Abstract:

The history of deportations is closely connected with the problems of population movement in the Soviet Union. In the presentation, based on the author’s archival research, these tragic events are to be shown with a special focus on the adaptation practices of the people who were suddenly deprived of their rights, property, houses and very often of professional activities. Some sensitive issues will also be touched upon dealing with how regime forced citizens to be ranked as second-class citizens and how the receiving communities interacted with them.

The process of adaptation of the deported people, particularly Germans and Poles, to new inimical environment, and emergence of new practices of survival and even success is studied through the lens of migration detention theory. Expelling of unwanted people could ease the labor deficits in those industries where the Soviet administration faced troubles due to a severe shortage of labor force. It became a new practice to delegitimize victims of deportation into second-class citizens – main source of cheap labor to promote and successfully realize goals of Soviet modernization. Thus, a crucial part of the deportation campaign was dictated by economic needs of the state. Historical memory of the deported groups mirrored in the archival documents, contains information concerning the most difficult periods of their work in different industries of Kazakhstan as well as in other Central Asian republics.

The attitudes towards deported peoples could be best studied within the framework of the national values theory that focuses on “whether the admission of migrants promotes fundamental values of the country” (K. Johnson Theories of Immigration Law // Arizona State Law Journal 2015: 1211). In the case of Soviet deportations of 1930-40s this idea might be applied to explore the policies of the Soviet leadership aimed at bringing the new values into isolated and desperate communities of the deported people. It will be shown in the presentation how they have got integrated into local society to follow the rules and values imposed by the latter.