Vol 19, No 1 (2020): THE LIFE OF THE NATIONS OF THE USSR BETWEEN 1920-1950

-

Soviet nationality policy was one of several political responses to cultural diversity in the interwar period. The author situates that policy in its comparative context, contrasting the Soviet Union to its eastern European neighbors and to British and French rule in Africa. Contrary to the nationalizing policies of the new states of eastern Europe, which sought national unity at the expense of ethnic minorities, Soviet nationality policy was initially based on practices of diff erentiation. Contrary to the colonial policies of Britain and France, which were based on ethnic and racial diff erentiation, Soviet policy sought to integrate all peoples into one state. In the mid-to-late 1930s, however, Soviet policy took a nationalizing turn similar to its neighbors in eastern Europe, without completely abandoning policies of ethnic diff erentiation. We should thus understand the Soviet approach as a unique hybrid of contradictory practices of nationalization and diff erentiation.

The article is devoted to the activities of the prominent Soviet politician and statesman M.K. Ammosov (1897-1938), who devoted his life to revolutionary transformations and the formation of a socialist economy in the Yakut Republic, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The article considers the ideas of M.K. Ammosov concerning the socialist reconstruction of the national regions, and in particular of the households of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples. Practical work to boost regional economies occupied a central place in M.K. Ammosov’s activities and was based on a comprehensive scientifi c study of productive forces and human resources. His goal was the organic integration of the economy of the perphery into the Soviet national economic system. Thanks to the eff orts of M.K. Ammosov, the economic development of the national republics accelerated, in accordance with the centuries-old aspirations of the peoples to overcome poverty and misery. M.K. Ammosov is analyzed here for the fi rst time from the point of view of his contribution to the economy of the USSR’s national periphery, and to its gradual inclusion into the processes of socialist construction. The development of the economy of the national regions in the early Soviet period largely depended on the organizational qualities and human principles of regional leaders and their selfl ess and honest service to the interests of the Soviet state. Accordingly, considerable attention is paid to M.K. Ammosov’s work among the people. When making decisions on governmental level he proceeded according to the interests and needs of society. Precisely such leadership qualities as someone who knows how to organically combine state and public interests elevated M.K. Ammosov to the highest political Olymp; at the same time these qualities exposed him to political repression. The article concludes that M.K. Ammosov’s thoughts and deeds to benefi t the working people went far beyond the framework of central planning and entered into an insurmountable confl ict with the then accepted practices of administrative management.

This article discusses the political repressions of 1937-1938 in the fi eld of public education, with the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as its case study. The author assembles new archival documents, mass media materials and memoirs of contemporaries to illuminate the regional specifi cs of repression in the broader context of the Stalinist era. Particular attention is paid to how “enemies of the people” were identifi ed. The author argues that the Bashkir Regional Party Committee, the media, and the party committees of educational institutions, as well as the organs of the NKVD worked in unison to expose “hostile elements” and Trotskyists among directors of educational institutions, specialists in higher education, and public school teachers. The media, as well as the decisions of closed party meetings, were imbued with the spirit of ideological intolerance; they provided the moral and ideological justifi cation for the arrests. This article traces a trend that was characteristic of national autonomous republics in general: the persecution of regional leaders and members of the national intelligentsia on charges of “local bourgeois nationalism.” The author also examines how purges in the party, state and educational bodies of the republic targeted “nationalists” directly or indirectly associated with “national and local deviationists” of the revolutionary years. The article also discusses the fate of Bashkortostan’s People’s Commissars of Education who were subjected to repression. Reconstructing the complex social and political situation in the educational sphere of the BASSR allows us to draw important conclusions, and better understand contemporary social and political processes.

The article deals with the transformation of the marriage and family structures of the population of Udmurtia in the period between 1939 to 1959. Attention is paid to the study of the infl uence of the Great Patriotic War on the family and marriage in the republic. Sources used include census materials from 1939 and 1959 and statistical records from the period in question. With the beginning of the war, the number of marriages in Udmurtia sharply decreased. The smallest number of marriages was observed in 1942. In the countryside, this was a reduction of more than three times, indicating a unusually great shortage of men. A direct consequence of the war was a reduction in the average family size as well as an increase in families headed by women. By 1959, 38.5 % of families in the countryside were led by women. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, remarriages became more frequent in Udmurtia. Between 1944 and 1951 they were mostly concluded by women who presumably had lost their husbands in the fi ghting. The extramarital birth rate also sharply increased. In the post-war period, particularly in the rural areas many children were born out of wedlock. The extramarital birth rate reached its peak in 1950, when every third child in Udmurtia was born out of wedlock.

The author analyzes the Armenian self-government of the Nakhichevan-on-Don Armenian colony that had been established in 1779 after Armenians from Crimea were resettled to the Don region. The municipal self-government in Russia of the pre-reform period in general, and in particular the peculiar organization of the administration, police, and court in Nakhichevan-on-Don, have so far barely been studied. The present research is based on archival sources from the National archives of Armenia and on little-known publications in the Armenian language, as well as on Russian legislation of the 19th century. The main feature of the Nakhichevan system of self-government was the unifi cation of all Armenian immigrants from the Crimea - city dwellers as well as residents of fi ve Armenian villages - into one self-governing community. Based on a Charter issued by Catherine II, self-government in Nakhichevan was carried out on an ethnic basis, by Armenian immigrants from the Crimea. However, the Armenian self-government was gradually integrated into the general system of the Russian administration and court system. Several parallel processes can be discerned: 1) since the beginning of the 1850s, the expediency of the formation of a city Duma in Nakhichevan-on-Don was discussed at diff erent levels of government; 2) the magistrate was stripped of police functions in 1865; 3) in 1866 a temporary subsidiary body was established under the mayor: a council of 24 trustees and four assistants of the mayor, to be in action until a city Duma is established; 4) a six-member city Duma comes into being in 1866; 5) the magistrate was abolished in 1866 (its judicial and related functions were removed by May 1869); 6) in 1870 the economic part of the magistrate, which remained after its formal abolition, were transferred to the mayor, and the unique system of Armenian self-government in Nakhichevan ended despite the Nakhichevanis’ request to preserve the “rights and advantages” granted by Catherine II.

The author examines the demonstrations carried out by university students in Istanbul on December 4, 1945 and the raid on the printing operations of the pro-Soviet Tan newspaper, known as the Tan Raid, in light of U.S. State Department documents, namely the related fi les in National Archives Records Administration. The infl uence of the Tan Raid on Turkey’s international relations is discussed in the context of Turkish-American and Turkish-Soviet relations. The Raid is regarded as a signifi cant incident since it coincides with the post WW2 period when Turkey’s relations with the Soviet Union had already deteriorated due to Moscow’s demands to revise the Montreux Convention by 19th of March 1945. Furthermore, Turkish-American diplomatic contacts in the aftermath of the Raid show Washington’s perspective on policy towards Soviet Union, as U.S. offi cials advised a moderate line to their Turkish counterparts. On the other hand, preparations for the Raid seem highly controversial since Turkish government offi cials did not strongly condemn the event and the police did not intervene against the protestors despite of their violent actions towards Tan and some left leaning bookstores. The slogans during the demonstration show its anti-Soviet character, which Ankara denied in order to decrease tensions with the Soviets by arguing that it was Tan ’s owner, the Sertel couple to whom the anger was directed, not the Soviet Union. The intelligence obtained by diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, the meetings they conducted with Turkish politicians, their conclusions regarding the process leading up to the raid, and their opinions on Turkish-Soviet relations provide the background for the analysis.

David Brandenberger holds a doctorate in history (PhD.) and is professor of Russian and Soviet history in the Department of History at the University of Richmond (USA). He is also an associate researcher at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” in Moscow. He is the author of books on the formation of Russian national identity during the Stalin era and on the infl uence that party propaganda and mass culture had on that process. In this interview, David Brandenberger discusses the arguments and methodologies that contributed to his monograph that was initially published in English and then in two Russian editions: National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931-1956 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), Natsional-bol’shevizm: stalinskaya massovaya kul’tura i formirovaniye russkogo natsional’nogo samosoznaniya, 1931-1956 gg. (St Petersburg: Akademicheskiy proekt, 2009) и Stalinskiy russotsentrizm: Sovetskaya massovaya kul’tura i formirovaniye russkogo natsional’nogo samosoznaniya, 1931-1956 gg . (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2017). Among other things, the author discusses how his thoughts on the topic of this book have evolved since its fi rst publication in light of scholarly debate and the increased availability of primary and secondary sources.

This article is devoted to the study of the French historiographical tradition of studying the Crimean war. Due to the fact that the French historiography of the Crimean campaign has diff erences from the Russian or Anglo-Saxon, it is interesting to turn to the study of the features that are characteristic for the works of French historians. One of the key theses of this article is the statement of the following situation in French historical science: since the second half of the 19th century the Crimean war was studied in the framework of studies on the history of the Second Empire. In the late twentieth century the scientifi c tradition has undergone certain changes, as a result of which the events of 1853-1856 became the subject of separate studies on the military history of France and historical anthropology. This feature infl uenced the perception of the war in French public opinion and the scientifi c community and led to the diff erentiation of certain problems and subjects directly related to the history of the Crimean war. The study of French historiography allows us to determine the themes that prevailed in the scientifi c thought of France during the second half of the 19th - 20th centuries, as well as those trends that are currently key in discussing the prerequisites, the nature, the results of the military campaign of 1853-1856. The authors conclude that the scientifi c and possibly public interest in the Crimean war in France is much lower than in Russia. The events of 1853-1856, largely overshadowed by the discussions and memory of the First World war, gradually turn into a little-known period of French history. However, the jubilee years associated with the Crimean war and the siege of Sevastopol are an important point that allows us to revisit the study of both the military campaign and diplomacy, and in general the history of Russian-French relations.

-