Deportation of Balkars

 Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Text taken from a news report which appeared in kavkaz-uzel.ru

Eighty years ago, on March 8, 1944, 37,713 Balkars were forcibly sent to Central Asia. Ethnic Balkars were accused by the leadership of the USSR of “betrayal” and “failure to protect” the territory of the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, in particular Elbrus and the Elbrus region, from Nazi troops, and were resettled to Central Asia. 

Background of expulsion

In August 1942, five regions of the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic were occupied by German troops. On October 24, 1942, they occupied Nalchik. A number of industrial enterprises along with their equipment were left to the occupiers. 314,900 sheep were left behind (248,000 were destroyed or taken away by the occupiers), 45,500 heads of cattle (more than 23,000 were destroyed or taken away), 25,500 horses (about 6,000 were destroyed or taken away). An attempt to organize a partisan movement in the republic failed. For operations in the rear, it was planned to create several partisan groups and detachments with a total number of up to a thousand people. These units disintegrated because the families of the partisans were not evacuated. Only one united partisan detachment of 125 people was created.

At the beginning of 1943, Soviet troops liberated the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. However, as of May 1943, 44 groups of anti-Soviet rebels (941 people) were operating on the territory of the republic, which, according to official data, included former party workers.

In January 1944, the first preliminary discussion took place on the possibility of relocating the Balkars. The State Defense Committee was recommended to “express an opinion on this issue.” On February 25, 1944, at a meeting between the leaders of the NKVD Lavrentiy Beria, Ivan Serov and Bogdan Kobulov with the secretary of the Kabardino-Balkarian regional party committee Zuber Kumekhov, it was planned to visit the Elbrus region in early March. During the visit, the decision to evict Balkars from the republic was brought to the attention of Kumekhov.

Red Army and NKVD troops totaling more than 21,000people were allocated to carry out the operation. On March 5, military units dispersed in Balkar settlements. The population was informed that the troops had arrived to rest and replenish themselves before the upcoming battles. The deportation was carried out under the leadership of the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Colonel General Ivan Serov and Colonel General Bogdan Kobulov.

The territory of residence of the Balkars was divided into 5 sectors: Elbrus, Chegem, Khulamo-Bezengievsky, Cherek and Nalchik. Each of the four areas of residence with a predominantly Balkar population and the fifth - in the city of Nalchik, for Balkars living in other areas.

Deportation

The operation to evict the Balkars began on the morning of March 8, 1944. Everyone without exception underwent transportation - active participants in the Civil and Patriotic Wars, war veterans, parents, wives and children of front-line soldiers, deputies of councils at all levels, leaders of party and Soviet bodies. The guilt of the deportee was determined solely by his Balkar origin.

The deportees were loaded into pre-prepared Studebakers and taken to the Nalchik railway station. 37,713 Balkars were sent to settlement sites in Central Asia in 14 echelons. Of the total number of deportees, 52% were children, 30% were women, 18% were men. In addition, 478 people of “anti-Soviet element” were arrested. There was a case of shelling of an NKVD ambush by a group of three people.

When carrying out the operation, it was proposed to follow the instructions of the NKVD of the USSR on the procedure for eviction. According to the instructions, each settler was allowed to take food and property weighing up to 500 kg per family. However, the organizers of the eviction gave 20 minutes to get ready.

The sixth point of the instructions provided that livestock, agricultural products, houses and buildings were subject to transfer on the spot and compensation in kind at new places of settlement. However, this did not happen - the resettlement of the Balkars was carried out in small groups, and no land or funds were allocated to them locally.

During the 18 days of travel, 562 people died in unequipped carriages. They were buried near the railroad tracks during short stops. When the trains passed without stopping, the bodies of those who died along the way were thrown into derailment by the guards.

On March 14, 1944, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, L. Beria reported on the successful operation. On August 22, 1944, 109 people from among the organizers of the deportation of Balkars were awarded orders and medals of the USSR.

The search for Balkars also took place outside the republics. Thus, in May 1944, 20 families were deported from the liquidated Karachay Autonomous Okrug, 67 people were identified in other regions of the USSR. The deportation of Balkars continued until 1948 inclusive.

The evicted Balkars were distributed in new areas of residence as follows:

• Kazakh SSR - 16,684 people (4,660 families)
• Kirghiz SSR - 15,743 people (9,320 adults)
• Uzbek SSR - 419 people (250 adults)
• Tajik SSR - 4 people
• Irkutsk region - 20 people
• regions of the Far North - 14 people

All special settlers were registered with a mandatory monthly check at the place of residence in the special commandant's offices. It was forbidden to leave the settlement area without the commandant's approval. Unauthorized absence was equated to escape and entailed criminal liability. For any violation, including disobedience to the commandant, the settlers were subject to administrative or criminal punishment.

Consequences of deportation

On April 8, 1944, the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was renamed the Kabardian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The southwestern regions of the republic - Elbrus and Elbrus - were transferred to the Georgian SSR. Orders followed to rename settlements. The village of Yanika began to be called Novo-Kamenka, Kashkatau - Sovetsky, Khasanya - Prigorodny, Lashkuta - Zarechny, Bylym - Coal.

The evicted Balkars were distributed in new areas of residence as follows: in the Kazakh SSR - 4,660 families (16,684 people), in the Kirghiz SSR - 15,743 (9,320 adults), in the Uzbek SSR - 419 (250 adults). In the Tajik SSR - four people, in the Irkutsk region - 20, in the Far North - 14 people. The deportees were mainly employed in agriculture. Thus, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture and State Farms of the Kazakh SSR there were 11,373 Balkars.

In places of exile, all special settlers were registered. Every month they were required to report to their place of residence in special commandant's offices and had no right to leave the area of ​​resettlement without the knowledge and approval of the commandant. Unauthorized absence was considered an escape and entailed criminal liability. For any violation or disobedience to the commandant, the settlers were subject to administrative penalties or criminal charges.

During the years of exile, the Balkars lost many elements of material culture. Traditional buildings and utensils were almost never reproduced in the new settlement areas. The reduction of traditional sectors of the economy led to the loss of national types of clothing, shoes, hats, jewelry, national cuisine, and modes of transport.

For most Balkar children, it was difficult to obtain a school education: only one in six of them attended school. Obtaining higher and secondary specialized education was almost impossible. In order to assimilate and erase the historical and cultural basis of the repressed peoples, language and cultural traditions were excluded from those officially supported by the state.

The first years of the Balkars’ stay in Central Asia were complicated by the negative attitude towards them from the local population, who were subjected to ideological indoctrination and saw them as enemies of Soviet power.

Since the summer of 1945, demobilized Balkar front-line soldiers began to return from the army. They were ordered to go to the places of exile of their relatives. Having arrived there, the front-line soldiers were registered as special settlers.

In November 1948, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued “On criminal liability for escapes from places of compulsory and permanent settlement of persons evicted to remote areas of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War,” the essence of which was that repressed peoples were expelled forever, without the right to return to their ethnic homeland. The same decree tightened the special settlement regime even more. The document provided for 20 years of hard labor for unauthorized departure from places of settlement. In fact, special settlers could move freely only within a radius of 3 km from their place of residence.

Rehabilitation

Restrictions on special settlements for Balkars were lifted on April 18, 1956, but the right to return to their homeland was not granted.

On January 9, 1957, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree “On the transformation of the Kabardian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic into the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.” At the same time, the territories ceded to Georgia were returned, their former names were restored; The ban on returning to one’s previous place of residence was also lifted.

On March 28, 1957, the KBASSR Law “On the transformation of the Kabardian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic into the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic” was adopted.

The return of Balkars to their homeland was very intensive: by April 1958, about 22,000 people returned. By 1959, about 81% had already returned, by 1970 - more than 86%, and by 1979 - about 90% of all Balkars.

For various reasons, some of the deportees decided to stay. Someone decided that now, being equal citizens of the USSR, it didn’t matter where they lived, others did not want to give up their acquired household and career, and still others, having already become related to representatives of the local population, did not want to leave their loved ones. According to the results of the 1989 All-Union Census, more than 2,967 Balkars lived in Kazakhstan, and 2,131 Balkars lived in Kyrgyzstan.

On November 14, 1989, the Declaration of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR rehabilitated all repressed peoples, recognizing as illegal and criminal repressive acts against them at the state level in the form of a policy of slander, genocide, forced relocation, abolition of national-state entities, establishment of a regime of terror and violence in places of special settlements.

In 1991, the RSFSR Law “ On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples ” was adopted, which defines the rehabilitation of peoples subjected to mass repression in the USSR as the recognition and exercise of their right to restore the territorial integrity that existed before the forcible redrawing of borders.

In 1993, the government of the Russian Federation adopted a resolution “On socio-economic support for the Balkar people.”

In 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree “ On measures for the rehabilitation of the Balkar people and state support for their revival and development .”

In modern Kabardino-Balkaria, March 8 is the Day of Remembrance for the victims of the deportation of the Balkar people, and March 28 is celebrated as the Day of the Revival of the Balkar people.

However, the application of these documents in practice turned out to be complicated by many factors. Thus, none of the four regions of Balkaria that existed at the time of the forced eviction of the Balkars from their territories in 1943 was restored to its former borders. After returning from exile, some Balkars were resettled in the Kabardian regions.

As a result of the unification of Balkar villages with villages separated from the regions of Kabarda, a mixed Chegemsky district was formed with a predominance of the Kabardian population and, accordingly, administrative power belonged to the Kabardians, and the most populous Balkar villages of Khasanya and Belaya Rechka were transferred to the administrative subordination of Nalchik, along with those adjacent to with vast tracts of land. 

Memory of deportation

March 8 is the Day of Remembrance for the victims of the deportation of the Balkar people. March 28, the Day of the Revival of the Balkar People, is celebrated annually and declared a holiday in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. Dedicated to the return of the Balkar people from Central Asia to their homeland.

In March 2014, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Balkar people, the publishing house of Maria and Viktor Kotlyarov published their book “Balkaria: Deportation. Eyewitnesses Testify.” The book includes more than 100 private stories conveying the tragedy of a little man who fell into the millstones of Stalin's repressions. The appendix contains sections “Carry out execution on the spot” and “The tragedy of repressed intelligence”, telling about how the truth was restored about the events that took place in the Cherek Gorge in 1942, and what a tragedy of unrealized creative potential the deportation turned out to be for many young people from number of special settlers.

Also in 2014, a delegation from Kabardino-Balkaria, during a trip to Central Asia dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the deportation, installed two tombstones brought from their homeland at the entrance to cemeteries in Almaty and Bishkek .

On July 3, 2015, a monument to the repressed residents of Kabardino-Balkaria was erected in the Nalchik city park . At its opening, the chairman of the council of the public organization of the Balkar people "Alan" Sufyan Beppaev said that 63,180 people were repressed in Kabardino-Balkaria and 60,000 of them were rehabilitated. 

On March 8, 2017, in Nalchik, at the memorial to the victims of deportation, a memorial meeting organized by the Council of Elders of the Balkar People took place . Chairman of the Council of Elders of the Balkar People, Ismail Sabanchiev, who spoke at the rally, blamed the deportation on the “Stalin-Beria regime,” saying that now the Balkars “must unite and achieve complete rehabilitation, otherwise they will cease to exist as an ethnic group.” 

In 2021, on the 77th anniversary of the deportation, at an official event dedicated to this date, victims of the deportation of Balkars said that they received only minor benefits, and support from the authorities was not commensurate with the hardships experienced during the years of repression, participants in the memorial event on March 8 stated. 2020.

In 2022, on the 78th anniversary of the deportation, the chairman of the muftiate of the republic, Khazretali Dzasezhev, called on all those present at the commemorative event to offer a prayer so that “no misfortunes would ever again befall any people,” and all those present performed a memorial prayer.

In 2023, the head of Kabardino-Balkaria, Kazbek Kokov, in his Telegram channel, called the deportation “one of the most tragic dates in the history of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic,” arbitrariness and lawlessness. In Nalchik and Kenzha, rallies were held in memory of the victims of the deportation of the Balkar people.

On March 5, 2024, Ingush elders addressed the Balkar people on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of their deportation . The video of the appeal was published on the themagastimes Instagram**-public. In the video, about 50 men dressed in national clothes stand on the territory of the Memorial of Memory and Glory in Nazran. Ingush elders say that the Stalinist regime indiscriminately declared the peoples enemies. “37,000 people were deported in the most blasphemous manner. Most of them are old people, women, children,” despite the fact that many sons, fathers and husbands of those who were deported were fighting at the front at that moment. “Two weeks earlier, in the same vile, insidious manner, all Chechens were subjected to total eviction and Ingush,” the elders recalled . At the end, the participants of the address prayed for the victims of deportation.

Balkar activists applied to hold a rally on March 8, 2024 in memory of the victims of deportation, but the authorities invited them to join and take part in official rallies. Remembrance Day events at the memorial to victims of repression are organized and carried out by the authorities of the republic, but after the official part the floor is given to activists. According to residents of Kabardino-Balkaria, it is customary in the republic to visit the graves of relatives who survived the deportation.  

Links to the footnotes can be found in the original article

* Bugai N. Deportation of peoples. Collection "War and Society, 1941-1945 book two." M.: Nauka, 2004.

* Polyan P. “Not of my own free will...History and geography of forced migrations in the USSR.” M.: O.G.I - Memorial , 2001. ( The organization was included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of non-profit organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent, liquidated by court decision).

* Sabanchiev Kh-M. Eviction of the Balkar people during the Great Patriotic War: causes and consequences // "Turkolog. Turkological publications".

* Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 123/12 of November 26, 1948 “On criminal liability for escapes from places of compulsory and permanent settlement of persons evicted to remote areas of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War.”

* Temukuev, Boris Biyazurkaevich. Special settlers [Text]: in 3 books. / Boris Temukuev. - 2nd ed., add. - Nalchik: Publishing house of M. and V. Kotlyarov, 2009.