A. S. Ivanov, ‘Iz’iat’, kak antisovetskii element…’: Kalmyki v gosudarstvennoi politike (1943–1959 gg.) (Moscow, 2014).

The book of Aleksandr Ivanov deals with experience of deported Kalmyks in Tyumen and Omsk oblasts. Tyumen Oblast was separated from Omsk Oblast in 1944, the largest group of deported Kalmyks lived in its territory—up to a quarter of the whole number. The author investigates not only the process of developing and realization of political decisions, but also Kalmyks’ own estimations of their condition, their attempts to adapt to new circumstances, an impact of the deportation on their identity. Chronologically the work covers the period since 1943 till 1959, i.e. since the time of deportation till the return of the Kalmyks to their homeland. The author does not consider the deportation itself; instead he concentrates on the processes that took place after it and are almost not investigated yet.

Methodologically the research is based on works of Peter I. Holquist. The author regards political repressions, including those against ethnic minorities, as a ‘policy aimed at forming the population through interventions into the social environment in order to “cut off malicious elements” that counteract the building of the socialist society and to “implant useful ones” contributing to its development’ (p. 14). He used documents of central and local authorities from the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Archive of Economics and several local archives in Tyumen and Omsk oblasts and in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, memoirs of former special settlers (including unpublished ones) and interviews that he collected himself in 2009–12 in Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous okrugs, including both interviews of former special settlers and those locals who used to communicate to them.

Ivanov comes to a conclusion that the deportation of Kalmyks happened because the party leaders stereotypically thought they were a ‘sick’ nation, infected with gangsterism, that should be corrected. The deportation itself was organized as a ‘Chekist-military operation of the NKVD’ (operation ‘Ulusy’) in response to collaboration of some part of Kalmyks with Germans and was therefore similar to other deportations of ‘guilty’ nations. At the same time in later years the Soviet authorities did not see the exile of Kalmyks as a repression; from their point of view it was more likely a way to ‘improve quality’ of the population that allowed also to provide the rear areas of the Soviet Union with cheap workforce. No separate special settlements were established for exiled Kalmyks, they lived among the ‘ordinary’ citizens, the regime of exile was less strict for communists and former NKVD officers, many decisions of the authorities were aimed to normalize the relations between the deportees and the local population.

All these measures, as well as delivery of necessary food and manufactured goods to supply the exiles, mean the deportation of Kalmyks was not a genocide or an attempt of their forced marginalization or assimilation. Nevertheless, the consequences of that policy, based on the most flagrant violation of civil rights of the whole nation, were catastrophic. The death toll during the deportation reached 40 per cent of the total number of Kalmyks because the supply was insufficient and often behind schedule in the beginning. Life in exile and a status of involuntary workforce made the deportees people of the meaner sort that was a serious trauma. A great damage was caused to the culture of Kalmyks as schoolteaching was in Russian. It is not surprising that Kalmyks themselves see the events of 1943–59 as a national tragedy and think its only positive result was the forming of all-Kalmyk national identity and overcoming the so called ulusizm when the great part of Kalmyks associated themselves more with local communities than with the nation as a whole. After the regime of exile was abolished in late 1950s, almost all the Kalmyks came back to their homeland.