The term Kafkaesque implies a surreal distortion and sense of impending danger. It’s derived from the writings of Prague-born Franz Kafka (1883-1924), perhaps best personified in THE METAMORPHOSIS. Kafka employed elements of the fantastic and alienation, in which isolated protagonists face incomprehensible social or bureaucratic consummate control --- thwarted existentialism.

Such is the world of university art student Pasha Kalmenov, a Stalin-era artist a year out of his teens. One frozen night in a Moscow suburb in 1950, he’s rousted by gestapo who produce no warrant or identification, and confiscate his documents. “Every adult citizen has to have an internal passport. The propiska is the residency permit, also obligatory.” Without papers, Pasha can be executed sans cause.

"Perhaps THE LEONARDO GULAG is a dire prognostication of socialism, portrayed during the 1922–91 reign of the USSR..."

He’s forced into a cattle car containing others with artistic talents. They’re transported through Siberia, to a special gulag north of the Arctic Circle, “the bleakest reaches of the USSR.” No chance for escape. The conscript comrades are coerced to replicate in precise detail original drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. Those who fail are executed. Pasha “has stepped into a vision of hell.” Without the warmth.

How original da Vinci drawings come to be housed at the gulag is a subplot involving Sir Anthony Frederick Blunt, England’s Surveyor of the King’s Pictures. Given that Blunt was a Soviet spy emboldens intrigue.

Pasha survives three years of intense cruelty, through his talent. “There is a special place within him where he goes when he is drawing.” As gulag artists are executed --- some frozen on electrified fences, in Dante’s Inferno-like imagery --- Pasha resolves to escape.

This is not an uplifting tale, but one of survival. Pasha does, however, prevail.

Anyone who considers reading this intense and grim thriller should first view the epic 1965 drama, Doctor Zhivago, fictionalized during the 1918 Russian civil war. Perhaps THE LEONARDO GULAG is a dire prognostication of socialism, portrayed during the 1922–91 reign of the USSR --- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.