Deportation of the Karachays
Deportation of the Karachays Operation Seagull | |
---|---|
Part of forced settlements in the Soviet Union[5] |
Part of a series on |
Forced population transfer in the Soviet Union |
---|
Policies |
|
Peoples |
|
Operations |
WWII POW labor |
|
Massive labor force transfers |
The Deportation of the Karachays (
Officially, the deportation was carried out in response to the Karachays supposed collaboration with
They were rehabilitated in 1956, after Nikita Khrushchev became the new Soviet Premier and undertook a process of de-Stalinization. In 1957, the Karachays were released from special settlements and allowed to return to their home region, which was formalized as the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Oblast. By 1959, nearly 85% of Soviet Karachays resided in Karachay-Cherkessia. Later, in 1989, the Soviet government declared that the deportation was a crime. Some contemporary scholars such as Manus Midlarsky cite the Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks and the Karachays as ethnic groups which were singled out by Stalin's alleged genocidal behavior.[6]
Background
The
In the 1920s, Joseph Stalin emerged as the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Ben Kiernan, an American academic and historian, described Stalin's era as "by far the bloodiest of Soviet or even Russian history".[9] In November 1921, the Congress of the people of the Karachays and Circassia voted to establish a joint autonomy.[10] In 1922, the Karachay Autonomous Oblast was established. The 1939 Soviet census registered 75,737 Karachays.[8]
During
Deportation
During World War II, eight ethnic groups were expelled in their entirety from their native lands by the Soviet government: the Volga Germans, the Chechens, the Ingush, the Balkars, the Karachays, the Crimean Tatars, the Meskhetian Turks and the Kalmyks.[14] Approximately 650,000 people were deported from the Caucasus region[15] in 1943 and 1944 and a total of 3,332,589 people were deported during the entire war.[16] The Karachays were the first people to be completely deported from the Northern Caucasus.[17]
By October 1943, Stalin and
Since most of young men were serving in the Red Army, the deported people consisted mostly out of children under the age of 16 (50%) and women (30%). During the transit, the trains would seldom stop and open the doors to distribute food, and during that occasion the deportees were not allowed to walk further than 3 metres (9.8 ft) away from the wagons.
The Karachay Autonomous Oblast was abolished and carved up between the Krasnodar and Stavropol Krai, as well as Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.[18] After this operation, the Soviet media was forbidden mentioning the accomplishments of the deported peoples on the Eastern front.[19]
Possible reasons
Scholar
Kazakhstani Korean scholar
Exile and casualties
The Karachays, among with other peoples deported from the Caucasus, were placed under the administration of the
Due to the World War II evacuations, the Central Asian areas were already overloaded with refugees from European Russia, lacking housing.[31] The accommodation of the deportees thus proved difficult: in one district, out of 1,445 deported families, only 175 were provided with housing by the end of 1944. Others had to live in houses of farmers, sheds, barns, brigade bases or in tents. The cold weather of Central Asia and lack of sanitation led to diseases,[19] including dysentery and malaria.[31] Their food rations were sometimes not delivered by the kolkhozes.[33] Although initially reluctant to make contact with them, the Kyrgyz locals eventually showed hospitality and sympathy with the Karachays. Some were reported to have shared their food with the deportees.[34]
In August 1944, the Soviet government provided aid to the Karachay deportees, in the form of 600 tonnes of grain, 150 tonnes of cereals, and 4,859,900 roubles.[35]
The mortality caused by the resettlement and living conditions in exile is estimated at somewhere between 13,100
19%[2] | 81% |
Died in exile | Survived in exile |
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued a decree on 26 November 1948, titled "On Criminal Accountability for Escapes from Places of Compulsory and Permanent Settlement by Persons Exiled to Remote Regions of the Soviet Union during the Period of the Great Patriotic War".[37] The decree formally stated that all deported ethnic groups must remain in permanent exile.[38]
Aftermath and legacy
After Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev started a process of de-Stalinization, reversing many of previous policies.[39] In his secret speech on 24 February 1956, Khrushchev condemned the ethnic deportations:
This deportation action was not dictated by any military considerations. Thus, already at the end of 1943, when there occurred a permanent breakthrough at the fronts... a decision was taken and executed concerning the deportation of all the Karachay from the lands on which they lived. In the same period, at the end of December 1943, the same lot befell whole population of the Autonomous Kalmyk Republic. In March all the Chechen and Ingush peoples were deported and the
Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was liquidated. In April 1944, all Balkars were deported to faraway places from the territory of the Kalbino-Balkar Autonomous Republic and the Republic itself was renamed the Autonomous Kabardin Republic.[40]
In August 1953, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union overturned the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1948, which ordered that all the evicted ethnic groups must remain in permanent exile.[38] On 16 July 1956, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet officially released the Karachays, Chechens and the Ingush from special settlements.[41] In 1957, the Karachays were allowed to return to their native land: by 1959, nearly 85% of Soviet Karachays resided in Karachay-Cherkessia.[42] Their return was sometimes problematic: they found Russians living in their homes, forcing them to find other places to stay in the region.[29]
On 14 November 1989 the
By 1995, 23,024 Karachays were issued with certificates confirming their rehabilitation.[18]
Professor Brian Glyn Williams concluded that the deportation of the Meskhetian Turks, in spite of their lands never coming close to the scene of combat during World War II and which coincided with the deportation of other ethnic groups from Caucasus and Crimea, lends the strongest evidence that all the deportations were a part of a larger concealed Soviet foreign policy rather than a response to any "universal mass treason".[46] In its 1991 report, Human Rights Watch described all of the Soviet mass deportations as a form of collective punishment since groups were targeted on the basis of their ethnicity.[47] It also noted that none of these ethnic groups were given any kind of compensation for the harm caused by the deportations.[48]
Contemporary scholars and historians sometimes include the Karachays as one of the deported ethnic groups who were victims of an attempted Soviet
See also
- Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush
- Deportation of the Meskhetian Turks
- Deportation of the Crimean Tatars
- Deportation of the Kalmyks
- Deportation of the Balkars
- Deportation of the Koreans
References
- ^ a b c d Richmond 2008, p. 116.
- ^ a b c d Buckley, Ruble & Hofmann 2008, p. 207.
- ^ a b Rywkin 1994, p. 67.
- ^ a b c Martin 2001b, pp. 326–327.
- ^ a b Pohl 1999, p. 48.
- ^ a b Midlarsky 2009, p. 265.
- ^ a b Comins-Richmond 2002a, p. 431.
- ^ a b c Human Rights Watch 1991, p. 66.
- ^ Kiernan 2007, p. 511.
- ^ a b Bugay 1996, p. 50.
- ^ Bugay 1996, p. 51.
- ^ Bugay 1996, p. 52.
- ^ a b c d Bugay 1996, p. 53.
- ^ Grannes 1991, p. 55.
- ^ Bugay 1996, p. 106; Pokalova 2015, p. 16; Mawdsley 1998, p. 71.
- ^ Parrish 1996, p. 107.
- ^ Human Rights Watch 1991, p. 65.
- ^ a b c d e f Litvin 2001, p. 119.
- ^ a b c Japarov 2018, p. 8.
- ^ Pohl 1999, p. 77.
- ^ a b Polian 2004, p. 142.
- ^ a b Buckley, Ruble & Hofmann 2008, p. 204; Nader, Dubrow & Stamm 1999, p. 159; Bugay 1996, p. 53.
- ^ Bugay 1996, p. 54.
- ^ Cornell 2005, p. 170.
- ^ a b Bennigsen & Broxup 1983, pp. 31–32.
- ^ Cohen 2014, p. 231.
- ^ Martin 2001, p. 342.
- ^ Kim (2009), p. 18.
- ^ a b Cole 2011, p. 219.
- ^ Tolz 1993, p. 161.
- ^ a b c d Richmond 2008, p. 117.
- ^ Viola 2007, p. 99.
- ^ Japarov 2018, p. 9.
- ^ Japarov 2018, p. 11.
- ^ Bugay 1996, p. 55.
- ^ Pohl 1997, p. 94.
- ^ Ivanova et al. 2015, p. 56.
- ^ a b Weiner 2013, p. 314.
- ^ "Soviet policy in Eastern Europe". BBC. Retrieved 13 October 2018.
- ^ Gross 1998, p. 37.
- ^ Polian 2004, p. 184.
- ^ Polian 2004, p. 198.
- ^ Statiev 2005, p. 285.
- ^ Perovic 2018, p. 320.
- ^ Polian 2004, pp. 125–126.
- ^ Williams 2001, p. 386.
- ^ Human Rights Watch 1991, p. 61.
- ^ Human Rights Watch 1991, p. 3.
- ^ Comins-Richmond 2002b, p. 63.
- ^ Pohl 1997, p. 81
- ^ Statiev 2010, p. 243.
Bibliography
- Books
- LCCN 82016826.
- Buckley, Cynthia J.; Ruble, Blair A.; Hofmann, Erin Trouth (2008). Migration, Homeland, and Belonging in Eurasia. LCCN 2008-015571.
- ISBN 9781560723714.
- Cohen, Saul Bernard (2014). Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations. Rowman & Littlefield. LCCN 2014029230.
- Cole, Jeffrey, ed. (2011). Ethnic Groups of Europe. LCCN 2011000412.
- LCCN 2001347121.
- LCCN 98012329.
- Ivanova, Galina Mikhailovna; Raleigh, Donald J.; Mikhailovna, Galina; Flath, Carol A. (2015). Labor Camp Socialism: The Gulag in the Soviet Totalitarian System. Routledge. ISBN 9781317466642.
- OCLC 2007001525.
- Litvin, Alter (2001). Writing History in Twentieth-century Russia: A View from Within. Springer. LCCN 2001034806.
- Martin, Terry (2001). The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Cornell University Press. LCCN 2001003232.
- Martin, Terry (2001b). "Stalinist Forced Relocation Policies: Patterns, Causes, Consequences". In Weiner, Myron; Stanton Russell, Sharon (eds.). Demography and National Security. Berghahn Books. OCLC 979121559.
- Mawdsley, Evan (1998). The Stalin Years: The Soviet Union, 1929-1953. LCCN 2003046365.
- Nader, Kathleen; Dubrow, Nancy; Stamm, B. Hudnall (1999). Honoring Differences: Cultural Issues in the Treatment of Trauma and Loss. LCCN 99011369.
- Parrish, Michael (1996). The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953. Greenwood Publishing Group. LCCN 94038565.
- Perovic, Jeronim (2018). From Conquest to Deportation: The North Caucasus under Russian Rule. Oxford University Press. OCLC 1083957407.
- Pohl, J. Otto (1997). The Stalinist Penal System: A Statistical History of Soviet Repression and Terror, 1930-1953. McFarland. ISBN 9780786403363.
- Pohl, J. Otto (1999). Ethnic Cleansing in the Ussr, 1937-1949. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. LCCN 98046822.
- Pokalova, Elena (2015). Chechnya's Terrorist Network: The Evolution of Terrorism in Russia's North Caucasus. LCCN 2014038634.
- LCCN 2003019544.
- Richmond, Walter (2008). The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future. Routledge. LCCN 2008001048.
- Rywkin, Michael (1994). Moscow's Lost Empire. Routledge. LCCN 93029308.
- Tolz, Vera (1993). "New Information about the Deportation of Ethnic Groups in the USSR during World War 2". In Garrard, John; Healicon, Alison (eds.). World War 2 and the Soviet People: Selected Papers from the Fourth World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies. New York City: LCCN 92010827.
- OCLC 456302666.
- Weiner, Amir (2013). "The Empires Pays a Visit: Gulag Returnees, East European Rebellions, and Soviet Frontier Politics". In Kozlov, Denis; Gilburd, Eleonory (eds.). The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s. LCCN 2013431527.
- LCCN 2001035369.
- Reports
- OCLC 25705762.
- Japarov, Amantur (2018). "Deported Karachays in Kyrgyzstan: The Experience of Integration" (PDF). Global Centre for Pluralism.
- Journals
- Comins-Richmond, Walter (2002a). "The deportation of the Karachays". S2CID 71183042.
- Comins-Richmond, Walter (2002b). "The Karachay Struggle after the Deportation". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (1): 63–79. S2CID 145326621.
- Grannes, Alf (1991). "The Soviet deportation in 1943 of the Karachays: a Turkic Muslim people of North Caucasus". .
- Kim, German (2009). "Ethnic Entrepreneurship of Koreans in the USSR and post Soviet central Asia" (PDF). Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization. )
- Midlarsky, Manus I. (2009). "Territoriality and the onset of mass violence: the political extremism of Joseph Stalin". Journal of Genocide Research. 11 (2–3): 265–283. S2CID 144510544.
- Pohl, Otto J. (1997). "Uprooted from the Caucasus". Quadrant. 41 (7–8): 81–85. ISSN 0033-5002.
- Statiev, Alexandar (2010). "Soviet ethnic deportations: intent versus outcome". Journal of Genocide Research. 11 (2–3): 243–264. S2CID 71905569.
- Statiev, Alexander (2005). "The Nature of Anti-Soviet Armed Resistance, 1942-44: The North Caucasus, the Kalmyk Autonomous Republic, and Crimea". Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 6 (2): 285–318. S2CID 161159084.