Stalin’s Deportation of the Kalmyks to Siberia:Elza Bair

Saturday September 10th 2016, Kalmyk Youth Conference presented a special lecture at Tibet House US in New York City discussing one of the darkest times in Kalmyk history, Stalin’s deportation of the Kalmyks to Siberia (1943-1956). The event featured Kalmyk historian and esteemed author Professor Elza Bair Guchinova. Professor Guchinova is currently a faculty member of Anthropology at the European University in Saint Petersburg. Her research interests include Traumatic Past and Narrative, Forced Migrations and Ethnic Identity and Mongolian Studies. She is a former Fullbright scholar, Recipient of the J&K MacArthur Foundation Grant and former Senior Researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Professor Guchinova presented her research and collected oral histories explaining the process in which Kalmyks were notified, how they were transported, the quality of life in which they lived while in Siberia and how Kalmyks were affected as a result of the deportation. Nearly 120,000 Kalmyks were deported among the 14 ethnic groups punished by Stalin through deportation. Among the 14 groups were Germans, Chechens, Koreans, Crimean Tatars, Ingush, Meskhetian Turks, Kalmyks, Karachays, Kurds and Balkars. They were transported in cattle cars with 60 to 80 people in each car. The cattle cars provided no facilities so people were forced to urinate next to the wagon while the train was at a station. Many women felt uncomfortable about urinating in the presence of men and would be forced to crawl underneath the car to reach the opposite side of the train. There were a number of fatalities as trains departed while women were still underneath the cars. Arriving Kalmyks were accompanied by rumors that they were cannibals. This scared the local inhabitants to such a degree that they felt drastic means were needed in order to protect themselves. One way to do so was by nailing shut the door to the barrack where newcomers lived and set fire to the house, burning the inhabitant alive, justified by the perceived need to save themselves from the cannibals. In other villages, older men stayed on alert in turns the first nights after the arrival of the newcomers, armed with axes and rifles.”(Guchinova, Elza Bair. Deportation of the Kalmyks (1943-1956): Stigmatized Ethnicity. Empire, Islam, and Politics in Central Eurasia. Ed. T. Uyama. SRC, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 2007. Pp. 187-220.) Kalmyk Youth Conference would like to acknowledge the generous sponsorship from their Go Fund Me Page Campaign that made this event possible. Kalmyk Youth Conference raised their total goal of $1,000 in less than 1 day, receiving a total of $918 after the taxes and fees applied. They would like to thank Anton and Bembe Balsirow, Eli and Jenia Djambinov, Natalie Abushinov Schneider, Dechen Pemba, Tenzin Tasur, and Alta and Udbala Buruschkin. For further interest on this subject please visit Professor Guchinova’s website