From July 11 to July 31, the forum "I am a citizen of the Moscow region" will be held in Volokolamsk. This event has been held for more than a year, while it is favorably received by the Governor of the Moscow Region, Andrey Vorobyov. Within the framework of the same forum, only in 218 he stated: “A popular, important event. I want to thank everyone - both the organizers and the heads of municipalities. I think that this practice of communication with young people is very important. We will continue it. There was a big request to attract foreign guests. I think it needs to be prepared for next season."
Foreign guests and work with youth is, of course, very good. Only confuses the name of the forum, which is repeated from region to region and does not lead to anything good. Because there are no “citizens of the Moscow region”, or “citizens of Moscow”, or “citizens of Adygea” or citizens of “Karelia”, but there are citizens of Russia.
No, it is clear that young people need to be involved, including in politics. Simply because if the state does not do this, then the non-systemic opposition will, and then there will be unauthorized rallies, arrests and a host of other unpleasant things.
However, talking about "citizens of the Moscow region" is also going into politics. Only some destructive.
Because, for example, there was (and maybe there is) such a project as "I am a citizen of Tatarstan." And we tactfully do not recall the celebration from the "Tatar extremists" of the conquest of Russian cities by the Golden Horde. By the way, was at least one of them, these extremists, brought to administrative responsibility?
No, let's remember what is there, in Tatarstan, with the teaching of the Russian language in schools. There is either a conflict, or there is no Russian language there, to put it briefly and succinctly. The citizens of Tatarstan in this respect and in this context - well, approximately, like the citizens of Ukraine. Whatever, just outside of Russian culture and outside of the Russian language.
We go further: "I am a young citizen of the Republic of Dagestan." Excellent youth and school program. Maybe. Only 2018 and 2019 showed that the children who grew up from this program, who are now quite young men and men, go to armed clashes, to “throw the feds with sticks, stones, bricks.”
And, here, for example, the program "I am a citizen of Chechnya." The goals of this project are also outlined, at first glance, coolly: “Private members of club formations will learn about the events of 2000-2003 that took place on the territory of Chechnya, about the counter-terrorist operation throughout the region and about constitutional reforms.
An exhibition of photographs and other publications will be opened, telling about the revival of the socio-economic sphere of the republic, about people who restored the economy destroyed by the war, about how the forced migrants returned to the Republic.
Club manager Fatima Saralieva will talk about the Constitution Chechen Republic, about the main articles that every citizen of Chechnya should know.
Pay attention to the last lines. Not about the constitution of the Russian Federation, but about the Constitution of Chechnya, the younger Chechen generation will learn. Well, the fact that sometimes Chechen youth outside of Chechnya behaves in such a way that Ramzan Kadyrov has to intervene is, in general, also a well-known fact.
In 2017, there was a whole republican action “I am a citizen of Kalmykia” in the republic of the same name. Maybe they taught, after the Kalmyk "Gascons". The noble Kalmyk "Gascons" in 2006, to make it clear, set themselves the noble goal of killing Russians. Well, it happens, yes. But all the same, contests and forums are "a citizen of Kalmykia." No, not Russia, namely Kalmykia. Probably, within the framework of strengthening multinational unity.
But more and more it seems that the most daring concepts of dystopias are coming to life. Now, at the suggestion of Mr. Vorobyov, we have "citizens of the Moscow region." Probably, there will be citizens of Tver, the Urals, then the Cossacks will unite into a separate community and the people. And the further, the merrier.
Although Russia has something that will never betray it. “On June 10, the registry office of the Suojärvi district hosted a holiday “I am a citizen of Karelia, I am a citizen of Russia!”. Its main characters are 14 fourteen-year-old residents of the city and settlements of the Suojärvi region. In a solemn atmosphere, each of them received a document proving the identity of a citizen of the Russian Federation.
And, actually, the question is - all this is happening after dozens of meetings in the Kremlin and trainings by the presidential administration with deputy governors for politics. Interestingly, is it incompetence or something worse to ignore such ideological separatism before the transfer of power?
The authorities of Kalmykia tried to disrupt the II Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk people, its organizers said. Due to the fact that the owners of the cafe, with whom there were preliminary agreements, refused to provide premises for the congress at the last moment, the participants of the event had to gather at the monument "Exodus and Return". The congress expressed no confidence in the current leadership of the republic and decided to nominate its candidates for deputies in the September elections to the People's Khural.
Open air convention
The beginning of the congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk people was scheduled for 10:00 on May 19. The venue was to be the canteen of the Odn factory. However, the plant management did not let the delegates in, citing problems with electricity. They also refused to provide premises in one of the cafes on the outskirts of Elista, with the owner of which, as the organizers of the congress told the correspondent, also had a preliminary agreement.
The Oirats are a nationality whose representatives in Russia are the Kalmyks. In 1920, the Kalmyk Autonomous Okrug was formed on the lands of the Kalmyks, which in 1935 was transformed into the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1943, the autonomy was liquidated, and the Kalmyks were evicted from there. In 1957-1958, with the restoration of this ASSR, the Kalmyks were able to return to their ethnic territory.
As a result, at about 11.00, the gathered, about a hundred people, moved in a column to the city, to the monument to the deportees "Exodus and Return", near which the congress was held, reports the correspondent ", who was present at the event.
Administrative pressure was put on the owners of the premises, one of the organizers of the congress said, Chief Editor newspaper "Modern Kalmykia" Valery Badmaev .
“We had a preliminary agreement with a canteen and a cafe, we even paid money. But they came from the SES and said that they would be closed if a congress was held there. Then the firemen called and also threatened that they would send a commission,” said Badmaev .
He warned the audience that the event at the site in front of the monument "will be regarded as an unauthorized rally", but the participants unanimously voted to hold the convention.
Badmaev announced the agenda, which was also supported by all those present: "Assessment of the activities of the republican authorities, the formation of the executive committee, the election of the chairman of the executive committee, the issue of the participation of activists of the congress in the September elections to the People's Khural."
The editor-in-chief of Modern Kalmykia recalled that "the first Chuulgan decided to hold a congress every two years." "Chuulgan - Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk people" was held in Elista on December 12, 2015. During the event, a resolution was adopted, setting a number of tasks "in the name of the preservation and further development of the Oirat-Kalmyk people." The main point of the resolution is the adoption of the new Constitution of Kalmykia, since the current one, in the opinion of the congress participants, "does not meet the needs" of the Kalmyk people.
"A little more time has passed. We are holding this congress in May, because in September there will be elections to the People's Khural. Today we need to form an executive committee of active people who can negotiate with one of the parties so that the congress can nominate their candidates from them. By According to the law in force in our country, we can only run for parties," Badmaev added.
Letter to the Plenipotentiary of the Southern Federal District
Noting that "because of the heat" it will be necessary to limit the number of speakers and the time of speeches, Badmaev gave the floor to the politician and economist Vladimir Bambaev
(in the late 1980s - early 1990s, the secretary of the Kalmyk regional party committee and deputy of the Supreme Council of Kalmykia, in 1993, as the head of the Kalmyk Farmers Association, he ran for the presidency of the republic, - ed. "Caucasian Knot").
In turn, Bambaev said that because of the tight regulations, he would only read out his letter, sent at the end of April to the envoy of the Russian president in the Southern Federal District, Vladimir Ustinov.
In his appeal to the plenipotentiary, the Kalmyk politician claims that he was "repeatedly approached by law enforcement officers" who, "risking their heads, collected documents" pointing to crimes that caused multimillion-dollar damage to the budget.
According to these documents, says Bambaev, 70 million rubles were stolen from the federal budget for phytomeliorative work to restore the Black Lands zone.
The "Caucasian Knot" reported that the only man-made desert in Europe was formed in the Black Lands region as a result of unsettled grazing and plowing of sandy lands.
In a letter to Ustinov, Bambaev also recalled the arrest of First Deputy Prime Minister Pyotr Lantsanov, which, according to him, became possible "only after the case was brought to the attention of the Investigative Committee of Russia", since local investigators "successfully buried" the criminal case on the agricultural holding "Marble meat of Kalmykia".
On July 9, 2016, the investigation announced the arrest of Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Kalmykia Erdni Kektyshev, as well as First Deputy Prime Minister of Kalmykia Pyotr Lantsanov. Lantsanov is charged with the fact that, on his behalf, employees of the Ministry of Agriculture of Kalmykia forced over 400 agricultural producers to transfer part of the subsidies received to the Marble Meat of Kalmykia holding. Lantsanov's arrest is a big failure personnel policy Alexei Orlov and could be a well-prepared blow to the head of the republic, Kalmyk journalists interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" said.
In addition, Bambaev noted that documents were attached to the letter, indicating that "two of the five billion allocated for the construction of a water pipeline from the Levokumskoye field to Elista" were stolen.
"The work was carried out in violation of the design and construction standards. Out of the five planned water lifting stations, only two have been built. Two pumps cannot raise water to the Ergeninsky Upland," Bambaev read another passage.
After his speech, Valery Badmaev offered to save time and no longer listen to speeches with an assessment of power. The congress unanimously expressed no confidence in the current leadership of the republic.
Officials told the crowd to disperse.
During the speeches of Badmaev and Bambaev, police officers and people in civilian clothes drove up to the venue of the congress and began to film what was happening on video.
Elista Administration Representative Kermen Badmaeva urged the audience to "stop the event and hold it in due course."
"In accordance with the law, public events can be held subject to notification of the administration of Elista. The city administration was not notified," Badmayeva explained, which caused outrage among the congress participants.
Badmaeva was supported by the Deputy Chief of Police for Protection public order Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for Elista Alexander Amteev .
"This event has not been approved, therefore it contains signs of an administrative offense," he said, trying to outshout the audience.
The participants of the congress, who entered into a dispute with representatives of the police and the administration of Elista, were reassured by the organizers: "They warned us - we listened to them. We continue."
Participation in elections: for and against
Belgian citizen Pavel Matsakov , who came to Kalmykia to participate in the congress, lamented that in Kalmykia "since 1994 time has stopped." "As the same 200 people gathered, they are going to. Another thing is that you are all getting old. Many have already died," Matsakov said.
He also expressed disagreement with the proposal to participate in the elections "through some party." In his opinion, the congress should work on the creation of a "national organization."
"Last year I was in America, I spoke at a conference in front of young Kalmyks. The guys don't want to go back. There are eight thousand Kalmyks - and they won't come back. Even without documents, they feel more full members of society there than in their homeland. If only there was a national, democratic organization, many would be happy to help. Without the creation of such an organization, elections and everything else makes no sense," Matsakov concluded.
Chairman of the Kalmyk branch of the Yabloko party Batyr Boromangnaev in his speech, he focused on criticism of the regional policy of the federal center, which, in his opinion, led to "terrible degradation of the socio-economic situation and a shortage of personnel" in Kalmykia.
"We are in extremely unfavorable conditions. The worst water, it is still scarce, is in Kalmykia. The worst land is in Kalmykia. In the Yashalta region, where the land is more or less good, the Kalmyk population is being squeezed out. We are not independent here. Look, who manages our federal departments. They are visitors, migrants. They don't care about our fate," Boromangnaev said and called on the audience to take an active part in the elections to the People's Khural.
"Only when we take power into our own hands, we will change the situation," he concluded.
Then the congress participants listened to the platform of the election program presented by Vladimir Bambaev and agreed to discuss and finalize it later, in working order.
At the end of the event, an executive committee was formed, and the congress unanimously chose Valery Badmaev as its chairman.
Badmaev said that the members of the executive committee "undertook to travel around all the districts in order to agree with the parties on the nomination of congress activists." "If our candidates make it to the Khural, we will take written commitments from them to defend the interests of the Kalmyk people. If these commitments are not fulfilled, we will withdraw them," he said.
"Two years and five months have passed since the first Chuulhn - the Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk people, which took place on December 12, 2015. The resolution of the first Chuulhn with all the recommendations of the executive committee was handed over to the head of the Republic of Kalmykia in the spring of 2016. Not a single paragraph of this resolution has since The authorities of Kalmykia ignored the demand of the first Chuulhn - to return compensation payments to victims political repression to the federal level and increase the size of the compensations themselves to the level of payments to "Chernobyl victims" or the size of the average pension in Russia. The proposal of the congress on a special law "On the use of the Oirat-Kalmyk language as the state language of the Republic of Kalmykia" was not implemented. Repeated attempts by members of the executive committee of the first Chuulhn to force the republican authorities to act in the interests of the Oirat-Kalmyk people did not find and do not find understanding," the resolution of the Second Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk people, adopted on May 19, says.
Relative to the Mongols, the Kalmyks live in another part of the world, but they are their closest relatives. At times Russian Empire these people were revered as brilliant warriors and devoted allies of the Russian army. But another empire - the Soviet one - declared them traitors, organizing a full-fledged genocide. What explains the reasons for such a cruel policy?
There is a version according to which the Russian battle cry "hurray" came from the Kalmyk "uralan", that is, "forward." Most likely, this is just a legend, but its roots are clear: for many years, the Kalmyks were a reliable support of Russia, where they were highly valued as brave warriors and excellent riders.
Oirats or Western Mongols began to move to the Russian kingdom at the end of the 16th century, which was the result of the conquest of Mongolian lands by Qing China. The Turkic neighbors called them "Kalmaks", that is, "breakaways" - those who did not convert to Islam and retained the Buddhist faith, hence the word "Kalmyk". Already in the early 1600s, the settlers swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar, and subsequently founded the Kalmyk Khanate (Khalmg Khan Ulus) - a self-governing part of the Russian state, which regularly supplied the Russian army with well-trained fighters who proved themselves in many wars. This continued even after Catherine II liquidated the khanate, which was an inevitable consequence of the tragic events known as the “dusty campaign”.
But the relations of the Russian branch of the descendants of Genghis Khan with the Soviet government, on the contrary, did not immediately work out. The Kalmyks are one of the few Russian peoples (including those who were repressed), whose numbers did not increase, but decreased during the years of the USSR. According to the 1989 census, 174 thousand Kalmyks lived in the country, and according to the 1897 census - more than 190 thousand (modern figures are somewhere in the middle).
There are several reasons for this. In the years civil war the territory of Kalmykia was badly battered - it found itself between the hammer in the face of the Red Army and the anvil in the form of the armies of Krasnov and Denikin. Subsequently, its population suffered greatly from the famine of 1921-1924 and 1932-1934 (that is, from the same events that in Ukraine are considered genocide of the Ukrainian people). And the most powerful blow was Stalin's forced resettlement to Siberia during the Second World War - the so-called Operation of the NKVD "Ulus", as a result of which the Kalmyk people were reduced by at least a third, and according to some estimates - by half.
Council Decree people's commissars"On the eviction of Kalmyks living in the Kalmyk ASSR" was published exactly 75 years ago - on December 28, 1943. In March 1956, the Kalmyks were rehabilitated, allowing them to return to their homeland. A year later, their autonomy was re-established. In 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR proclaimed the deportation "a barbaric act of the Stalinist regime." Finally, a law passed in the RSFSR in April 1991 recognized Kalmyks as victims of genocide.
In modern Kalmykia, December 28 is celebrated as the Day of Remembrance for the victims of the deportation of the Kalmyk people, and it is a day off.
Despite all this, the deportation of Kalmyks is somehow not well-known - it is remembered much less often than the deportation of Chechens, Germans, Balkars or Crimean Tatars. Both her stated reasons and background are rarely spoken about. And that's the backstory.
Among the national military formations created by the Soviet government in the terrible November 1941, there was also the Kalmyk - the 110th cavalry division. She showed herself perfectly in the first period of the war in the defense of the Caucasus and the Don, but in the summer of 1942, when the Germans recaptured Rostov and severely exhausted the division, cases of desertion sharply increased in it. Around the same time, the Nazis occupied most of Kalmykia itself.
Returning to their small homeland, the fugitives, as they would say then, “spread panic and defeatism,” and already in Kalmykia, some of them joined the ranks of local collaborators. In parallel, the so-called. Kalmyk national committee- something like a government in exile, after which the Kalmyks began to be positioned as allies of the Reich in the fight against the Bolsheviks.
Thus, the Kalmyks became a "traitor people" who were supposed to be evicted, divided and completely deprived of their national and cultural autonomy. As emphasized in Soviet propaganda, forever.
What happened has no justification: the Soviet government propagandized internationalism, but showed itself in the same way as the Nazi government manifested itself (they did not know about the Holocaust - the peak of terror on an ethnic basis - at that time).
Yes, there was Dr. Doll's Kalmyk unit, but there was also a partisan movement in Kalmykia. History remembers the Abwehr agent Basang Ogdonov, but also remembers the hero of the USSR Erdni Delikov. There were White emigrant Kalmyks who went over to Hitler's side, but there were also volunteer scouts who were transferred to the rear of the Wehrmacht in the winter of 1942.
And the Soviet government repressed all Kalmyks in general, including those awarded military orders and medals. The only exceptions were those who managed to change their nationality in their passports, and Kalmyks who were married to immigrants from other nations (instead of them, wives of ethnic Kalmyks, including Russians, went to settlements in Siberia and Central Asia).
For the sake of deportation, Kalmyks were even recalled from the front, but in the end, as they say, several thousand of them "went through the whole war" anyway.
That is, it was a real ethnic cleansing, from which a whole nation has not yet recovered, although 75 years have passed, and the Kalmyks were rehabilitated in the USSR several months earlier than other resettled peoples.
On the policy of genocide in Stalin era now they don't like to talk. And the point is not so much in the “whitewashing of the era”, but in the fact that this is pressure on a sore spot that splits society.
But it is even more dangerous when our complex society, living in a multinational country with national republics, begins to split along ethnic lines. Namely, this is exactly what happens when the descendants of the repressed Kalmyks, as a rule, do well. who know history of their people (and this applies to almost the entire Kalmyk intelligentsia), are witnessing how the fans of the mustachioed generalissimo justify the Stalinist policy of ethnic cleansing, all the more exalt it.
Such "patriots" harm the idea of the country's territorial integrity, sometimes even more than all Western propaganda put together.
Ichkeria (CHRI), proclaimed by the former Soviet general Dzhokhar Dudayev and his supporters as a result of a regional coup d'état in October 1991, has not been officially recognized by any state.
Who recognized Ichkeria
There were only two acts of recognition of the republic by individuals and organizations that were not subjects of international law. Thus, the first president of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who was overthrown in early 1992 and fled to Grozny, signed a decree in March 1992 on the diplomatic president of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, who declared that Georgia had nothing to do with this document. All subsequent Georgian rulers also did not give legal status to the representation of Ichkeria.
In addition, in January 2000, during the Second Chechen War, President of Ichkeria Aslan Maskhadov opened an official representation of the CRI in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) - the same self-proclaimed public education created by Islamist Taliban militants in much of Afghanistan. The IEA received recognition only from a few Muslim states.
In some countries, in particular in Ukraine, some politicians advocated the recognition of the CRI, but such calls remained without support. Some, according to the wording of the Peace Treaty and the principles of relations between the Russian Federation and the CRI, concluded by the President of the Russian Federation B. Yeltsin and the President of the CRI A. Maskhadov (already after the liquidation of Dudayev and the signing of the Khasavyurt agreements), regard this document as evidence of factual recognition Russian Federation independence of CRI, since in the treaty the republic acts as a subject of international law. But relations at the level of ambassadors between Yeltsin's RF and Maskhadov's CRI have not been established.
Who provided assistance
However, unofficial assistance to Chechnya was provided by many countries, with the tacit consent or even tacit encouragement of their governments. First of all - the help by military force. In the ranks of the Ichkerian army in the campaign of 1994-1996. more than a thousand foreign mercenaries fought. An independent unit of more than 200 people was made up of Arab militants from the Saudi Khattab. They were representatives different states - Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Oman and others, but basically, like Khattab, outcasts of society in the countries where they were born.
Mercenaries from Eastern European countries (numbering about 800 people) were distributed among the units of the Ichkerian army. Among them were many soldiers from the Baltic states (mainly from Estonia), but most of all there were militants from the Ukrainian nationalist organization UNA-UNSO*. The unshoshniks have already managed to fight against Abkhazia on the side of Georgia and in Transnistria (which is curious - on the side of the PMR against Chisinau). In 1993, UNA-UNSO* established contact with the CRI authorities. Its leader, Dmitro Korchinsky, arrived in Grozny, where he was received by Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, vice president of the unrecognized republic, and deputy chief (since 1994 - chief) of the main headquarters armed forces CRI Aslan Maskhadov. Negotiations were held on the recruitment of Ukrainian volunteers in the Ichkerian army.
For recruitment, the center "Eurasia" was created, to the account of which funds were transferred from the CRI. The center is headed by the current leader of UNA-UNSO* Ondry Shkil. After the outbreak of hostilities at the end of 1994, the first detachment of mercenaries called "Prometheus" was sent from Ukraine to Ichkeria. Subsequently, another Viking detachment was organized. However, their fighting qualities as a whole were not highly rated by the Ichkerian command. But individual mercenaries received high recognition. So, Oleksandr Muzychko was awarded the Ichkerian Order "Hero of the Nation". [S-BLOCK]
At the same time, Dmytro Korchinsky and his associates launched a propaganda campaign in Ukraine in solidarity with the "fighting people of Ichkeria" through a network of "committees in support of Chechnya." Branches of the ChRI news agency "Chechen-press"* opened in Ukrainian cities. Later, in the interval between the two Chechen wars, Dmitro Korchinsky announced the creation of the “Caucasus Institute”, the purpose of which was the deployment of a powerful front against Russia in this region.
Georgia, although it did not officially recognize the CRI, provided tacit support Dudayev. So, the defeated detachments of Dudayev's militants went to the Pankisi Gorge in northern Georgia to rest, gain strength and again invade Chechnya. All the demands of Russia to Georgia on the internment of militants did not lead to any results. In Georgia, the mercenaries of the Ukrainian detachment "Prometheus" were trained. [S-BLOCK]
In general, CRI received assistance from those Muslim countries in which Wahhabism, professed by Dudayev and his associates, is strong (in countries where traditional directions of Islam predominate, Ichkeria did not receive such support), as well as from those Eastern European states where Russophobic sentiments. The list of the latter clearly shows those who, through the renaming of streets and squares and the installation of memorial plaques, immortalized the name of Dudayev after his death. These are: Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Turkey also made this list - probably for two reasons at once.
*prohibited organizations in the Russian Federation
The Kalmyk ASSR was abolished on December 28, 1943, shortly after full release Caucasus and Lower Volga region. The resettlement of Kalmyks from there and from neighboring territories to the Altai, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Krasnoyarsk region carried out on the basis of the relevant resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of December 29, 1943. It was the operation "Ulus", developed jointly by the NKVD and the NKGB in November-December 1943.
By different estimates, from 92 to 94 thousand Kalmyks were evicted; from 2,000 to 3,300 Kalmyks died and went missing in the process of deportation (from the point of expulsion to the point of settlement, inclusive). According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, “in 1947, 91,919 relocated Kalmyks were registered; the number of dead and deceased (including those who died of old age and other natural causes) since the beginning of the deportation amounted to 16,017 people.” The government decision of 1943 was canceled only on March 19, 1956.
Many experts believe that the main reason for the national deportations (essentially ethnic cleansing) from the North Caucasus and the Lower Volga region at that time was not only and not so much the “total” collaborationism of a number of local peoples. It seems that the internationalists in the Kremlin sought to Russify, or, as they themselves believed, more reliably Sovietize those vast regions. This version is confirmed not only by the settlement of the "liberated" regions by Russian and Russian-speaking contingents, but also by the inclusion of most of them in the adjacent Russian territories and regions.
So, up to 70% of the territory of the former Kalmyk ASSR, including its capital Elista, was annexed to the Astrakhan region of the RSFSR; moreover, Elista was returned for some time to the Russian (until 1921 incl.) name - the city of "Stepnoy", as this settlement was called until 1921. The rest was distributed among Stavropol, Stalingrad, Grozny and Rostov regions. The same, by the way, is evidenced by the creation in 1944 of the Grozny region of the RSFSR, formed from most of the former Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which received a wide outlet to the Caspian Sea.
On the maps in Stalin's atlases, Kalmykia simply did not exist.
The official reason for the Kalmyk deportation is still the same: Kalmyk cooperation with the Nazi occupiers and aiding them in the period from September 1942 to March 1943 inclusive. That is, until the liberation by the Soviet troops of almost 75% of the territory of the Kalmyk ASSR, captured by the German-Romanian troops in the fall of 1942. But after all, the fact that after the liberation of the region, “collaborationism” in Kalmykia, even if not universal, did not go away, also played a role. Indeed, by the end of 1943, the NKVD, together with front-line counterintelligence, managed to neutralize up to 20 rebel detachments and clandestine nationalist groups. Those first collaborated with the invaders, and then were left by them as mothballed anti-Soviet cells.
The origins of anti-Russian sentiments and tough opposition to the monarchist and Soviet statehood have a long history in Kalmykia. Even before the inclusion of the Astrakhan Tatar-Nogai Khanate into Russia (1556), Kalmyks were aggressively baptized, converted to Islam, or simply recorded as “Tatars”. The nature of ethno-confessional assimilation was then very peculiar. Therefore, the Kalmyks, for the most part, welcomed the abolition of this strange state.
Then, for more than a century, from 1664 to 1771, in the lower reaches of the Volga, the Kalmyk Khanate, autonomous from Russia, existed, the territory of which basically coincided with the territory of the former Kalmykia as part of the Astrakhan region in 1944-56. But its liquidation for the first time marked, let's say, a centrifugal underground in this region. By the way, the Kalmyks were among the main continent of the rebel troops, which were created and led by Emelyan Pugachev during the notorious peasant war.
Only in 1800, Emperor Paul I decided to restore the Kalmyk Khanate, but already in 1803 Alexander I abolished it again. So the discontent of the Kalmyks "smoldered" for many decades. And it is not surprising that most of them supported the establishment of Soviet power in the region, which immediately declared the autonomy of the Kalmyks. And almost 100% - within the boundaries of the ancient autonomous Kalmyk Khanate.
By the summer of 1920, the Bolshevik troops occupied almost the entire territory of the “Steppe region of the Kalmyk people” that they proclaimed at the same time. And on November 4, 1920, we note that the first national autonomy in Soviet Russia was proclaimed: the Kalmyk Autonomous Region. With the center in Elista, as part of the Nizhnevolzhsky Territory. In 1934, this region was included in the Stalingrad Territory, and at the end of 1935, the Kalmyk ASSR was proclaimed.
On the one hand, such decisions strengthened the position of the Soviet government in Kalmykia. But on the other hand ... As noted in the materials of the Munich Institute for the Study of the USSR (1969) and the bulletins of the emigrant "Union of the Kalmyk People" (Warsaw, 1934-35), "carried out in the region by the Soviet authorities, especially since the early 30s, forced settlement, collectivization, Russification of the leading cadres and anti-religious measures caused growing discontent among the Kalmyks.
Many preferred to ignore the aforementioned decisions, disobey them, retreat to the remote steppes, and so on. The liquidation of illiteracy was accompanied by the fact that the Kalmyk alphabet was transferred from Latin to Cyrillic by directive. But the anti-religious policy quickly supplemented the daily atheistic propaganda with repressions against believers and especially against the clergy, the destruction of temples, the seizure of objects of national worship, the compulsion to sign receipts for renunciation of faith, etc.”
The answer was numerous excesses with political overtones that took place back in 1926-27, and then in the early 30s. It is quite characteristic that such actions are also mentioned in the Soviet specialized publication of the period that was by no means perestroika: I.I. Orekhov, "50 years of Soviet power in Kalmykia", Scientific notes of the Kalmyk Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, Vol. 8. "History Series", Elista, 1969
To the beginning of the Great patriotic war the real political climate in Kalmykia was one might say predisposed to anti-Soviet activity. However, even on the eve of the tough German-Romanian occupation of the region, over 60% of the Kalmyks living in the republic initiated the collection of money, food, woolen, leather products, funds traditional medicine to the Fund for Assistance to Soviet Soldiers.
Many dozens of Kalmyk soldiers and officers were awarded orders and medals for military merit; 9 became heroes Soviet Union: for example, Oka Gorodovikov, Colonel General, first the commander of the Cavalry Mechanized Corps, and then the representative of the Headquarters for the cavalry. True, he received the title of Hero only in 1958, but he was awarded many orders and medals during the war. In 1971, a city in the north-west of Kalmykia was named after him.
Oka Gorodovikov - division commander at Budyonny, dashing commander in the Patriotic War
It is impossible not to mention one of the leaders partisan movement in the Bryansk region, Mikhail Selgikov, as well as Lieutenant General Basan Gorodovikov, and finally, Major Erdni Delikov, the first Kalmyk to be awarded this title in 1942.
At the same time, according to both Soviet and German sources, there were numerous cases of Kalmyks evading conscription into the army in 1941-43. It was not, alas, a rarity and the voluntary surrender of Kalmyk soldiers into captivity. Already in the summer of 1942, the Kalmyk cavalry corps was created by the Wehrmacht, which participated in military operations on the sides of the enemy up to late autumn 1944
In the spring of 1942, the Kalmyk National Committee (Kalmükischen Nationalkomitee) and its local executive body, the Kalmyk Khurul, were established in Berlin. Dozens of Kalmyks also served in the First Cossack Division, the Turkestan Legion of the Wehrmacht, as well as in the SS police units in Kalmykia, Rostov region, Stavropol.
In occupied Elista, there were two newspapers financed and controlled by the occupiers, and one weekly. In July 1943, the Kalmyk edition of Radio Berlin was created, the programs were daily for several hours: the first broadcast went on the air on August 3, 1943. At the same time, this edition addressed the Kalmyks of the USSR, urging them to join the ranks of the German and Romanian troops, "whose victories will hasten the independence of the Kalmyk and other peoples, trampled on by the Bolshevik dictatorship."
It was these facts and factors that predetermined the “Note-recommendation of the Collegium of the NKVD of the USSR to the State Defense Committee of the USSR (August 16, 1943 No. 685 / B) “On the expediency of evicting German accomplices, bandits and anti-Soviet-minded persons from the territory of the North Caucasus and the Kalmyk ASSR” . Military, police and civil service on the side of Germany carried from 6 to 7 thousand Kalmyks directly in Kalmykia. Apart from politicians of various status in the pro-Nazi Kalmyk emigration.
It was also noted that the German authorities use the so-called "revival" of religion and the Latin alphabet among the Kalmyks to promote these "examples" among Soviet prisoners of war of non-Russian ethnic groups and in the occupied areas of the Rostov region and the North Caucasus. Some sources also reported that, allegedly due to the passivity of some military units formed from Kalmyks, the German-Romanian troops in September 1942 were only 50 km from the Caspian Sea (near the village of Utta), and there was no defensive lines. But the aggressors, they say, did not expect such a "gift."
It is possible that these reports were not a reflection of reality, but part of the preparation of a large-scale plan for the deportation of the Kalmyks. Although on military maps of 1942-1943. positions Soviet troops not marked in that area. Apparently, the deportation of the Kalmyks was a foregone conclusion.
And only on March 19, 1956, we repeat, this decision was canceled, and after almost 10 months the Kalmyk Autonomous Region was proclaimed as part of the Stavropol Territory. Its then territory was no more than 70% of the pre-war and modern. The repatriation of the Kalmyks was accompanied by mass letters to Moscow about the restoration of the national ASSR within its former borders.
There is seemingly unconfirmed documented information that members of the Roerich family also expressed their word in defense of the deported people. But there is quite accurate evidence that the demands in favor of repatriation were supported by none other than the Tibetan Dalai Lama XIV (Ngagwang Lovzang Tenjin Gyamtsho), the religious and spiritual head of the Kalmyk Buddhists, then still very young. Moreover, since the second half of the 1950s, as is known, he has been in confrontation with the authorities of the PRC, and until May 2011 he headed the "government of Tibet in exile."
Dalai Lama XIV - none of the current "rulers" can be compared with him in terms of service
However, it is obvious that the bond between the Kalmyk activists, in addition to ethno-emigration, also with the Tibetan separatists, hardly suits Moscow. Therefore, on July 26, 1958, the Kalmyk ASSR was proclaimed within its former pre-war borders.
There are practically no nationalist manifestations in modern Kalmykia. But a fertile ground for their "ripening" or resuscitation anywhere is the socio-economic situation. And according to RIA "Rating" (2018), Kalmykia has been among the worst subjects of the Federation in terms of quality of life for many years now. When compiling the rating, experts are guided by 72 key indicators. Among the main ones are the level of economic development, the volume of incomes of the population, the security different types services, the level of development of small business, socio-economic development of the territory, the development of transport infrastructure, the state of the environment.
By the way, numerous environmental problems are still relevant here, which in particular concerns the salinization and transformation into deserts of already limited agricultural lands, the shortage and poor quality of water supply, the complete absence of forests on the territory of the republic and other chronic consequences of traditionally extensive agriculture and animal husbandry.
