Paul Goble
Vienna, June 11 – Russian President Vladimir Putin is restoring the discredited Soviet practice of celebrating the round anniversaries of the “voluntary” incorporation of various non-Russian peoples into the Russian Empire even when their absorption was anything but voluntary and peaceful.
Moscow has declared this year to be the 450th anniversary of these events in Bashkortostan, Mari El, Udmurtia and the Circassian republics of the North Caucasus, even though historians and the peoples of these regions are less certain about the date than Russian officials seem to be.
Earlier this month, for example, an exhibition opened in Moscow devoted to “the 450th anniversary of the voluntary uniting of Bashkortostan with Russia, even though one ethnologist pointed out that in this case “voluntary” was defined as “having no other way out” (http://www.islam.ru/rus/2007-06-06/#16678).
More such commemorations are planned for the coming months, officials say. But a commentary on the Caucasus Times website last week suggests that one of the most outrageous rewriting of the historical record is likely to involve Russia’s absorption of the Circassians (http://www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=12689).
This anniversary will be celebrated according to a model worked out by the Soviets in 1957, Sofia Kodzova, a historian and editor at the OLMA Media Group, told the site. The orders will come from Moscow, but local people will announce that it is all their idea. And enough money will be handed out to keep most people quiet if not happy.
This year, there will be celebrations in Moscow and in the capitals of Kabardinia-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkessia, and the Adygei Republic, the Caucasus Times reports. And the federal government has already allocated four billion rubles (150 million U.S. dollars) for these events.
Some of this money will be spent on the celebrations themselves, but most of it will be devoted to the construction of 23 new facilities including theaters, concert halls, and cultural centers. “The North Caucasus has not seen anything so extensive and pompous since Soviet times,” the website suggests.
On each and every occasion this year as in Soviet times, the site continues, officials plan to stress how “voluntary” the absorption of the Circassians into the Russian Empire was, a claim that ignores nearly three hundred years of resistance, genocide, and the expulsion from Russia of more than a million Circassians in the 19th century.
The Circassians in both the Russian Federation and across the Middle East where many of them now live remain proud of the fact that their ancestors continued to fight against Russian expansion in the Caucasus five years after Shamil laid down his weapons and surrendered to the Russian government.
Moreover, they well remember that their ancestors also resisted the establishment of Soviet power after 1917, revolted at various times in the early years of the USSR, and suffered the fate of the other “punished peoples” whom Stalin expelled from their homelands at the end of World War II.
None of this rich history is going to figure in the official celebrations Putin and others in Moscow plan. But at least some actions of these same officials will have the effect of calling attention precisely to what Moscow and its supporters just as in Soviet times do not want to admit.
The Caucasus Times website describes why this is so: “Adygeis [as the Circassians call themsevles] can return to their historic motherland … [only if they can show with] “corresponding documents” their ancestors were] “subjects of the Russian state” at the moment of the forcible expulsion of the Circassians in the 19th century.
“Thus,” the website continues, “with one hand, President Putin gives out a billion rubles for the celebration of the 450th anniversary of ‘the voluntary inclusion’ of the Adgyeis into Russia, and with the other, he closes the path to the repatriation of individuals who do not have” the requisite documentation.”
That reality, the Caucasus Times suggests, will be noticed however noisy and pompous the celebrations this fall turn out to be.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Window on Eurasia: First Ten Resettlers Come to Kaliningrad from ‘Near Abroad’
Paul Goble
Vienna, June 11 – Ten people – nine ethnic Russians from Latvia and one ethnic Armenian from Yerevan – arrived in Kaliningrad on Friday as the first participants in Moscow’s program to support “the voluntary resettlement of compatriots” living abroad into Russia itself, the Federal Migration Service announced.
On arrival at the airport in that non-contiguous portion of the Russian Federation, the small group was met by local officials and journalists, both of whom “Vremya novostei” pointed on Saturday vastly outnumbered what that Moscow paper called “the pioneers of our West.”
Kaliningrad Governor Georgiy Boos, who has regularly spoken about the need for millions of those living abroad to his region and elsewhere in Russia to help solve demographic, economic and even security challenges and has announced plans to incorporate 300,000 such people over the next five years, put the best face on things.
“Welcome, dear compatriots,” Boos declared, “on your return to the historic Motherland!” (http://www.pravda.ru, June 9).
Other officials there said that they expected that the returnee program, which offers individuals a one-time payment of up to 40,000 rubles (1600 U.S. dollars), assistance in finding housing and a job, and subsidies until they are back on their feet, would attract about 50,000 people in 2008 (http://www.etnosfera.ru/ogl.php).
The program, currently functioning in 12 “pilot” regions including Kaliningrad, is only beginning, Migration Service officials said. And Kaliningrad leaders indicated that they expected the numbers to quickly rise to the point that Boos and his colleagues would not be able to take the time to meet all of them.
That there is interest in this program, officials in Kaliningrad say, is beyond doubt: some 12,000 people from across Eurasia have expressed interest in it in letters, telephone calls and emails to them. But only 1200 of them have indicated that they want to come after learning more.
Given that and given the publicity extended to the first small group, one of whom already has a job in Kaliningrad and two of whom had earlier experiences there, it does not seem likely that the number of “returnees” will by themselves address Russia’s demographic problems.
But there is one thing such appeals and programs certainly will do: They will lead many in the populations and governments of the former Soviet republics and especially the Baltic states to view ethnic Russians living among them with more suspicion than otherwise.
That in turn could threaten the progress many of these countries have made in integrating all those who live on their territories, thereby destabilizing a region that is emerging from a time of troubles and encouraging those in Moscow who would like to pursue an even more interventionist line against these states.
Vienna, June 11 – Ten people – nine ethnic Russians from Latvia and one ethnic Armenian from Yerevan – arrived in Kaliningrad on Friday as the first participants in Moscow’s program to support “the voluntary resettlement of compatriots” living abroad into Russia itself, the Federal Migration Service announced.
On arrival at the airport in that non-contiguous portion of the Russian Federation, the small group was met by local officials and journalists, both of whom “Vremya novostei” pointed on Saturday vastly outnumbered what that Moscow paper called “the pioneers of our West.”
Kaliningrad Governor Georgiy Boos, who has regularly spoken about the need for millions of those living abroad to his region and elsewhere in Russia to help solve demographic, economic and even security challenges and has announced plans to incorporate 300,000 such people over the next five years, put the best face on things.
“Welcome, dear compatriots,” Boos declared, “on your return to the historic Motherland!” (http://www.pravda.ru, June 9).
Other officials there said that they expected that the returnee program, which offers individuals a one-time payment of up to 40,000 rubles (1600 U.S. dollars), assistance in finding housing and a job, and subsidies until they are back on their feet, would attract about 50,000 people in 2008 (http://www.etnosfera.ru/ogl.php).
The program, currently functioning in 12 “pilot” regions including Kaliningrad, is only beginning, Migration Service officials said. And Kaliningrad leaders indicated that they expected the numbers to quickly rise to the point that Boos and his colleagues would not be able to take the time to meet all of them.
That there is interest in this program, officials in Kaliningrad say, is beyond doubt: some 12,000 people from across Eurasia have expressed interest in it in letters, telephone calls and emails to them. But only 1200 of them have indicated that they want to come after learning more.
Given that and given the publicity extended to the first small group, one of whom already has a job in Kaliningrad and two of whom had earlier experiences there, it does not seem likely that the number of “returnees” will by themselves address Russia’s demographic problems.
But there is one thing such appeals and programs certainly will do: They will lead many in the populations and governments of the former Soviet republics and especially the Baltic states to view ethnic Russians living among them with more suspicion than otherwise.
That in turn could threaten the progress many of these countries have made in integrating all those who live on their territories, thereby destabilizing a region that is emerging from a time of troubles and encouraging those in Moscow who would like to pursue an even more interventionist line against these states.
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