June deportation

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The June deportation (Estonian: juuniküüditamine, Latvian: jūnija deportācijas, Lithuanian: birželio trėmimai) was a mass deportation of tens of thousands of people from the territories which were occupied in 1940–1941: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, occupied Ukraine and occupied Poland (mostly present-day western Belarus and western Ukraine), and Moldavia by the Soviet Union.[1]

This mass deportation was organized following the guidelines set by the NKVD[2] with the USSR Interior People's Commissar Lavrentiy Beria as the senior executor.[3] The official name of the top secret operation was “Resolution On the Eviction of the Socially Foreign Elements from the Baltic Republics, Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and Moldova”.[4] The Soviet police, called "militsya", carried out the arrests with the collaboration of local Communist Party members.[5]

Background

The June deportations were part of a much larger history of depopulation.[6] The "Stalin deportations" from 1928-1953 targeted 13 different nationalities.[7]

The Baltic states were annexed into the Soviet Union in 1940, in an invasion that followed the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany.[8] In June 1940 the Baltic states were forced to accept Soviet Rule and puppet regimes were installed.[9] Mass deportation campaigns began almost immediately and included the Baltic States, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova.[10]

The Russian colonization of Ukraine and Poland began in modern times with the

Emigration of Christians from the Crimea in 1778.[13] The June Deportation marked the first industrialized deportations, using rail.[14]

Deportations

Planning for mass deportations began as far back as 1939.

Gulag camps.[23] The operations began May 22 in Ukraine and Poland, June 12 and 13 in Moldova, June 14th in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, and June 19th and 20 in Belarus.[2]

The June deportation campaigns resulted in genocidal levels of depopulation.

occupation and annexation of the Baltic states and Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina[20]

The procedure for the deportations was approved by

forced settlements[18] in Omsk and Novosibirsk Oblasts, Krasnoyarsk, Tajikistan, Altai Krais, and Kazakhstan.[16] The mortality rate among the Estonian deportees was estimated at 60%.[18]

Following

Khrushchev began a program of limited return.[7] In Lithuania, for example, 17,000 people returned by 1956 and 80,000 returned by 1970.[28] Many people deemed nationalist or of non-white ethnic descent were not allowed to return until the 1980s.[29] When survivors did return they faced discrimination and loss of property.[30]

Number of deportees

The number of deported people include:

Pre-war
country 		Number of deportees
To forced settlements[31]
(from official NKVD reports)		 To prison camps and
forced settlements		 Upper Boundary
Estonia 5,978 10,000 to 11,000[18]
Latvia 9,546[32] 15,000[32]
Lithuania 10,187 17,500[33]
Poland 11,329 (Western Ukraine)
22,353 (Western Belarus)
24,412 (Western Belarus)[34]		 200,000 to 300,000[31][21]
Romaniaa 24,360 300,000[35]
a Moldavia as well as Chernivtsi Oblast and Izmail Oblast of Ukraine

Remembrance

Memorial event in Tallinn in 1989
2023 June Deportation Remembrance Day in Estonia

Baltic States hold a day of remembrance on June 14.[36][37] In Latvia this is the Commemoration Day for the Victims of Communist Genocide.[38]

The Day of Remembrance began following the National Awakening movement in the 1980s.[38] On 14 June 1987, the human rights group Helsinki-86 organized a flower laying ceremony at the Freedom Monument to commemorate the victims of the 1941 deportations.[38] In 1993 the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (LOM) was founded which organized efforts around Remembrance Days.[37] In Estonia the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory leads vigils on June 14 and March 25.[30]

In media

The June deportation has been the subject of several Baltic films from the 2010s. The 2013 Lithuanian film The Excursionist dramatised the events through the depiction of a 10-year-old girl who escapes from her camp. Estonia's 2014 In the Crosswind is an essay film based on the memoirs of a woman who was deported to Siberia, and is told through staged tableaux vivants filmed in black-and-white. Estonia's Ülo Pikkov also addressed the events in the animated short film Body Memory (Kehamälu) from 2012. Latvia's The Chronicles of Melanie was released in 2016 and is, just like In the Crosswind, based on the memoirs of a woman who experienced the deportation, but is told in a more conventional dramatic way.[39]

See also

References

  1. ^ Švedas, Aurimas (2020-12-09). "Narratives of Exile and Identity: Soviet Deportation Memoirs from the Baltic States, eds. Violeta Davoliūtė, Tomas Balkelis, Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, 2018. 220 pp. ISBN 978-963-386-183-7". Lithuanian Historical Studies. 24 (1): 262–264.
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  5. ^ Saueauk, Meelis (2015-12-21). ""Erikaader": nomenklatuur ja julgeolekuorganid Eesti NSV-s 1940–1953 [Abstract: "Special cadre": the nomenklatura system and the state security organs in the era of Stalinist rule in the Estonian SSR 1940–1953]". Ajalooline Ajakiri. The Estonian Historical Journal (4): 407. doi:10.12697/aa.2015.4.04. ISSN 2228-3897.
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  17. doi:10.2307/j.ctv287sd9m.16
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  25. ^ "Lithuanian exiles and deportations (1940-1953) | True Lithuania". www.truelithuania.com. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
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  28. ^ "Lithuanian exiles and deportations (1940-1953) | True Lithuania". www.truelithuania.com. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
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  30. ^ a b World, Estonian (2023-03-24). "The victims of Soviet deportations remembered in Estonia". Estonian World. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
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  32. ^
    ISBN 978-9985-9914-6-6. Archived from the original
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  33. ISSN 2029-7181. Archived from the original
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  36. ^ "Lithuania marks 80th anniversary of Soviet mass deportations". WJXT. Associated Press. 2021-06-14. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
  37. ^ a b "Soviet deportations remembered 82 years on". eng.lsm.lv. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
  38. ^ a b c "2. Soviet occupation - Latvijas Okupācijas muzejs". 2021-09-07. Archived from the original on 2021-09-07. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
  39. ^ Priimägi, Tristan (2016-11-29). "The Chronicles of Melanie: The dear deported". Cineuropa. Retrieved 2017-02-05.
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