimed its bearer as a criminal and social outcast; for centuries, prisoners and those who broke social codes were forcibly tattooed. In Russian prisons, tattooing emerged as a visual mode of communication linked with social division. The startling and beautiful images of churches, cats, Christs, Madonnas, dolphins, bears and hawks, to name a few, became part of a secret, political language that allowed for clandestine communication both in and out of prison.
The Mark of Cain tells the story of a fading art form and how that practiceÌs death reflects transition in broader Russian society. In Russian prisons there has been a Code-of-Thieves. This criminal code is directly related to how prisoners earn their status in the prison community, and in turn earn the right to carry particular tattooed images that communicate who they are and their position within the social hierarchy. The godfather of the Code-of-Thieves is the Thief-in-Law. In Russian prisons today there is major conflict concerning how prisoners achieve their status. Older prisoners are committed to the practice of tattooing and a Code-of-Thieves in which status has to do with oneºs behavior both as a criminal on the outside, in the legal system, and in the community of prisoners. Younger prisoners seek to purchase high status in the prison community. The younger generations are less interested in tattooing. The Mark of Cain documents for the first time the disappearing artistic practice of Russian prison tattoos; further, the project investigates the nature of change in Russia by examining what is happening in the countryÌs prisons.
The Mark of Cain resists conventional narratives that Russia is simply a disaster, or is that upon which we cannot comment. The prisoners raise crucial questions about expression, resistance, redemption and social division. The Mark of Cain intervenes into discussions that concern: Russian society, prison reform, resistance and artistic expression, and transition in world systems.
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