The deportation of the Soviet Greeks (
Greek: Εκτοπισμός Ελλήνων της Σοβιετικής Ένωσης,
Russian: депортация греков в СССР) 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.[nb 1] At least 15,000 Greeks had died by the end of the deportations.[6] Some scholars characterize the deportation as a
genocide against Greeks.[7][8]
on 29 May 1942, Stalin ordered a deportation of
Pontic Greeks and other minorities from the
Krasnodar Krai.[13] 1,402 Greeks, including 562 children up to the age of 16, were deported to the east.[1]
shortly after the
deportation of the Crimean Tatars by the
NKVD, on 2 June 1944 the State Committee for Defense issued the decree N 5984 SS to extend the deportation to other people from
Crimea.[3] 15,040 Soviet Greeks were consequently deported from the peninsula (this included 3,350 Greek foreigners with expired passports). Many were sent to the
Uzbek SSR.[3] Simultaneously, additional 8,300 Greeks were deported from the
Krasnodar Krai and
Rostov Region: this operation was perpetrated by
Lavrentiy Beria's deputy,
Ivan Serov, who arrived from
Kerch, and G. Karandadze. A further 16,375 Greeks were relocated from
Georgian SSR,
Armenian SSR and
Azerbaijan SSR and sent to
Kazakh SSR and
Russian SFSR.[3] Crimean Greeks were charged with "reviving private trade" during the German occupation of the peninsula.[22]
Operation Volna:[23] on 29 May 1949, the
Soviet Council of Ministers issued the decree N 2214-856 that ordered the relocation of the remaining
Greeks, Turks and
Dashnaks from the
Black Sea coast, specifically the Georgian and Armenian SSR. Many were sent to the Kazakh SSR and registered as
special settlers.[19] The deportation occurred between May and June 1949,[24] and encompassed Greek farmers, tradesmen and artisans living along the Georgian coast without prior warning. They were removed from their homes by
MVD and sent to
cattle cars heading for Central Asia. In the city of
Gagra, a Greek woman was separated from her Russian husband, who had to stay behind, as she was sent on a two-week journey in a train without food or water. The people were dispersed to collective farms, living in
mud huts, without adequate clothing or food. They were forbidden traveling more than five miles from their farm, facing a 20-year sentence.[25] The 11,000 Greek communist
émigrés, who moved to the Soviet Union in 1949 after being defeated in the Greek Civil War, were also deported to the Uzbek SSR for slave labor.[26] The total number of all these three groups deported by June 1949 was 57,680.[27] Greeks made up 27,000[4] or 31,386[28] or 36,000 individuals among these deported groups.[5] Specifically, 476 people (mostly Greeks) were deported from
Odesa,
Melitopol,
Kherson and
Izmail; 4,396 Greeks from the Krasnodar Krai; 323 Greeks from
Azerbaijan SSR.[28] The property they left behind was placed under the control of the administrative bodies.[27] The official reason for the Greek deportation was to "cleanse the area of politically unreliable elements". The evicted people were allowed to take only personal belongings with them on their journey to exile.[29] Many were confused by the evictions, thinking they would be safe because they were not
Germans. One man was unaware of what the reason for his deportation was all until a year into exile, when he was informed he was an "active
Dashnak nationalist".[23]
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:
The whole village, almost 200 families, was deported, here, to the Pahtaral region in 1949 .... Nobody had explained to us why we were being exiled or where we were going. We had two hours to collect our things... From 16 June to 10 August we were travelling. About eight or ten families in each cargo train, with the animals .... Once we arrived, I remember I was still a child, most people were dying from diarrhea. The water was fetid. My sister, who was much older, died from consumption at the age of 27, about one year after we arrived.[30]
Another deportee, Lefteris, gave a 1992 interview about his experience:
From
Batumi, there were two cargo trains with at least twelve wagons each. We were lucky because we had only forty people in our wagon. In the others there were at least sixty to sixty-five people. They could hardly breathe, let alone sit or take care of babies and old people. For two months we were travelling... When we reached different stations we stopped and we had watered-down soup which they gave us in cups and a piece of bread, enough, that is, so that we wouldn't die of starvation. Often we played our lyres to give courage to the women and children, so that they would stop crying.[31]
The deporations did not encompass all Soviet Greeks. The Turkic-speaking Greeks around
Tbilisi and the Greeks in Mariupol were excluded from these evictions.[32] The deported people lived in tents and worked in exhausting conditions in
mining,
construction, agriculture, and other.[33] 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.[34] On 1 January 1953, 21,057 foreign Greeks were recorded in special settlements in Kazakh SSR and 2,472 in Uzbek SSR,[35] while a total of 52,000 Greeks were recorded in all Soviet special settlements.[36]
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.[37] On 25 September 1956, MVD Order N 0402 was adopted and defined the removal of restrictions towards the deported peoples in the special settlements.[38] 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.[39] Between the 1939 census, which registered 34,621 Greeks, and the 1959 census, the Greeks suffered a 74% decline within the Abkhaz ASSR.[40] Overall, by 2002 when 16,600 of them were registered,[41] the Greek community was reduced to only 1/6 of their original number in Georgia.[42] In the 2002 census, 530 Greeks were recorded in Azerbaijan; 1,174 in Armenia; 97,827 in Russia.[41] 2,800 Greeks remained in Crimea according to the 2001 census, forming 0.1% of the peninsula's population.[43]
Greek historian Anastasis Gkikas estimated that 15,000 Greeks died during these Soviet repressions.[6]
Officially, the 1949 deportation was explained by the USSR as trying to cleanse the border areas from "politically unreliable elements".[44] The official
Government of Greece condemned this 1949 Soviet deportation of Greeks.[25] 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.[45] Other interpretations include the Soviet need for workforce in the remote areas of Central Asia to achieve the
Five-year plan.[32]
In 1938, 20,000 Soviet Greeks arrived to Greece.[46] Between 1965 and 1975, another 15,000 Greeks emigrated from the Soviet Union and went to Greece.[47] After the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, approximately 100,000 Greeks left the former USSR and emigrated to Greece.[48] Unlike many other 'punished' ethnic groups, the Soviet Greeks were never
officially rehabilitated by the Soviet legislation.[49] They were however officially rehabilitated, among with other ethnic groups by the
Russian Federation,[50] amended by Decree no. 458 of September 12, 2015.[51]
^1,402 Greeks in 1942;[1] 15,040 Greeks from Crimea in May 1944,[2] 8,300 Greeks from Krasnodar Krai, 16,375 from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1944;[3] and between 27,000[4] to 36,000 Greeks in 1949.[5]
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