Why were the Karachais evicted? The anniversary of the expulsion of the Karachais recalled the problem of rehabilitation of repressed peoples. Everything for the front, everything for Victory

In 1943, Karachais were illegally deported from their native places. Overnight they lost everything - their home, their native land and their acquired property. The Karachay people were doomed to a long and painful 14-year exile. On October 12, 1943, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a secret Decree “On the liquidation of the Karachay Autonomous Region and the administrative structure of its territory.” “All Karachais living in the region,” the Decree noted, “should be resettled to other regions of the USSR, and the Karachay Autonomous Region should be liquidated.”

On October 14, a resolution was issued by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the eviction of Karachais from the Karachay Autonomous Region to the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSRs and the transfer of Karachay lands to Georgians (the emergence of the Klukhorsky district of the Georgian SSR). These documents explained the reasons for the eviction:

“Due to the fact that during the occupation, many Karachays behaved treacherously, joined detachments organized by the Germans to fight Soviet power, betrayed honest Soviet citizens to the Germans, accompanied and showed the way to German troops advancing through the passes in Transcaucasia, and after the expulsion of the occupiers counteract the measures taken by the Soviet government, hide bandits and agents abandoned by the Germans from the authorities, providing them with active assistance.”

According to the 1939 census, 70,301 Karachais lived on the territory of the Karachay Autonomous Okrug. From the beginning of August 1942 to the end of January 1943, it was under German occupation.

To enforce the deportation of the Karachai population, military units with a total number of 53,327 people were involved, and on November 2, the deportation of the Karachais took place, as a result of which 69,267 Karachais were deported to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Of these, 653 people died en route. About 50% of the deportees were children and adolescents under the age of 16, 30% were women and 15% were men. The Karachais conscripted into the Red Army were demobilized and deported on March 3, 1944.

The deportation decree contradicted not only international law, but also the Constitution of the USSR. The accusations of the Karachay people contained in this Decree, as well as in various documents of the USSR Government, as shown by an audit of the Prosecutor's Office and the State Security Committee in the late 80s and 90s of the twentieth century, are groundless and represent a gross falsification of the true state of affairs. Time has proven the absurdity of these accusations. This is confirmed by data on the participation of Karachais in the Great Patriotic War. The total number of mobilized people in those years was about 16 thousand people, 2 thousand people worked in the labor army.

The unusual climate, cold and hunger, and lack of normal living conditions turned out to be disastrous for the mountaineers. According to official data, in 1944 alone they lost 23.7 percent of people. In general, more than 60 percent of the displaced people died as a result of deportation.

According to Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Murat Karaketov, if there were no deportation, the number of Karachais in Russia would now be 400-450 thousand people - twice as many as there are at this time (230-240 thousand).

On January 9, 1957, the Circassian Autonomous Okrug was transformed into the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Okrug. The territory that had been transferred to the Krasnodar Territory and the Georgian SSR after deportation was returned to her, and Karachay toponyms were restored on the former Georgian territory.

On January 25, 1957, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Tolstikov signed an order “On permitting residence and registration for Kalmyks, Balkars, Karachais, Chechens, Ingush and members of their families evicted during the Great Patriotic War.”

On November 14, 1989, the Declaration of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR rehabilitated all repressed peoples, recognizing as illegal and criminal repressive acts against them at the state level in the form of a policy of slander, genocide, forced relocation, abolition of national-state entities, establishment of a regime of terror and violence in places of special settlements.

In 1991, the RSFSR Law “On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples” was adopted, which defines the rehabilitation of peoples subjected to mass repression in the USSR as the recognition and exercise of their right to restore the territorial integrity that existed before the forcible redrawing of borders.

From memories of the deportation of Karachais

“Whole families died before our eyes. I remember my neighbors: their mother went to look for frozen beets under the snow in the field where all of our people went. There, a woman was knocked down by a pack of jackals, her breasts were gnawed off. All her children soon died of hunger, they were all buried in the yard. "In the spring, their father came from the front. I remember he carried their remains to the cemetery in a striped mattress cover."
Nazifat Kagiyeva

“When we were on the train, I had a two-year-old daughter and a three-month-old son with me. On the way, the boy fell ill and died. Many children died on our train. The parents were not allowed to bury them. And I tried to hide the fact that my baby was dead. A day passed, then another, I held my son in my arms, but the convoy still found out that I had a dead child. They wanted to take it away and throw me out of the car. I didn’t give it, I said that I would bury him quickly at the nearest station.

I was dropped off at Saratov. Not far away stood a dilapidated house without a roof. The soldiers ordered: “Go there and leave the child there.” So I went. She went inside and was dumbfounded. There were corpses lying all around. There is snow on them. I walked up to the largest corpse, cleared the snow from the area next to it and laid my three-month-old son down. And she said to herself: “Guard, soldier, my baby...” There was no strength to cry...”
Marziyat Dzhukkaeva

“I was in Kyrgyzstan, in the village of Voennaya Antonovka, burying one family - Kubanov Atchy and his wife Saniyat. They had six children. On the way, another boy was born. He was named Kayytbiy, from the word “kaiyt” - “come back.” The parents hoped that that the son would return to his homeland. One day, after long days of hunger, they received a ration - cornmeal. The mother cooked hominy and fed all the children to their fill. And the parents themselves ate their fill for the first time in exile. The family fell asleep. But in the morning no one woke up. They did not know that You can’t eat much after you’re hungry.”
Khusey Botashev

“I went to the front in the first days of the war. In 1943, I fought on the Kursk Bulge, was seriously wounded, and was in the hospital. From there, in mid-November, I went home on leave. I was driving and joyfully thinking about how my mother, relatives, and mine would greet me. village. Could I imagine what awaited me?

I arrived in the village early in the morning. I walked and thought: “Now I’ll wake everyone up!” He ran into the yard, opened the doors - and...emptiness. Not a soul. Nowhere. Silence. I'm confused, I can't understand anything. Like crazy, I look into all corners - into the barn, basement, chicken coop... No one.

The captain met me at the board. He showed a decree according to which all Karachais were evicted from the Caucasus. I went out into the street, stunned, and was met by our neighbor, Fedora Prudnikova. She saw me, cried, and invited me into the house. The military registration and enlistment office allowed me to stay in the village until they found out the address of my relatives. I lived with the Prudnikovs for a month and a half. In these difficult days they were my only support.

On the day of departure, about 80 of us Karachay front-line soldiers gathered at the station. Everyone was put on a train and sent after our relatives.”
Ibragim Koychuev

“They say that you can’t get used to death, but I think that you can’t help but get used to death, when so many people died every day...

It was 1945. Not far from us lived a Chechen family that was dying out before our eyes. First the children died, then the mother died. There is only one father left. One day he came to us. He had almost no clothes on. He showed a bag of corn and said that he exchanged his clothes for a kilogram of grains. And we were boiling potatoes. He said that he came by the smell and asked for some water from the potatoes. Mom gave him potatoes. But two hours later he died anyway. They buried him in what he was wearing. And the corn, which he never had time to eat, was given to another family, where children were dying of hunger."
Khalimat Aibazova

"Our train stopped at the Belovodsk station in Kyrgyzstan. It was the end of November. Wind, rain, icy slush. They ordered us to unload. The heads of the farms selected people - they took labor. A mother with small children (there were three of us, I was the eldest, seven years old) stayed behind in the open air in the bare steppe - no farms needed it.

The next morning, a Russian woman came with two daughters and took our family away. We were warmed, fed, and put to bed. But the night spent in the cold did not pass without a trace. One-year-old brother Rashid tossed about in the heat and died three days later. On the seventh day, sister Tamara died. She was three years old."
Marat Kochkarov

“1944. Spring. We live in the Frunze region, in the village of Voennaya Antonovka. We have five children - the eldest is seven years old, the youngest is one and a half years old. I work wherever I have to, my wife disappears on the sugar plantations. And then one day she got sick. The doctor said: pneumonia, life is in danger, you need to take him to the regional hospital.

But you can’t leave the village without permission from the commandant’s office. For violating the special regime, they give 20 years of hard labor. I went to ask, but the commandant refused me. The next day I came again - again a refusal. Only on the third day, after humiliation and insults, did he finally give permission. I took this paper from him and am returning home. Just got off the bus, I see our yard is filled with people. And I realized that my wife had died."
Khasan Dzhubuev

"A young woman was exiled with small children. There are no relatives nearby. Her husband is at the front. Without food and shelter. There were seven children! Within a short time, like sick chickens, six died and she was left with the smallest one. The last one also did not last long. Mother she lost her mind from grief: she did not give the dead child to people for burial. She came with him to the cemetery and here, among the graves, the nameless mounds of six children, she died, never letting go of her numb hands of the lifeless child..."

“In the village where we lived, one woman (due to her young age I don’t remember her first and last name), seeing that children could die of hunger, began going to the surrounding fields at night and collecting ears of grain there. Every night she brought at least some grains of wheat. And on one of these nights, two watchmen, noticing her, chased after her. She knew that if she was caught, she would either be beaten to death or sent to prison. When she realized that the pursuers would catch up, the woman, having reached the river, stopped and at the bridge, she tore the scarf from her head, ruffled her hair and sat down. The pursuers, seeing her, became numb with fear and ran back shouting “Witch!” And this “witch” more than once, frightened by her own shadow, and clutching a handful of grain to her chest , returned in the midnight darkness to her children."

“Another mother, according to the recollections of eyewitnesses, at first, when the deportees in exile were dying of hunger in their families, wanting to save the lives of her four children in any way, gave them to Kazakh families. A few years later, when the death of starvation had passed, she went to ask for her children back. But I didn’t find two of them. And for the rest of my life, this woman’s face was stamped with a searching, waiting gaze.”

"...Since the railway track was single-track, the train stood idle for a long time while waiting for oncoming trains to pass. And yet, the doors of the cars were not opened at every stop. Sometimes they let people out of a packed car to give people the opportunity to breathe fresh air. Sometimes, , machine gunners standing at the doors and windows, did not give the opportunity to even look outside. A resident of Kamennomost, Khasan Bashchievich Aidinov, a war veteran who returned seriously wounded from the front, with a bad heart, was riding in the next car. At one of the stops, Khasan asked to get off - he didn’t have enough air. But the soldier did not agree to let him out, and then Hassan, in despair, cut his own throat." O. Khubiev

“In the first months of resettlement, those who died outside the home were not allowed to be taken home by their relatives and buried according to the adat. Referring to the fact that they died at work - in the field - they demanded that, like the corpse of an animal, they bury it somewhere and that’s it” (P. Abazaliev ).

“My father was 96 years old, his four sons fought at the front. When he died in 1944, my brother and I dug his grave from early morning until evening. We barely managed it - we were so weak...”
M. Laipanov

BallyaBaykulova, from the village of Vazhnoe, died in 1989. Her husband died at the front, three children were buried in Bayaut. In her small hut, three pairs of children’s eyes and the eyes of a young horseman, her husband, looked at her from the walls. Ballya, the old, sick woman among them seemed to come from the last century. And who knows which of them was more fortunate: them, who were doomed to remain young and youthful forever, or she, who lived a long time, but lived “yesterday,” and after 1946 she had neither a present nor a future. Even the term “yesterday” is not correct - she had no life at all after the death of her children. There, in 1946, having laid her soul in the grave with her children, she lived until 1989 with only the desire to leave this world.

“On the road, the mother of one woman died. They didn’t allow her to bury her or carry her further in the carriage. They simply threw her body on the side of the road. Her daughter (a mother of three children, her husband was at the front), wanting to ease and cool the burning pain of her heart, sat down straight into the snow, and when her body cooled down, it seemed to her that the pain in her heart was subsiding. Her grief burned so much... And then her legs stopped walking."

2017-05-02

Dear fellow countrymen!
Please accept sincere congratulations on the Day of Revival of the Karachay people!
Exactly 60 years have passed since that significant day when the Karachais returned to their historical homeland. Long and difficult 14 years, full of hardships and hardships, preceded this. During the years of repression, the Karachais, like many other peoples of our country, became victims of unfair accusations and were doomed to survive in the harshest conditions on a foreign land. But awareness of their own righteousness and faith in the triumph of justice helped the deportees endure everything that befell their lot and live until the time when the good name of the people was restored.
It is symbolic that the return of the Karachais to their homeland was happy news for all our peoples. Together they rejoiced at the rehabilitation of the Karachay people, together they grieved for those buried in Central Asia and Kazakhstan.
After 60 years, we can rightfully say that the revival of the Karachay people has taken place. Along with all the peoples of Karachay-Cherkessia, he made a huge contribution to the development of our small homeland and Russia, and today his sons and daughters continue to work in a variety of industries and achieve significant results.
On this holiday we wish all the peoples of Karachay-Cherkessia prosperity, unity, harmony and creativity for the benefit of their native republic!
Chapter
R. B. Temrezov.
Chairman of the People's Assembly (Parliament)
Karachay-Cherkess Republic
A. I. Ivanov.
Chairman of the Government
Karachay-Cherkess Republic
A. A. Ozov.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION
U K A Z
HEAD OF THE KARACHAY-CHERKASSIAN REPUBLIC

About the Day of Revival of the Karachay People

In connection with the anniversary date - the 60th anniversary of the start of the mass return of the Karachay people to their historical homeland after a 14-year stay in places of illegal deportation, taking into account the petitions of public organizations,
P O S T A N O V L Y:
1. Declare May 3, 2017, the Day of the Revival of the Karachay People, a non-working holiday.
2. To recommend that the Government of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic and local government bodies ensure the preparation and holding of events dedicated to the Day of the Revival of the Karachay People.
3. Grant local government bodies, administrations of enterprises, organizations and institutions of various forms of ownership the right to organize work on this day, taking into account the real possibilities of ensuring the employment of workers and employees.
4. Work on May 3, 2017 is compensated by providing another day of rest.
5. This Decree comes into force from the date of its signing.

R. B. Temrezov.
Cherkessk, Government House,
April 28, 2017, No. 121.

Dear residents of Karachay-Cherkessia!
The bright spring day of May 3 occupies a special page in the history of our republic. On this day, 60 years ago, the long-awaited journey of the Karachay people to their historical homeland began.
Rejoicing at our return, we remember the tragic fate of our people. The war, deportation and post-war hardships claimed the lives of thousands of people. The Karachay people passed all the trials and difficulties with honor, remaining faithful to their national customs and traditions.
And today, recalling the events of past years, we look to the future with optimism and faith.
We have the power to do everything possible to ensure that the troubles and suffering that befell the peoples of our republic are never repeated.
I wish the peoples of Karachay-Cherkessia peace and prosperity, mutual understanding and harmony! Good health, happiness and prosperity!
Happy holiday, dear fellow countrymen!
Member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly
Russian Federation
A. A. Salpagarov.

I sincerely congratulate all residents of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic on the Day of Revival of the Karachay people!
Today we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the return of the Karachais to their historical homeland.
On this day we remember the joyful and significant event that predetermined the bright future of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic.
I would like to wish us all peace, prosperity and prosperity for the benefit of the development of our republic!
State Duma Deputy M. E. Starshinov.

Dear residents of Karachay-Cherkessia! Dear Karachais!
I would like to express my gratitude to all the peoples of our multinational republic, who not only warmly welcomed the Karachais after a 14-year exile, but also sincerely supported the returning families in a difficult time for us. We will never forget the kindness and help that the population of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan once provided to my people, selflessly lending a helping hand when it was so needed.
We must preserve the memory of those events so that this will never happen again to any nation!
Peace, health, happiness, success and prosperity to all the peoples of Karachay-Cherkessia!
State Duma Deputy R. B. Botashev.

The Republic celebrates a special date ─ May 3, the Day of the Revival of the Karachay people. This holiday was established in memory of the gaining of freedom and the return to their homeland of thousands of deported residents of the North Caucasus, who became victims of Stalin’s criminal policies, which were later recognized as genocide. The testimonies of those who lived through the tragic events of those years are not only proof of its inhuman essence, but also a warning to future generations.

In mid-July 1942, German motorized units managed to make a powerful breakthrough and rush to the Caucasus on a wide front covering almost 500 kilometers. The offensive was so rapid that already on August 21, the flag of Nazi Germany was flying at the top of Elbrus and remained there until the end of February 1943, until the invaders were driven out by Soviet troops. At the same time, the Nazis occupied the entire territory of the Karachay Autonomous Region.

The arrival of the Germans and their establishment of a new order gave impetus to the intensification of the actions of that part of the population that was hostile to the Soviet regime and was waiting for an opportunity to overthrow it. Taking advantage of the favorable situation, these individuals began to unite in rebel groups and actively collaborate with the Germans. From among them, the so-called Karachay national committees were formed, whose task was to maintain the occupation regime on the ground.

Of the total number of residents of the region, these people constituted an extremely insignificant percentage, especially since most of the male population was at the front, but responsibility for betrayal was placed on the entire nation. The result of the events was the deportation of the Karachay people, which forever became a shameful page in the history of the country.

A people who suffered because of a handful of traitors

The forced deportation of the Karachais was among the numerous crimes of the totalitarian regime established in the country by the bloody dictator. It is known that even among his closest circle such obvious arbitrariness caused a mixed reaction. In particular, A.I. Mikoyan, who was a member of the Politburo in those years, recalled that it seemed absurd to him to be accused of betraying an entire people, among whom there were many communists, representatives of the Soviet intelligentsia and the working peasantry. In addition, almost the entire male part of the population was mobilized into the army and fought the Nazis along with everyone else. Only a small group of renegades stained themselves with betrayal. However, Stalin showed stubbornness and insisted on his own.

The deportation of the Karachay people was carried out in several stages. It began with a directive dated April 15, 1943, drawn up by the USSR Prosecutor's Office together with the NKVD. Appearing immediately after the liberation of Karachay by Soviet troops in January 1943, it contained an order for the forced resettlement of 573 people who were family members of those who collaborated with the Germans to Kazakhstan. All their relatives were to be sent, including infants and decrepit old people.

Soon the number of deportees decreased to 472, as 67 members of the rebel groups turned themselves in to local authorities. However, as subsequent events showed, this was only a propaganda move that contained a lot of slyness, since in October of the same year a resolution was issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, on the basis of which all Karachais without exception, in the amount of 62,843, were subjected to forced migration (deportation). Human.

To complete the picture, we note that, according to available data, 53.7% of them were children; 28.3% were women and only 18% were men, most of whom were old people or disabled war veterans, since the rest were fighting at the front at that time, defending the very power that deprived them of shelter and doomed their families to incredible suffering.

The same decree of October 12, 1943 ordered the liquidation of the Karachay Autonomous Okrug, and the entire territory belonging to it was divided between neighboring subjects of the federation and was subject to settlement by “verified categories of workers” - this is exactly what was said in this sadly memorable document.

The beginning of the sorrowful path

The resettlement of the Karachay people, or in other words, the expulsion of them from centuries-old lands, was carried out at an accelerated pace and was carried out in the period from November 2 to November 5, 1943. In order to drive defenseless old people, women and children into freight cars, “power support for the operation” was allocated with the involvement of an NKVD military unit consisting of 53 thousand people (this is official data). At gunpoint, they drove innocent residents out of their homes and escorted them to their places of deportation. You were allowed to take with you only a small supply of food and clothing. The deportees were forced to abandon all other property acquired over many years to the mercy of fate.

All residents of the abolished Karachay Autonomous Region were sent to new places of residence in 34 trains, each of which could accommodate up to 2 thousand people and consisted of an average of 40 cars. As participants in those events later recalled, each carriage housed about 50 displaced people, who over the next 20 days were forced, suffocating from overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, to freeze, starve and die from disease. The hardships they endured are evidenced by the fact that during the journey, according to official reports alone, 654 people died.

Upon arrival at the site, all Karachays were settled in small groups in 480 settlements spread over a vast territory stretching all the way to the foothills of the Pamirs. This irrefutably indicates that the deportation of the Karachais to the USSR pursued the goal of their complete assimilation among other peoples and disappearance as an independent ethnic group.

In March 1944, the so-called Department of Special Settlements was created under the NKVD of the USSR - this is how the places of residence of those who, having become victims of an inhuman regime, were expelled from their land and forcibly sent thousands of kilometers away, were called in official documents. This structure was in charge of 489 special commandant's offices on the territory of Kazakhstan and 96 in Kyrgyzstan.

According to the order issued by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria, all deported persons were required to obey special rules. They were strictly forbidden to leave the settlement controlled by the given NKVD commandant’s office without a special pass signed by the commandant. Violation of this requirement was equivalent to escaping from prison and was punishable by hard labor for a period of 20 years.

In addition, the displaced were ordered to inform the commandant’s office staff within three days about the death of their family members or the birth of children. They were also obliged to report on escapes, not only those that had taken place, but also those that were being prepared. Otherwise, the perpetrators were prosecuted as accomplices to the crime.

Despite the reports of the commandants of special settlements about the safe placement of displaced families in new places and their involvement in the social and working life of the region, in fact, only a small part of them received more or less tolerable living conditions. The majority were deprived of shelter for a long time and huddled in shacks, hastily knocked together from waste material, or even in dugouts.

The situation with the food supply of the new settlers was also catastrophic. Witnesses of those events recalled that, deprived of any established supply, they were constantly hungry. It often happened that people brought to extreme exhaustion ate roots, cake, nettles, frozen potatoes, alfalfa, and even the leather of worn-out shoes. As a result, only according to official data released during the years of perestroika, the mortality rate among forced migrants in the initial period reached 23.6%.

The incredible suffering associated with the deportation of the Karachai people was partly alleviated only by the kind participation and help from neighbors - Russians, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, as well as representatives of other nationalities who retained their inherent humanity, despite all the military trials. The process of rapprochement between the settlers and the Kazakhs, whose memories were still fresh of the horrors of the Holodomor they experienced in the early 30s, was especially active.

Repressions against other peoples of the USSR

The Karachais were not the only victims of Stalin's tyranny. No less tragic was the fate of the other indigenous peoples of the North Caucasus, and with them the ethnic groups living in other areas of the country. According to the statements of most researchers, representatives of 10 nationalities were subjected to forcible deportation, which, in addition to the Karachais, included Crimean Tatars, Ingush, Kalmyks, Ingrian Finns, Koreans, Meskhetian Turks, Balkars, Chechens and

All deported peoples, without exception, moved to areas that were located at a considerable distance from their places of historical residence, and found themselves in an unusual, and sometimes life-threatening, environment. A common feature of the deportations that took place, which makes it possible to consider them part of the mass repressions of the Stalinist period, is their extrajudicial nature and contingent nature, expressed in the movement of huge masses belonging to one or another ethnic group. In passing, we note that the history of the USSR also included the deportations of a number of social and ethno-confessional groups of the population, such as Cossacks, kulaks, etc.

Executioners of their own people

Issues related to the deportation of certain peoples were considered at the level of the country's top party and government leadership. Despite the fact that they were initiated by the OGPU and later the NKVD, their decision was beyond the jurisdiction of the court. There is an opinion that during the war, as well as in the subsequent period, the head of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, L.P. Beria, played a key role in the forced relocation of entire ethnic groups. It was he who submitted reports to Stalin containing materials related to subsequent repressions.

According to available data, by the time of Stalin’s death in 1953, the country had almost 3 million deportees of all nationalities held in special settlements. Under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, 51 departments were created that exercised control over the displaced people with the help of 2916 commandant's offices operating in their places of residence. 31 operational search units were involved in suppressing possible escapes and searching for fugitives.

Long way home

The return of the Karachay people to their homeland, as well as their deportation, took place in several stages. The first sign of the coming changes was the decree of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, issued a year after Stalin’s death, on the deregistration of children born into the families of deportees after 1937 by the commandant’s offices of special settlements. That is, from that moment on, the curfew regime did not apply to those whose age did not exceed 16 years.

In addition, on the basis of the same order, boys and girls over the specified age received the right to travel to any city in the country to enter educational institutions. If they were enrolled, they were also deregistered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The next step towards returning many illegally deported peoples to their homeland was taken by the USSR government in 1956. The impetus for him was N. S. Khrushchev’s speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, in which he criticized Stalin’s cult of personality and the policy of mass repression carried out during his reign.

According to the decree of July 16, restrictions on special settlements were lifted from Ingush, Chechens and Karachais evicted during the war, as well as all members of their families. Representatives of other repressed peoples were not subject to this decree and were given the opportunity to return to their places of former residence only after some time. Later than all, repressive measures were lifted against ethnic groups. Only in 1964, by government decree, absolutely groundless charges of collaborating with the fascists were dropped and all restrictions on freedom were lifted.

Debunked "heroes"

During the same period, another document, very characteristic of that era, appeared. This was a government decree to terminate the Decree of March 8, 1944, signed by M.I. Kalinin, in which the “all-Union headman” nominated 714 security officers and army officers who distinguished themselves in performing “special tasks” for high government awards.

This vague formulation meant their participation in the deportation of defenseless women and old people. The lists of “heroes” were compiled personally by Beria. Due to the sharp change in the party's course caused by the revelations made from the rostrum, all of them were deprived of their previously received awards. The initiator of this action was, in his own words, member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee A. I. Mikoyan.

From the documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, declassified during the years of perestroika, it is clear that by the time this resolution was issued, the number of special settlers had significantly decreased as a result of the deregistration of children under 16 years of age, students, and a certain group of disabled people over the previous two years. Thus, in July 1956, 30,100 people received freedom.

Despite the fact that the decree on the release of the Karachais was issued in July 1956, the final return was preceded by a long period of various kinds of delays. Only on May 3 of the following year the first train with them arrived home. This date is considered the Day of Revival of the Karachay people. Over the following months, all the remaining repressed persons returned from special settlements. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, their number was 81,405 people.

At the beginning of 1957, a government decree was issued to restore the national autonomy of the Karachais, but not as an independent subject of the federation, as it was before the deportation, but by annexing the territory they occupied to the Circassian Autonomous Okrug and thus creating the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Region. The same territorial-administrative structure additionally included the Klukhorsky, Ust-Dzhkgutinsky and Zelenchuksky districts, as well as a significant part of the Psebaysky district and the suburban area of ​​Kislovodsk.

On the way to complete rehabilitation

Researchers note that this and all subsequent decrees that abolished the special regime for the detention of repressed peoples were united by a common feature - they did not contain even the remotest hint of criticism of the policy of mass deportations. Without exception, all the documents stated that the resettlement of entire peoples was caused by “wartime circumstances,” and at the moment there was no longer a need for people to stay in special settlements.

The issue of rehabilitation of the Karachay people, like all other victims of mass deportations, was not even raised. All of them continued to be considered criminal peoples, pardoned thanks to the humanity of the Soviet government.

Thus, there was still a struggle ahead for the complete rehabilitation of all peoples who had become victims of Stalin's tyranny. The period of the so-called Khrushchev Thaw, when many materials testifying to the lawlessness committed by Stalin and his entourage became public knowledge, has passed, and the party leadership set a course for hushing up previous sins. In this situation it was impossible to seek justice. The situation changed only with the beginning of perestroika, which representatives of previously repressed peoples were quick to take advantage of.

Restoring justice

At their request, in the late 80s, a commission was created under the CPSU Central Committee that developed a draft Declaration on the complete rehabilitation of all peoples of the Soviet Union who were subjected to forced deportation during the years of Stalinism. In 1989, this document was reviewed and adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In it, the deportation of the Karachay people, as well as representatives of other ethnic groups, was sharply condemned and characterized as an illegal and criminal act.

Two years later, a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued, canceling all previously adopted government decisions, on the basis of which numerous peoples inhabiting our country were subjected to repression, and declaring their forced resettlement an act of genocide. The same document ordered that any attempts at agitation directed against the rehabilitation of repressed peoples be considered illegal actions and that those responsible be brought to justice.

In 1997, by a special decree of the head of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, a holiday was established on May 3 - the Day of the Revival of the Karachay People. This is a kind of tribute to the memory of all those who, for 14 years, were forced to endure all the hardships of exile, and those who did not live to see the day of liberation and return to their native lands. According to established tradition, it is marked by various public events, such as theatrical performances, concerts, equestrian competitions and car races.

75 years ago, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR began the forced eviction of Karachais from their places of historical residence to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Deportation was used as part of a set of repressive measures applied to a number of peoples of the North Caucasus. Doctor of Historical Sciences, chief researcher at the Institute of Russian History Nikolai Bugai considers the national policy of that period to be the cause of interethnic conflicts in modern Russia.

The deportation of the small Turkic-speaking people was carried out in accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council “On the liquidation of the Karachay Autonomous Region and on the administrative structure of its territory” dated October 12, 1943.

“During the period of occupation of the territory of the Karachay Autonomous Region by the Nazi invaders, many Karachais behaved treacherously, joined detachments organized by the Germans to fight the Soviet regime,

betrayed honest Soviet citizens to the Germans, accompanied and showed the way to German troops advancing through the passes in Transcaucasia, and after the expulsion of the occupiers, they counteracted the measures taken by the Soviet government, hid bandits and agents abandoned by the Germans from the authorities, providing them with active assistance,” the document said.

In connection with the above arguments, the very first paragraph of the Decree decided to resettle all Karachais “to other regions of the USSR.” At the same time, people officially deprived of their rights were not supposed to be left without a means of subsistence, roughly speaking, unloaded from wagons and abandoned in the remote steppe. The Supreme Council instructed the Council of People's Commissars to “provide the Karachays with land in new places of settlement and provide them with the necessary state assistance for economic development.”

The administrative division of the regions of the Karachay Autonomy, which before the events was part of the Ordzhonikidze (from January 12, 1943 - Stavropol) region, underwent significant changes, and geographical objects were renamed. According to the decision of the Supreme Council, the border between the RSFSR and the Georgian SSR was moved. The decree was signed by the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Court.

The eviction of the Karachais from their ancestral lands followed a clear pattern that had already been worked out among other peoples. By two o'clock in the morning on November 2, 1943, NKVD detachments and the policemen helping them cordoned off cities and villages, blocked exit routes and set up ambushes. From four o'clock in the morning, security officers and police officers began arresting suspicious or resisting persons. From three to six hours were allotted for the expulsion of each settlement.

34 trains of 2,000 people each were sent from Karachay to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The special operation lasted until November 5. The first carriages with internally displaced persons arrived at their destination on the 10th, the last - on the 22nd.

A total of 68,614 Karachais were deported, including very old people, women and children.

The implementation of the process was carried out by a contingent of a total of 53,327 security officials.

Many deportees faced shortages of housing, clothing and food, resulting in entire families forced to live in dilapidated houses and dugouts. Like other repressed peoples, the Karachais experienced increased mortality. In the first two years, the population decline amounted to more than 23% of the original number of resettlers. Cases of escape were recorded. Strict measures were taken against those caught as dangerous criminals.

For a long time, the vast majority of USSR citizens had no idea about the deportations taking place in the country. The literature of the post-war years completely ignored this problem, as reported in the article by Doctor of Historical Sciences Evgeniy Krinko “National politics and interethnic relations in the North-West Caucasus during the Second World War: historiography of the problem”, published in the first issue of the journal “Humanitarian Thought of the South of Russia” for 2005. Nothing was said about the further fate of the repressed. Only in individual studies published after the death of Joseph Stalin are there references to the fact that among the Caucasian peoples there were those “who in 1942 betrayed the alliance with the great Russian people.”

During the 5.5 months of Nazi occupation in Karachay, as in other regions of the Caucasus, individual residents actually collaborated with the Germans. Some fought with the Reds back in the Civil War, after which they went underground. The region's inaccessible mountainous terrain, strong family ties and centuries-old traditions created good opportunities for successful long-term concealment from the authorities. Plus, many “anti-Soviet” figures of Karachay were simply forgotten in the total confusion of the early 1920s. However, already in the 1930s there were armed protests against collectivization. Prosperous farmers, representatives of the clergy, former mountain princes, and surviving White Guard officers of the Karachai hundred of the “Wild Division” quite naturally felt offended. A few uprisings were suppressed by the Red Army, but tension and hatred of the state system only grew.

Today it is generally accepted that the collaborationism of the Karachays during the Second World War was not systemic in nature, although the existence of individual rebel groups of a radically anti-Soviet orientation has never been questioned. During the occupation of the Caucasus, the German administration in Karachay relied on the Karachay National Committee, which was given fairly broad powers to govern the region. The top of the committee - this, in fact, attracted the attention of the Germans - took strong nationalist positions and began the fight against Soviet power even before the occupation. After the expulsion of the Nazis, the existence of such organizations gave the country's leadership a reason to accuse all Karachais of “betrayal.”

At the same time, there were many who served in the Red Army. With the start of the Great Patriotic War, 15,600 soldiers went to the front from the Karachay Autonomous Region (Karachais then made up 46.8% of the region’s population). Another 3,000 were sent to the labor armies.

According to human rights activists, more than 8,000 residents of Karachay were killed, captured or disappeared. Partisan detachments with a total number of about 1,200 people operated in the mountains.

According to the formulation of historian Nikolai Kirsanov, the occupiers in the occupied territory sought to “intensify, and in many cases create anew, the anti-Soviet or anti-Russian factor.”

“They often succeeded,” the researcher concludes. “This was favored by the complexities of the ethnic structure in the USSR, aggravated by historical remnants, nationalist prejudices, mistakes and distortions in politics.”

“It cannot be denied that among the Karachays, like other peoples of the country, there were cases of desertion, manifestations of cowardice and other undesirable phenomena, but not isolated facts characterize the Karachay people. On the contrary, a large amount of factual material speaks of the fearlessness and heroism of the Karachays, of patriotism and self-sacrifice in the name of victory over the enemy,” wrote a major researcher of the topic, Doctor of Historical Sciences Chermen Kulaev, in his Ph.D. thesis “Karachay and Circassian Party Organizations during the Second World War” was the first to put archive materials into circulation.

He places the blame for the deportations on the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, who "created a climate of distrust and suspicion towards individual peoples, trying to pit some peoples of the Caucasus against others."

Historian Bugai is also confident that Stalin and his entourage bear responsibility for the eviction of the Karachais.

“The rest of the participants in the events - commissars, officers, soldiers - were only ordinary performers,” the specialist is convinced.

This approach is not shared by all experts on the problem. Some are convinced that the ground for deportations, on the contrary, was prepared not from above, but from below.

In the monograph by Vladimir Schneider “Soviet nation-building in the North Caucasus (1917 - late 1950s): patterns and contradictions,” with reference to the works of other authors, the desire to expand the territory of Georgia at the expense of Karachay is cited as the main motive for the resettlement of the Karachais. At the same time, only assumptions are made about whose specific initiative this was: the republican leaders or Stalin himself. As arguments in favor of this version, a map of the soils of the northern slope of the Caucasus, released in 1942 in Kazan, is given: most of the Karachay settlements are marked on it in Georgian, and the capital of the Mikoyan-Shakhar region (now Karachaevsk) is listed as Klukhori - this name was fixed By decree of the Supreme Council of October 12, 1943. It is possible that the Central Committee of the Military-Industrial Complex (Bolsheviks) considered the issue of eviction long before the war, but did not come to a common conclusion about the timing.

According to the historian Bugai, the authorities could have feared the rapprochement of the Turkic-speaking people with the unfriendly USSR, but mentally close to the Karachays, Turkey.

Another compelling prerequisite for the resettlement of Karachais and other peoples could be the urgent need of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan for cheap labor. The author also draws attention to the role in the events of the then first secretary of the Stavropol regional committee, in the future - the main party ideologist Mikhail A:

he allegedly sought to blame the failure of partisan resistance in the region entrusted to him on the collaborationism of the Karachais.

There is also a version about the personal revenge of a Karachai functionary for an insult: allegedly, during his first trip to the mountains, Suslov did not behave in accordance with customs, which he did not have a complete understanding of, and ran into a “warm reception.” However, other historians urge not to exaggerate the scale of Suslov’s figure in the period under review and do not consider his role in the repressions significant, and, most importantly, at least a little independent.

The rehabilitation of repressed peoples began during the era of Khrushchev’s “thaw”, but during these years it was not completed, and the deportation was not given an appropriate political and legal assessment. Even the text of the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated January 9, 1957 “On the transformation of the Circassian Autonomous Region into the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Region” was not published in full. The political rehabilitation of the Karachais occurred only in 1991.

The rehabilitation of the Karachays, deported 75 years ago to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, did not involve territorial conflicts, but remained incomplete in moral terms, said the Chairman of the Russian Congress of the Peoples of the Caucasus, Aliy Totorkulov. Russia has still not given a legal assessment of Stalin’s repressions against peoples, historian Patimat Takhnaeva emphasized.

At the same time, the scientist believes that it is important to pay no less attention to the day of the return of repressed peoples, as “the day of the triumph of justice.”

“It’s right that we remember [the deportees], but it seems to me that we should celebrate not only the day of deportation, but also the day of the return of peoples, when justice triumphed. Ordinary people greeted the settlers kindly and helped them settle down. It is important to separate the politics of power and relations between peoples ", concluded the historian.

Russia, being the legal successor of the USSR, did not give a legal assessment of Stalin’s repressions, said a researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Patimat Takhnaeva correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot".

“Deportations, collectivization and industrialization were lawlessness and arbitrariness. Unfortunately, the legal successor of the USSR, the Russian state, did not give a legal assessment of these actions; we never heard it,” Takhnaeva said.

Deportations - a practice of collective responsibility

Accusations of peoples of collaborating with the fascists were always made in circumvention of any legal procedures and did not have precise legal formulations, she noted.

“I tried to find [archival] Chechen documents, but I couldn’t do it. The official justification - “for collaboration with the Germans”, “betrayal” - these were vague formulations. People were made guilty, but how was the investigation carried out, under what law were they tried , “[no answer],” notes Takhnaeva.

Even in the late Soviet years, the practice of collective responsibility was widespread, she added. “A significant part of the USSR was under occupation and everyone was under suspicion. When applying for a job, the personal sheet that was issued in the personnel department asked whether [the person’s] relatives were under occupation. There was general suspicion,” Takhnaeva concluded.

Aliy Totorkulov also pointed out the practice of collective responsibility. “At that time, everything was documented in secret reports of the NKVD, and when these documents were declassified, it turned out that the NKVD drew whatever they wanted. In the mountainous Karachay village during the war, there was a wedding, NKVD officers came there. Right in this house where the wedding was taking place, They shot the owner of the house under the pretext that there was a war going on, and you were having a wedding here. The people in rage destroyed these employees who behaved in this way - and so they indicated in the reports and reports of the NKVD that the people were against the Soviet regime, they killed the NKVD employees. there was a sea," he said.

Totorkulov also recalled the accusation of the Karachays in the extermination of Jewish children, which became one of the reasons for the eviction.

“Now it is already known that the Karachais escorted the Jewish children of the siege to Georgia, many [thanks to them remained] alive - and at that time the Karachais were accused of killing Jewish children. The children of the war themselves, the Jews, denied this, saying, how the Karachais saved them,” Totorkulov concluded.

The Karachais were the first among the Caucasian mountaineers to be subjected to repression on trumped-up charges during the Great Patriotic War, and later Chechens, Ingush and Balkars were also evicted from their historical places of residence. Investigations and inspections carried out later by the prosecutor general's offices of the USSR and the RSFSR, as well as the prosecutor's office of the Stavropol Territory, made it possible to completely refute the accusations of executions of wounded Red Army soldiers and Jewish children, brought against the Karachay people and which became the reason for the eviction, as indicated in the TASS material published on November 2.

Specific stories of Jewish children rescued by Karachais are also given in the material. Thus, in 1994, the Israeli Institute of Disaster Remembrance and Heroism Yad Vashem awarded the Karachais Shamail and Ferdaus Khalamliev, as well as their sons Mukhtar and Sultan, the honorary title “Righteous Among the Nations” for the rescue of three Jewish girls evacuated after the shooting of their parents by the Nazis from Kyiv to Karachaevsk. The girls fled after the occupation of Karachaevsk to the mountains, where Teberda resident Mukhtar Khalamliev found them and brought them to his parents’ house.

Progress of deportation of Karachais

The decree and resolution on the total eviction of Karachais, the liquidation of the Karachay Autonomous Okrug and the administrative structure of its territory were issued on October 12 and 14, 1943. The text of the decree stated that “many Karachais” behaved “... treacherously, joined detachments organized by the Germans to fight Soviet power, betrayed honest Soviet citizens to the Germans, accompanied and showed the way to German troops advancing through the passes in Transcaucasia, and after expelling the occupiers counteract the measures taken by the Soviet government, hide from the authorities bandits and agents abandoned by the Germans, providing them with active assistance,” says the work of historian Pavel Polyan “Forced migrations during the Second World War and after its end (1939–1953).”

To provide forceful support for the deportation of the Karachais, military units with a total number of 53,327 people were involved. “Since the deportation plan was calculated for 62,842 people, of which only 37,429 were adults, then for every adult unarmed Karachay, including women, there were almost two armed security officers,” Polyan points out.

After the deportation of the Karachais, the entire territory of the Karachay Autonomous Region was divided between the Stavropol Territory, Georgia and the Krasnodar Territory.

The Elbrusoid Foundation provides on its website the memoirs of Asiyat Elkanova, who in 1943 was the editor of the regional newspaper Kyzyl Karachay.

“At 2 o’clock in the morning from the first to the second of November, having completed work on the newspaper, my literary worker Supiyat Adzhieva and I went home. In the morning at 6 o’clock someone knocked on the door. A familiar lieutenant stood on the threshold with two Red Army soldiers. He said hello and, blushing, said: “Comrade Elkanova, you are being evicted, you need to collect your things and food. They will give you a bus, and we will help you pack your things." I was confused. Then, coming to my senses, I asked: “Did you come up with an inappropriate joke or did you have the wrong address?” Then he read the paper he was holding in his hand. Tears blurred his eyes, he didn’t want to to believe in monstrous injustice,” says Elkanova’s memoirs.

Many deported Karachais faced a lack of housing, clothing and food: “entire families were forced to live in dilapidated houses and dugouts”; the mortality rate in such conditions was very high. In the first two years, the population decline amounted to more than 23% of the original number of resettlers.

According to Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Murat Karaketov, without deportation, the number of Karachais in Russia by 2009 would have been twice as large and would have amounted to 400-450 thousand people.

Cases of escape were recorded, and harsh measures were applied to those caught as dangerous criminals. At the same time, “the overwhelming majority of citizens of the USSR for a long time did not even know about the deportations taking place in the country,” states the material published by Gazeta.Ru on November 2.