Who doesn’t remember the fairy tale about the little bun that left his grandmother, left his grandfather, but couldn’t escape the fox? These days, this character is strongly reminiscent of the ex-head of KGTRK Evgeny Unkurov, who betrayed Kirsan Ilyumzhinov with rottenness, calmly rolled into the camp of the head of Kalmykia, Alexei Orlov, and then disgracedly rolled out of his advisors for complete incompetence.
Now he works in the dirty company of aggressive Kalmyk nationalists, who at the end of last year, with the obvious approval of Pernaty (as Mr. Orlov is called with contempt in the republic; editor's note), carried out the so-called. Chuulgan - congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk people.
As a result, semi-marginal individuals who came to the indoor market in the center of Elista (it was there that the self-proclaimed “congress” took place) listened to laudatory speeches addressed to Alexei Orlov for several hours in a row. Many of them could not even stand such clownery and, not understanding what Father Khan Orlov and the “revival of the Kalmyk language” had to do with it, went home.
By the way, about how exactly they are going to return the language lost by the Kalmyks, which, for information, no one took away from the people (Stalin’s exile will not pass as an excuse, since many peoples were deported, but at the same time everyone speaks perfectly both their native language and state Russian), none of the congress participants could answer clearly.
But a lot has been said about the “sovereign Kalmyk state”. One of the participants of the congress, historian of KSU bottling Arslan Gordeev (who in real life works... as a meat cutter), in a private conversation shouted to the point that “Kalmykia is a separate state” and “Russia should not interest anyone here, let them live separately” ( !).
The paradox is that almost all the nationalists in the Republic of Kazakhstan are graduates of the history department of the Kalmyk State University. Either they studied history, their main subject, in some way that was understandable only to them, or they passed it by completely, getting from two to three at a university that was not ranked by Russian standards. Nevertheless, there is blatant ignorance, to say the least.
Everyone knows that the Kalmyks themselves, voluntarily, became part of the Russian Empire in 1609. And why suddenly one of the 85 Russian regions is proclaimed by individuals as an independent state is beyond a normal person’s understanding. I remember that the separatists of neighboring Chechnya were pre-proclaimed in the 90s. We soaked them in the toilet, and that was the end of it.
What “Kolobok” Unkurov forgot in such a strange company also remains a mystery. Maybe the history department came to mind, which he graduated with difficulty - along with the same drunk Lari Ilishkin and Baatr Boromongnaev? By the way, the last of them organized something like a headquarters for separatist meetings, where, along with the rest of the “defenders of Kalmyks,” Mr. Unkurov methodically visits.
As they say, it would be funny if it weren't so sad. Against the backdrop of the general impoverishment of the inhabitants of Kalmykia during the years of Orlov’s rule, when every third resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan leaves in search of a better life outside the region, the rise of extreme nationalist unrest threatens that in place of what was once an oasis in the steppe, a scorched semi-desert will remain...
Angelina Baklanova
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The Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was abolished on December 28, 1943, shortly after the complete liberation of the Caucasus and the Lower Volga region. The resettlement of Kalmyks from there and from neighboring territories to Altai, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Krasnoyarsk Territory was carried out on the basis of the corresponding resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated December 29, 1943. This was Operation Ulus, developed jointly by the NKVD and the NKGB in November-December 1943.
According to various estimates, from 92 to 94 thousand Kalmyks were evicted; Between 2,000 and 3,300 Kalmyks died or went missing during the deportation process (from the point of deportation to the point of settlement inclusive). According to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, “in 1947, 91,919 resettled Kalmyks were registered; the number of dead and deceased (including those who died from old age and other natural causes) during the period since the beginning of the deportation amounted to 16,017 people.” The government decision of 1943 was canceled only on March 19, 1956.
Many experts believe that the main reason for national deportations (essentially ethnic cleansing) from the North Caucasus and the Lower Volga region in that period was not only and not so much the “universal” collaboration of a number of local peoples. It seems that the internationalists in the Kremlin sought to Russify or, as they themselves believed, it would be more reliable to Sovietize those vast regions. This version is confirmed not only by the settlement of the “liberated” areas by the Russian and Russian-speaking contingent, but also by the inclusion of most of them into the neighboring Russian territories and regions.
Thus, up to 70% of the territory of the former Kalmyk ASSR, including its capital Elista, was annexed to the Astrakhan region of the RSFSR; Moreover, for some time Elista was returned to its Russian (until 1921 incl.) name - the city of “Stepnoy”, as this settlement was called until 1921. The rest was distributed across Stavropol, Stalingrad, Grozny and Rostov regions. The same thing, by the way, is evidenced by the creation in 1944 of the Grozny region of the RSFSR, formed from most of the former Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which received wide access to the Caspian Sea.
Kalmykia simply did not exist on the maps in Stalin’s atlases
The official reason for the Kalmyk deportation is still the same: the cooperation of the Kalmyks with the Nazi occupiers and their complicity in the period from September 1942 to March 1943 inclusive. That is, until the liberation by Soviet troops of almost 75% of the territory of the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, captured by German-Romanian troops in the fall of 1942. But the fact that after the liberation of the region, “collaborationism” in Kalmykia, although no longer universal, did not go away, also played a role. Indeed, by the end of 1943, the NKVD, together with front-line counterintelligence, managed to neutralize up to 20 rebel detachments and clandestine nationalist groups. They first collaborated with the occupiers, and then were abandoned by them as mothballed anti-Soviet cells.
The origins of anti-Russian sentiments and harsh opposition to monarchical and Soviet statehood have a long history in Kalmykia. Even before the inclusion of the Astrakhan Tatar-Nogai Khanate into Russia (1556), there were aggressive attempts to baptize Kalmyks, convert them to Islam, or simply register them as “Tatars.” The nature of ethno-confessional assimilation was then very peculiar. Therefore, the Kalmyks, for the most part, welcomed the abolition of this strange state.
Then, for more than a century, from 1664 to 1771, in the lower reaches of the Volga there existed the Kalmyk Khanate, autonomous from Russia, whose territory largely coincided with the territory of the former Kalmykia as part of the Astrakhan region in 1944-56. But its liquidation marked the first time, let’s say, a centrifugal underground in this region. By the way, the Kalmyks were among the main continent of rebel troops, which were created and led by Emelyan Pugachev during the notorious peasant war.
Only in 1800, Emperor Paul I decided to restore the Kalmyk Khanate, but already in 1803 it was abolished again by Alexander I. So the discontent of the Kalmyks “smoldered” for many decades. And it is not surprising that most of them supported the establishment of Soviet power in the region, which immediately declared the autonomy of the Kalmyks. Moreover, almost 100% - within the borders of the ancient autonomous Kalmyk Khanate.
By the summer of 1920, Bolshevik troops occupied almost the entire territory of the then-proclaimed “Steppe Region of the Kalmyk People.” And on November 4, 1920, we note, the first national autonomy in Soviet Russia was proclaimed: the Kalmyk Autonomous Region. With its center in Elista, part of the Lower Volga region. In 1934, this region was included in the Stalingrad region, and at the end of 1935 the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed.
On the one hand, such decisions strengthened the position of Soviet power in Kalmykia. But on the other hand... As noted in the materials of the Munich Institute for the Study of the USSR (1969) and the bulletins of the emigrant “Union of the Kalmyk People” (Warsaw, 1934-35), “carried out in the region by the Soviet government, especially since the early 30s, forced segregation, collectivization, Russification of leadership and anti-religious measures caused growing discontent among the Kalmyks.
Many preferred to ignore the said decisions, disobey them, go into the wilderness, etc. The elimination of illiteracy was accompanied by the fact that the Kalmyk alphabet was directly translated from Latin to Cyrillic. But anti-religious policies quickly supplemented daily atheistic propaganda with repressions against believers and especially against the clergy, destruction of churches, confiscation of objects of national worship, forcing people to sign statements of renunciation of faith, etc.”
The answer was numerous excesses with political overtones that took place back in 1926-27, and then in the early 30s. It is very characteristic that such actions are mentioned in a Soviet specialized publication that is not at all from the perestroika period: I.I. Orekhov, “50 years of Soviet power in Kalmykia”, Scientific notes of the Kalmyk Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, Vol. 8. “Series of History”, Elista, 1969
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the real political climate in Kalmykia could be said to be predisposed to anti-Soviet activities. However, even on the eve of the harsh German-Romanian occupation of the region, over 60% of the Kalmyks living in the republic initiated the collection of funds, food, wool, leather products, and traditional medicine for the Fund for Relief of Soviet Soldiers.
Many dozens of Kalmyk soldiers and officers were awarded orders and medals for military merit; 9 became heroes of the Soviet Union: for example, Oka Gorodovikov, Colonel General, first the commander of the Cavalry Mechanized Corps, and then the representative of the Headquarters for cavalry. True, he received the title of Hero only in 1958, but he was awarded many orders and medals during the war. A city in the north-west of Kalmykia was named after him in 1971.
Oka Gorodovikov - commander at Budyonny, dashing corps commander in the Patriotic War
One cannot help but recall one of the leaders of the partisan movement in the Bryansk region, Mikhail Selgikov, as well as Lieutenant General Basan Gorodovikov, and finally, Major Erdni Delikov, the first Kalmyk awarded this title in 1942.
At the same time, according to both Soviet and German sources, there were numerous cases of Kalmyks evading conscription into the army in 1941-43. Unfortunately, the voluntary surrender of Kalmyk soldiers into captivity was not uncommon. Already in the summer of 1942, the Wehrmacht created the Kalmyk Cavalry Corps, which participated in combat operations on the enemy’s side until the late autumn of 1944.
In the spring of 1942, the Kalmyk National Committee (Kalmükischen Nationalkomitee) and its local executive body, the Kalmyk Khurul, were created in Berlin. Dozens of Kalmyks also served in the First Cossack Division, the Turkestan Legion of the Wehrmacht, as well as in SS police units in Kalmykia, the Rostov region, and the Stavropol region.
In occupied Elista, there were two newspapers and one weekly, financed and controlled by the occupiers. In July 1943, the Kalmyk editorial office of Radio Berlin was created, the broadcasts were daily for several hours: the first broadcast was broadcast on August 3, 1943. At the same time, this editorial office made an appeal to the Kalmyks of the USSR, calling for them to join the ranks of the German and Romanian troops, “whose victories will accelerate the independence of the Kalmyk and other peoples, trampled under the Bolshevik dictatorship.”
It was these facts and factors that predetermined the “Note-Recommendation of the Board of the NKVD of the USSR to the State Defense Committee of the USSR (August 16, 1943 No. 685/B) “On the advisability of eviction from the territory of the North Caucasus and the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of German collaborators, bandits and anti-Soviet persons” . From 6 to 7 thousand Kalmyks performed military, police and civil service on the side of Germany directly in Kalmykia. Not counting political figures of varying status in the pro-Nazi Kalmyk emigration.
It was also noted that the German authorities are using the so-called “revival” of religion and the Latin alphabet among the Kalmyks to promote these “examples” among Soviet prisoners of war of non-Russian ethnic groups and in the occupied areas of the Rostov region and the North Caucasus. Some sources also reported that, allegedly, due to the passivity of some military units formed from Kalmyks, the German-Romanian troops in September 1942 found themselves only 50 km from the Caspian Sea (the area of the village of Utta), and in this area there was no defensive lines. But the aggressors, they say, did not expect such a “gift.”
It is possible that these messages were not a reflection of reality, but part of the preparation of a large-scale plan for the deportation of Kalmyks. Although on military maps of 1942-1943. The positions of Soviet troops in that area are not indicated. Apparently, the deportation of the Kalmyks was a foregone conclusion.
And only on March 19, 1956, we repeat, this decision was canceled, and almost 10 months later the Kalmyk Autonomous Region was proclaimed as part of the Stavropol Territory. Its territory at that time was no more than 70% of its pre-war and modern territory. The repatriation of the Kalmyks was accompanied by mass letters to Moscow about the restoration of the national Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within its former borders.
There is seemingly unconfirmed documentary information that members of the Roerich family also expressed their word in defense of the deported people. But there is quite accurate data that the demands in favor of repatriation were supported by none other than the Tibetan Dalai Lama XIV (Ngagwang Lovzang Tenjin Gyamtsho) - the religious and spiritual head of the Kalmyk Buddhists, then still very young. Moreover, from the second half of the 1950s, as is known, he was in confrontation with the PRC authorities, and until May 2011 he headed the “Tibetan government in exile.”
Dalai Lama XIV - none of the current “rulers” can compare with him in terms of service life
However, it is obvious that the connection between Kalmyk activists, in addition to ethno-emigration, also with Tibetan separatists, was unlikely to suit Moscow. Therefore, on July 26, 1958, the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed within its former pre-war borders.
There are practically no nationalist manifestations in modern Kalmykia. But fertile ground for their “maturing” or resuscitation somewhere is the socio-economic situation. And according to RIA “Rating” (2018), Kalmykia has been among the worst subjects of the Federation in terms of quality of life for many years now. When compiling the rating, experts focus on 72 key indicators. Among the main ones are the level of economic development, the volume of income of the population, the provision of various types of services, the level of development of small businesses, the socio-economic development of the territory, the development of transport infrastructure, and the state of the environment.
By the way, numerous environmental problems are still relevant here, which especially concerns salinization and the transformation of already limited agricultural lands into deserts, scarcity and low quality of water supply, the complete absence of forests on the territory of the republic and other chronic consequences of traditionally extensive agriculture and animal husbandry.
Compared to the Mongols, the Kalmyks live in another part of the world, but are their closest relatives. During the Russian Empire, these people were revered as brilliant warriors and loyal allies of the Russian army. But another empire - the Soviet one - declared them traitors, organizing a full-fledged genocide. What are the reasons for such a cruel policy?
There is a version according to which the Russian battle cry “hurray” comes from the Kalmyk “uralan”, that is, “forward”. Most likely, this is just a legend, but its roots are clear: for many years, Kalmyks were a reliable support of Russia, where they were extremely valued as brave warriors and excellent horsemen.
The Oirats, or Western Mongols, began to move to the Russian kingdom at the end of the 16th century, which was a consequence of the conquest of Mongolian lands by Qing China. Their Turkic neighbors called them “Kalmaks”, that is, “breakaways” - those who did not convert to Islam and retained the Buddhist faith, hence the word “Kalmyk”. Already in the early 1600s, settlers swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar, and subsequently founded the Kalmyk Khanate (Khalmg Khana Ulus) - a self-governing part of the Russian state, which regularly supplied the Russian army with well-trained fighters who proved themselves in many wars. This continued even after Catherine II liquidated the Khanate, which became an inevitable consequence of the tragic events known as the “Dust Campaign”.
But the relationship between the Russian branch of Genghis Khan’s descendants and the Soviet government, on the contrary, did not work out right away. Kalmyks are one of the few Russian peoples (including repressed ones), whose numbers during the years of the USSR did not increase, but decreased. According to the 1989 census, 174 thousand Kalmyks lived in the country, and according to the 1897 census - more than 190 thousand (modern figures are somewhere in the middle).
There are several reasons for this. During the Civil War, the territory of Kalmykia was greatly battered - it found itself between a hammer in the form of the Red Army and a hard place in the form of the armies of Krasnov and Denikin. Subsequently, its population suffered greatly from the famine of 1921–1924 and 1932–1934 (that is, from the same events that in Ukraine are considered genocide of the Ukrainian people). And the most severe blow was Stalin’s forced resettlement to Siberia during the Second World War - the so-called NKVD Operation “Ulus”, as a result of which the Kalmyk people were reduced by at least a third, and according to some estimates - by half.
The resolution of the Council of People's Commissars “On the eviction of Kalmyks living in the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic” was published exactly 75 years ago - on December 28, 1943. In March 1956, the Kalmyks were rehabilitated, allowing them to return to their homeland. A year later, their autonomy was restored. In 1989, the Supreme Council of the USSR proclaimed the deportation “a barbaric action of the Stalinist regime.” Finally, the law adopted in the RSFSR in April 1991 recognized the Kalmyks as victims of genocide.
In modern Kalmykia, December 28 is celebrated as the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Deportation of the Kalmyk People, and it is a day off.
Despite all this, the deportation of Kalmyks is somehow not widely known - it is remembered much less often than the deportation of Chechens, Germans, Balkars or Crimean Tatars. Its stated reasons and background are rarely discussed. And the backstory is this.
Among the national military formations created by the Soviet government in the terrible November 1941 was the Kalmyk 110th Cavalry Division. It performed excellently in the first period of the war during the defense of the Caucasus and the Don, but in the summer of 1942, when the Germans captured Rostov for the second time and greatly exhausted the division, cases of desertion sharply increased in it. Around the same time, the Nazis occupied most of Kalmykia itself.
Returning to their small homeland, the fugitives, as they would have put it then, “spread panic and defeatism,” and already in Kalmykia, some of them joined the ranks of local collaborators. In parallel, the so-called The Kalmyk National Committee is something like a government in exile, after which the Kalmyks began to be positioned as allies of the Reich in the fight against the Bolsheviks.
Thus, the Kalmyks became a “traitor people” who were supposed to be evicted, divided and completely deprived of their national and cultural autonomy. As emphasized in Soviet propaganda, forever.
What happened has no justification: the Soviet government promoted internationalism, but manifested itself in exactly the same way as the Nazi government manifested itself (they did not yet know about the Holocaust - the peak of terror based on ethnicity).
Yes, there was Dr. Doll’s Kalmyk unit, but there was also a partisan movement in Kalmykia. History remembers Abwehr agent Basang Ogdonov, but also remembers the hero of the USSR Erdni Delikov. There were Kalmyk white emigrants who went over to Hitler’s side, but there were also volunteer intelligence officers who were transferred to the rear of the Wehrmacht in the winter of 1942.
And the Soviet government repressed all Kalmyks, including those awarded military orders and medals. The only exceptions were those who managed to change their nationality in their passports, and Kalmyks who were married to people from other nations (instead, the wives of ethnic Kalmyks, including Russians, went to settle in Siberia and Central Asia).
For the sake of deportation, Kalmyks were even recalled from the front, but several thousand of them in the end, as they say, still “went through the entire war.”
That is, it was a real ethnic cleansing, from which an entire nation has not yet recovered, although 75 years have passed, and the Kalmyks were rehabilitated in the USSR several months earlier than other resettled peoples.
Nowadays people don’t like to talk about the politics of genocide in the Stalin era. And the point is not so much in the “whitewashing of the era”, but in the fact that this is pressure on a sore point that is splitting society.
But it is even more dangerous when our complex society, living in a multinational country with national republics, begins to split along ethnic lines. And this is exactly what happens when the descendants of repressed Kalmyks, who, as a rule, are well aware of the history of their people (and this applies to almost the entire Kalmyk intelligentsia), witness how fans of the mustachioed generalissimo justify Stalin’s policy of ethnic cleansing, much less extol it.
Such “patriots” harm the idea of the country’s territorial integrity, sometimes even more than all Western propaganda combined.
Ichkeria (ChRI), proclaimed by former Soviet general Dzhokhar Dudayev and his supporters as a result of a regional coup d'etat in October 1991, has not been officially recognized by any state.
Who recognized Ichkeria
There were only two acts of recognition of the republic by persons and organizations that were not subjects of international law. Thus, the first President of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who was overthrown in early 1992 and fled to Grozny, in March 1992 signed a decree on the diplomatic and diplomatic President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze stating that Georgia has nothing to do with this document. All subsequent Georgian rulers also did not give legal status to the representation of Ichkeria.
In addition, in January 2000, during the Second Chechen War, President of Ichkeria Aslan Maskhadov opened an official representative office of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), the same self-proclaimed state entity created by the Islamist militants of the Taliban movement * in most of Afghanistan. The IEA received recognition only from a few Muslim states.
In some countries, in particular in Ukraine, some politicians advocated recognition of the ChRI, but such calls remained unsupported. Some, according to the wording of the Peace Treaty and the principles of relations between the Russian Federation and the ChRI, concluded by the President of the Russian Federation B. Yeltsin and the President of the ChRI A. Maskhadov (after the liquidation of Dudayev and the signing of the Khasavyurt agreements), regard this document as evidence of the actual recognition of the independence of the ChRI by the Russian Federation, since in the treaty the republic acts as a subject of international law. But relations at the ambassadorial level between Yeltsin’s Russian Federation and Maskhadov’s ChRI were not established.
Who provided assistance
However, unofficial assistance to Chechnya was provided by many countries, with the tacit consent or even tacit encouragement of their governments. First of all, assistance by military force. In the ranks of the Ichkerian army during the 1994-1996 campaign. More than a thousand foreign mercenaries fought. An independent unit of more than 200 people was made up of Arab fighters from the Saudi Arabian Khattab. They were representatives of different states - Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Oman and others, but basically, like Khattab, outcasts from society in the countries where they were born.
Mercenaries from Eastern European countries (numbering about 800 people) were distributed among the units of the Ichkerian army. Among them were many military personnel from the Baltic states (mainly from Estonia), but most of them were militants from the Ukrainian nationalist organization UNA-UNSO*. The Unsoshniks have already managed to fight against Abkhazia on the side of Georgia and in Transnistria (curiously, on the side of the PMR against Chisinau). In 1993, UNA-UNSO* established contact with the CRI authorities. Its leader Dmitro Korchinsky arrived in Grozny, where he was received by the vice-president of the unrecognized republic Zelimkhan Yandarbiev and the deputy chief (since 1994 - chief) of the main headquarters of the armed forces of the ChRI Aslan Maskhadov. Negotiations took place on the recruitment of Ukrainian volunteers into the Ichkerian army.
For recruitment, the “Eurasia” center was created, to whose account funds were transferred from the ChRI. The center was headed by the current leader of UNA-UNSO* Ondrij Shkil. After the outbreak of hostilities at the end of 1994, the first detachment of mercenaries called “Prometheus” was sent from Ukraine to Ichkeria. Subsequently, another Viking detachment was organized. However, their fighting qualities were generally rated low by the Ichkerian command. But individual mercenaries received high recognition. Thus, Oleksandr Muzychko was awarded the Ichkerian Order “Hero of the Nation”. [C-BLOCK]
At the same time, Dmitro Korchinsky and his associates launched a propaganda campaign across Ukraine in solidarity with the “struggling people of Ichkeria” through a network of “committees in support of Chechnya.” Branches of the CRI news agency “Chechen Press”* have opened in Ukrainian cities. Later, in the interval between the two Chechen wars, Dmitro Korchinsky announced the creation of the “Caucasus Institute”, the purpose of which was to deploy a powerful front against Russia in this region.
Georgia, although it did not officially recognize the ChRI, provided tacit support to Dudayev. Thus, the defeated detachments of Dudayev’s militants went to the Pankisi Gorge in northern Georgia to rest, gain strength and again invade Chechnya. All of Russia's demands to Georgia for the internment of militants did not lead to any results. Mercenaries of the Ukrainian detachment “Prometheus” were trained in Georgia. [C-BLOCK]
In general, CRI received assistance from those Muslim countries in which Wahhabism, professed by Dudayev and his associates, is strong (in countries where traditional trends of Islam predominate, Ichkeria did not receive such support), as well as from those Eastern European states where Russophobic sentiments. The list of the latter clearly shows those who, by renaming streets and squares and installing memorial plaques, immortalized the name of Dudayev after his death. These are: Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Türkiye was also included in this list - probably for two reasons.
*prohibited organizations in the Russian Federation
According to the media, it is “many times stronger than the North Caucasian one,” despite the recent entry into force of the Law on criminal punishment for separatist activities in Russia. “National Accent” published a small study of the issue of “Siberian separatism,” which is newly relevant in light of the events in Ukraine. In our opinion, the remark about the almost complete absence of any mechanisms for preserving ethnic identity among the peoples of the Russian Federation is especially significant for supporters of the sovereignty of the republics.
At the same time, since regionalism is gradually gaining momentum, federal authorities fear that “moderate nationalists” in the republics may become radical, and national elites will lead movements destructive for Russia.
A brief excursion into the essence of Siberian separatism and the “History of federalism in Russia” offered by the mentioned resource shows the inevitability of transformations that are already developing today. ARD suggests studying the issue and, just in case, being prepared for changes. Whatever trend you support...
Siberian separatism. History and transformation of federalism in Russia
Events in Ukraine have again awakened the interest of Russian society in the topic of federalism. The split in the neighboring state into “east” and “west” once again demonstrated that a unitary state is unable to cope with the contradictions between the center and the regions.
Experts recalled that after the collapse of the USSR, multinational Russia made the right choice in favor of a federal development model, which contributed to maintaining the integrity of the country. In addition, it was the federal structure that allowed Russia to quite easily formalize the annexation of Crimea. After all, any federation is a union ready to accept those interested if they meet certain requirements.
On the other hand, the very essence of federalism - the division of power between the center and the regions for more effective governance - embodied in Russia raises many questions. Some observers are inclined to consider current Russian federalism a fiction because, in their opinion, the central authorities actually directly tell the regions what economic and social policies should be pursued. But no matter how much Russians are frightened by the threat of ethnic separatism, there is nothing good in excessive centralization. If a territory is denied the right to self-government within its capabilities, it begins to seek it independently for ethnic or economic reasons. Sometimes because he blames the ineffective policies of the center for his ill-being. Sometimes because it does not want to “feed” other regions.
Moreover, this process has been observed with varying success in Russia since the 19th century, when Siberian regionalists first started talking about alienating the region from Russia. Then Russian regionalists fought against the exploitation of the region’s wealth by the metropolis. Moreover, most of them were not radically minded “extremists” at all, but only stood on the positions of federalism - decentralization of power. They thought about the inequality between the center and the outskirts, about the unsatisfactory way of governing Siberia from their point of view, and about the need to develop education.
Siberian regionalists
Siberian regionalism originated in the mid-1850s in a St. Petersburg circle of students who came from different cities of Siberia from Omsk to Irkutsk. The leaders of the movement, Grigory Potanin and Nikolai Yadrintsev, met in their first year at university and organized the Siberian Community. By the way, not a single member of the circle ever received a higher education. The young people ran out of money and around 1863 they were forced to return to their homeland.
At home in Siberia, former students actively engaged in scientific and literary work. They advocated ending the region’s economic dependence on the rest of Russia, against the inequality of the region’s population in terms of civil rights compared to residents of the central provinces, and for the opening of a university in Siberia.
The regionalists believed that the center was exploiting their native region and treating it as a colony. They put forward a program to overcome this situation by stimulating free resettlement, eliminating exile, “establishing patronage of Siberian trade and industry,” direct entry of Siberian goods into the world market by introducing a free port at the mouths of the Ob and Yenisei, organizing shipping along the Northern Sea Route and attracting foreign investments.
Special character
Pre-revolutionary regionalists were convinced of the existence of Siberian identity, the specialness of Siberians. In his work “Siberia as a Colony,” Yadrintsev contrasted the Siberian with the “Russian man.” He wrote that the first one is “more primitive” and his mind is “less flexible.”
Until 1917, Siberians, in fact, combined the national and cultural characteristics of Russians and the “Asianness” of local indigenous peoples. This gave regionalists a reason to talk about the “special face” of a resident of the region - “bright and characteristic.” The Siberian was credited with such qualities as hard work, resourcefulness, courage, and even gloominess. The harsh nature left its mark on the character of the inhabitants of the Trans-Ural territories - laziness and weakness of spirit were incompatible with the development of new lands. Unlike the Russian peasant, whose entire life took place in full view of the community, the Siberian relied more on himself, on his own strengths and his own experience.
Nevertheless, it was obvious that the Siberians remained Russian people in spirit and culture. Therefore, unlike many other independence movements, the regionalists never played the “national card.” Siberia has always been different from other regions in that the desire for regionalism was not associated with the national idea and was based on a territorial basis.
All the talk about the Siberian “subethnos” on the part of the regionalists was, rather, populism, a way to draw attention to local patriotism. “I used separatism not as a goal, but as a means,” wrote one of the leaders of the movement, Grigory Potanin.
Regionalists tried to express themselves brightly and catchily in order to interest others. They did not want to limit themselves to a simple “circle of interests” for a select few and tried in every possible way to popularize their thoughts among the indigenous population of Siberia: they held lectures and published in the press. As a result, the regionalists really left a significant mark on the history and literature of Siberia, although they failed to achieve any drastic changes for the region.
Although today regionalist ideas do not surprise anyone, in the 19th century they were considered unusual and even seditious. Most of the ideologists of Siberian regionalism paid for their thoughts with prison and exile. Moreover, they were accused of separatism, and the case was called “On the separation of Siberia from Russia and the formation of a republic like the United States.”
It is noteworthy that the court had a problem with choosing a place to serve their sentences for the regional officers found guilty. After all, political criminals at that time, as a rule, were sent to Siberia. As a result, it was decided to exile Potanin to the Baltic Sea to the Sveaborg fortress, and Yadrintsev was taken from Tomsk to the Arkhangelsk province.
Nationalism vs regionalism
With the victory of the Bolsheviks in the civil war, regionalism disappeared from the political scene. Moreover, their followers were brutally persecuted. The ideas of the Siberian regionalists did not find understanding with the new government, which opted for a national-territorial division of the country. At one time, the separation of national autonomies into independent units did play an important role in the economic, social and cultural upliftment of many previously deprived peoples of education.
But today, as some scientists and politicians argue, dividing the country along ethnic lines has lost its relevance and carries the threat of ethnic separatism. Supporters of the abolition of national regions believe that they hinder the development of Russia and even threaten its territorial integrity. Opponents of ethnic federalism talk about discrimination in regions with a “titular” nation of other ethnic groups, about the disproportionate representation of different peoples in government, and about the unfair distribution of subsidies and subsidies in favor of national regions.
Many experts have long proposed changing the boundaries of regions “from the point of view of economic feasibility”, so that territorial ones take the place of national communities. Thus, to a certain extent they actualize the idea of the first Siberian regionalists.
Cut without waiting for peritonitis?
The temptation to finally abolish national republics is very great. But this approach now has nothing to do with the principles of federalism. After all, today any region is a historically established region with its own social and economic ties, self-awareness, and often territorial solidarity. When making such decisions, the center must first of all take into account the interests of the subjects of the federation themselves. Changing the existing system without asking the opinion of the population living there means “cutting to the quick.” Although there are more and more supporters of this decision and more and more often they argue in the logic of the front-line surgeon from the famous film "Pokrovsky Gates", who suggested "Cut to hell, without waiting for peritonitis!"
But we should not forget about the negative consequences of such a drastic step. The liquidation of republics may push national activists to fight for independence. After all, they continue to view state formations within Russia as the only opportunity to preserve their language and culture. In this situation, Tatar, Bashkir, Yakut and all other nationalists, whom the federal authorities have so far more or less successfully controlled, can turn from moderate to radical. And these destructive movements of the “titular” population will most likely be led by the local political and economic elites, who will desperately fight against the reduction of their status.
The existing legislative and other mechanisms for preserving their identity by representatives of any nation anywhere in the country are unknown to most citizens, and the successful practice of their application is not accompanied by information support.
However, the trend of regionalism as opposed to nationalism in our country is slowly gaining momentum. Leaders of territorial subjects of the federation are increasingly expressing their deep dissatisfaction with the preferences that national subjects have. And the latest population census showed that, despite the absence of the “Siberian” nationality in the official list, 4,116 citizens of the country still insisted on being identified in the questionnaires in this way and in no other way. Let us remember that according to the 2002 census, only 10 people called themselves Siberians. It is quite obvious that federalism in Russia is awaiting transformation.
Ulyana Ivanova