Country: Russia

Group: Kalmyk

Date Finalized: November 30, 2022

Team: Samuel Kniery (Lead), Jhanz Marco Garcia

Content Warning: Forced Labor, Deportation

Approximate Time Period: December 28, 1943 – January 9, 1957

The Kalmyk peoples are a predominately Buddhist ethnic group that resides along the lower Volga River and the northern shores of the Caspian Sea, descending from nomadic herders that migrated from western Mongolia at the start of the 17th century (Balzer, 2015; Maksimov & Yastrzhembska, 2008; MRG, 2015). The earliest instantiations of Kalmykian territoriality operated as a border region for Tsarist Russia before its formal incorporation in the 1760s (Maksimov & Yastrzhembska, 2008). Throughout the Russian Revolutionary period, the Red and White revolutionary armies conscripted Kalmyks, seizing the cattle and property that functioned as the backbone of the local economy, prompting cultural disenfranchisement and worsening labor conditions (Maksimov & Yastrzhembska, 2008).

On December 28, 1943, Soviet administrators ordered the deportation of the entire Kalmyk population to Siberian gulags due to purported collaboration with Nazi Germany (Chetyrova, 2011; MRG, 2015). Soviet administrators, aided by the NKVD, placed 25,352 Kalmyks in the Omsk Oblast, 21,164 in Krasnoyarsk Kray, 20,858 in Altay Kray, and 18,333 in the Novosibirsk Oblast (Polian, 2004). Because the Soviets undertook the deportation during the winter and resettled the Kalmyks in the far north, the Kalmyks experienced an extremely high casualty rate (Maksimov & Yastrzhembska, 2008; MRG, 2015; Polian, 2004). In 1944, the Soviet Union dissolved the Kalmyk ASSR and continued deportation of the thousands of remaining Kalmyks (Maksimov & Yastrzhembska, 2008). The NKVD discharged and deported 4,105 Kalmyk soldiers when they returned from repelling German assaults on the eastern front (Ochirov & Vorobyova, 2020). The Soviets primarily compelled Kalmyks to work in industrialized agriculture, lumberyards, and fisheries (Polian, 2004). Despite the general purposelessness of forced labor and the terrible conditions, the Kalmyk people sought to rebuild their ethnic identity by celebrating the value of hard work (Chetyrova, 2011). On January 9, 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev allowed Kalmyks to return to their homelands (MRG, 2015).

The Soviet deportation of the entire Kalmyk population in 1943-1944 and the subsequent 13 years of coerced service in Siberian work camps presents a clear case of an ethnicity-based forced labor event. Although ethnic discrimination continues against Kalmyks in Russia, there is no evidence that Russian-induced ethnicity-associated forced labor practices continue in the present at a comparable scale (MRG, 2015).

Data Quality: Data quality for the Kalmyk forced labor is rated a 3/3 due to a significant body of peer-reviewed research and corroborating non-profit investigations.

Sources

  1. Balzer, M. M. (2015). Kalmyk Connections. Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia, 53(4), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2014.1076690
  2. Chetyrova, L. B. (2011). The Idea of Labor Among Deported Kalmyks: Kalmyk Resilience Through Celebration in the Gulag. Mongolian Studies, 33, 17–31.
  3. Maksimov, K. N., & Yastrzhembska, A. (2008). Kalmykia in Russia’s Past and Present National Policies and Administrative System. Central European University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/asulib-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3137263
  4. MRG. (2015, June 19). Kalmyks. Minority Rights Group. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/kalmyks/
  5. Ochirov, U. B., & Vorobyova, V. N. (2020). Kalmyk Red Army Soldiers in Shirokovsky Forced Labor Camp: A Statistical Survey. Oriental Studies, 13(2), 330–357. https://doi.org/10.22162/2619-0990-2020-48-2-330-357
  6. Polian, P. M. (2004). Against their will: The history and geography of forced migrations in the USSR. Central European University Press. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb08629.0001.001