Deportation of the Soviet Greeks explained

The deportation of the Soviet Greeks was a series of forced transfers of Greeks of the Soviet Union that was ordered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and carried out by the NKVD and the MVD in 1942, 1944 and 1949. It affected mostly Pontic Greeks along the Black Sea coast, most notably from Krasnodar Krai from where they were deported in all three deportations, resulting in ethnic cleansing of this area. The deported Soviet and foreign Greeks residing along the coast of Crimea and the Caucasus were resettled in cattle trains to the modern Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, while their property, which was left behind, was confiscated. After de-Stalinization in the 1950s, some Greeks returned to their original homes, but most chose to emigrate to Greece, marking the end of the centuries long Greek community along the Black Sea coast. It is estimated that around 70,000 to 80,000 Greeks were uprooted in these three waves of deportations. At least 15,000 Greeks had died by the end of the deportations. Some scholars characterize the deportation as a genocide against Greeks.

Background

See also: Pontic Greeks, Kingdom of Pontus, Greeks in pre-Roman Crimea and Ukrainian Greeks. Before the Stalinist mass deportations, the Soviet Greek diaspora was divided into four categories: 1) the Crimean Greeks, descendants of Byzantine colonists, who were relocated to Mariupol by Catherine the Great in the 18th century. 2) the Greeks who fled from the Erzurum vilayet to Georgia during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829. 3) the Pontic Greeks who fled from Anatolia to Greece and the Russian Empire during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). 4) communist Greeks, political refugees, who fled Greece after they lost in the Greek Civil War. During World War I, 85,000 Greeks from Eastern Pontus fled to the Russian Caucasus.

The 1926 Soviet census registered 213,765 Greeks in the country and the 1939 Soviet census registered 286,000 Greeks. The 1939 census registered 42,500 Greeks in Krasnodar Krai, 1,700 in Adygea, 1,500 in Karachay-Cherkessia and 100 in Kabardino-Balkaria. The 1937 census registered 87,385 Greeks among the 3,378,064 people residing in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, and 1,248 Greeks in Azerbaijan.[1] 20,652 Greeks lived on Crimea, forming 1.8% of the peninsula's population. The 1937 census registered 3,803 Greeks in Armenia. In the 1930s, three Greek National Soviets were formed in the Azov area, and a small Greek region was established around Krymsk, aiming for the establishment of a Greek Autonomous District in the Soviet Union. On 9 August 1937, NKVD order 00485 was adopted to target "subversive activities of Polish intelligence" in the Soviet Union, but was later expanded to also include Latvians, Germans, Estonians, Finns, Greeks, Iranians and Chinese.

There was virtually no counter-revolutionary activity among the Soviet Greeks, though there were exceptions in Constantine Kromiadi, an anti-communist of Greek origin, who became second in command in Andrey Vlasov Abwehr detachment during the Nazi German occupation of the Soviet Union in World War II. Joseph Stalin sought to implement Korenizatsiia among Soviet ethnic groups which showed signs of national affiliation, ultimately leading to Russification of these areas.

Deportations

See also: Population transfer in the Soviet Union. Soviet Greeks were deported in three waves as part of the population transfer in the Soviet Union.

Life in exile

One of the deported Greeks who was born near Sukhumi and sent to the Pahtaral region of Uzbekistan in 1949, recalled the events:

Another deportee, Lefteris, gave a 1992 interview about his experience:

The deporations did not encompass all Soviet Greeks. The Turkic-speaking Greeks around Tbilisi and the Greeks in Mariupol were excluded from these evictions. The deported people lived in tents and worked in exhausting conditions in mining, construction, agriculture, and other. They routinely worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week. They suffered from exhaustion, cold, and hunger, with food rations tied to work quotas. On 1 January 1953, 21,057 foreign Greeks were recorded in special settlements in Kazakh SSR and 2,472 in Uzbek SSR, while a total of 52,000 Greeks were recorded in all Soviet special settlements.

Aftermath and legacy

According to the Head of the Georgian SSR Statistical Department, 8,334 Greeks were left on the Black Sea coast in the mid-1950s. On 25 September 1956, MVD Order N 0402 was adopted and defined the removal of restrictions towards the deported peoples in the special settlements. Afterward, the Soviet Greeks started returning to their homes, or emigrating towards Greece.

At the time of the 1949 deportation, it was estimated that there were 41,000 Greeks residing in Abkhaz ASSR inside Georgian SSR. The 1959 Soviet census enumerated only 9,101 Greeks remaining there, meaning that 30,000 were deported. On their place, resettlement from Western Georgia was initiated, interpreted as Stalin's policy of colonisation. Between the 1939 census, which registered 34,621 Greeks, and the 1959 census, the Greeks suffered a 74% decline within the Abkhaz ASSR. Overall, by 2002 when 16,600 of them were registered, the Greek community was reduced to only 1/6 of their original number in Georgia. In the 2002 census, 530 Greeks were recorded in Azerbaijan; 1,174 in Armenia; 97,827 in Russia. 2,800 Greeks remained in Crimea according to the 2001 census, forming 0.1% of the peninsula's population.[3]

Greek historian Anastasis Gkikas estimated that 15,000 Greeks died during these Soviet repressions.

Officially, the 1949 deportation was explained by the USSR as trying to cleanse the border areas from "politically unreliable elements". The official Government of Greece condemned this 1949 Soviet deportation of Greeks.[2] Russian historian Alexander Nekrich assumes that the Greeks were deported in 1949 because of the alliance of Greece with the UK. Others consider it as a collective punishment because the Greek communists lost in the Greek Civil War during 1946–1949. Other interpretations include the Soviet need for workforce in the remote areas of Central Asia to achieve the Five-year plan.

In 1938, 20,000 Soviet Greeks arrived to Greece. Between 1965 and 1975, another 15,000 Greeks emigrated from the Soviet Union and went to Greece. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, approximately 100,000 Greeks left the former USSR and emigrated to Greece. Unlike many other 'punished' ethnic groups, the Soviet Greeks were never officially rehabilitated by the Soviet legislation. They were however officially rehabilitated, among with other ethnic groups by the Russian Federation,[4] amended by Decree no. 458 of September 12, 2015.[5]

See also

References

Books and journals

. Valery Tishkov. 1996. Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and After the Soviet Union. London. 47008632. 9781848609198. SAGE Publishing.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Всесоюзная перепись населения 1939 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР. Russian. demoscope.ru. 2 April 2023.
  2. Web site: Greek Citizens of Soviet Origin Deported to Soviet central Asia. 670. 1949. The Department of State Bulletin . 21.
  3. Web site: About number and composition population of AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC OF CRIMEA by data All-Ukrainian population census'. 2001. Ukrainian Census.
  4. Web site: Внесены изменения в указ о мерах по реабилитации армянского, болгарского, греческого, крымско-татарского и немецкого народов и государственной поддержке их возрождения и развития. Президент России.
  5. Web site: Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 12.09.2015 г. № 458. Президент России.

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