Country: Russia

Group: Karachay

Date Finalized: 4/19/2023

Team: Kelsey Dwyer (lead), Natasha Chandra, Ariana Jackson, Khulan Davaasuren

Content Warning: Forced Labor, Discrimination, Murder

Approximate Time Period: 1938-1940s

The Karachay are a group in Russia that are ethnically Turkic and share a language with the Balkars. Sometimes the Karachay are referred to as the Karachay-Balkar group (Minority Rights Group, 2020). In early 1938, NKVD officers purged all Karachay officers so that no Karachay would be represented (Wikipedia, n.d.). Following that decision, the USSR arrested 8,000 Karachay rural officials, including 875 women (Minority Rights Group, 2020). The USSR executed some of the 8,000 Karachays, while they sent the remainder to prison camps throughout the Caucasus (Wikipedia, n.d.). On October 12, 1943, the USSR accused the Karachay of collaborating with the German army, which had been occupying Karachay territory at that time. Following this accusation, in November the USSR transported mainly disarmed women, children, and elderly people to very harsh conditions (Sciencepo, 2019). Additionally, the USSR sent any men serving in the Red Army or fighting in partisan movements into labor camps or executed them (The Soviet Massive, 2019). There is no data on the state of the Karchay’s experience with forced labor today, however, according to the 2010 national census, there are 218,403 Karachay in the Russian Federation (MRG, 2020).

Data quality: Data quality for this case is given a 2/3 due to the lack of reliable sources and quantity of information.

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (n.d.). Deportation of the Karachays. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deportation_of_the_Karachays&oldid=1144693216
  2. Minority Rights Group. (2020, December). Karachay and cherkess. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/karachay-and-cherkess/
  3. Sciencepo (2019). The Soviet Massive Deportations—A Chronology | Sciences Po Violence de masse et Résistance—Réseau de recherche. (2019, April 18). https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/soviet-massive-deportations-chronology.html