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Soviet Armenia: Repatriates in the Crosshairs of Political Violence

Anoush Gasparyan

Persecution, in the eyes of local residents, was a normal occurrence. After the sovietization of Armenia, thousands of Armenians fell victim to jailings, deportations and executions. Such things were unexpected and inexplicable to the repatriates, Armenia’s new citizens.

They believed that by coming to Armenia they would find the safest of places to live. But it quickly became apparent that news of their past “crimes and transgressions” arrived in Armenia with them or often even before.

ANAHIT POGHIKYAN

Repatriated from Syria in 1946 / Lives in Yerevan

People who were Tashnags were told to leave the party before coming to Armenia. They were told that if they did, they wouldn’t be bothered in Armenia. There were many families who did just that, but they were rounded up in 1949 and exiled.

Between 1946 and 1952, more than 800 repatriates were subject to persecution. The charges levied against them were primarily:

- Collaboration with the secret services of European countries or the USA

- Having served in the armies of European countries (notably England and France)

- Anti-Soviet propaganda and actions

- Membership in the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the other bourgeois-nationalist parties (when convenient, the Social-Democrat Hnchak and Ramgavar-Liberal parties were also classified as such, even though they backed repatriation).

Charges were often founded on assumptions, perceptions, and on information provided by local or foreign so-called ‘sources’, and were described as treason to the fatherland.

ISHKHAN HOVSEPYAN

Repatriated from Lebanon in 1947 / Died in Vanadzor, 2016

My father fought as a fedayi (Armenian civilian volunteer soldiers). He was an illiterate who couldn’t read a letter, but he knew how to speak Persian, Assyrian, Arabic, Russian, Kurdish and Turkish. He was a tall, strong guy. I think it was 1949. We were already living in Kirovakan (Vanadzor) when they started to exile the repatriates. If we had stayed in Leninakan (Gyumri) or Yerevan, they would have surely deported us. Not many people here knew that my father was a fedayi.

Repatriates at the center of attention of state security agencies were mainly “exposed” due to speaking their mind freely and openly. Just expressing dissatisfaction regarding the situation in the country or to compare Soviet reality to the life one had in their former country was reason enough for the guardians of the regime to take swift action.

As we know from the diaries and oral testimony of those repatriates who were persecuted, it was first suggested that they cooperate with state security agencies and provide information regarding the ideas, attitudes and complaints expressed in their circles (primarily amongst repatriates). By agreeing to such a proposal, the repatriate could avoid punishment, even though in certain cases it failed to do so. When repatriates refused, they were not only charged with complaining and for speaking up, but for much more serious crimes noted above in generalized form.

HAKOB MUSHOYAN

Repatriated from Lebanon in 1946 / Lives in Los Angeles

There was always the fear of traitors and spies being in the midst of the repatriates. An overall wave of distrust against the repatriates began. We thought those decisions were coming from the Armenian government, but years later, we realized they were instructions being forced by Moscow.

The most unexpected of things occurred on the night of June 13, 1949. That night was a surprise to locals, who had passed through the hell of Stalinizm, and to the repatriates, who were adapting to the whims of the totalitarian system with difficulty.

This was the first case when Armenians were expelled en masse. But it wasn’t ethnically motivated. As we see in the historical documents, the contingent of Armenian exiles was given the particular name of “Dashnak” and had three sub-groups:

- Local Armenians who ever had direct or indirect links to the ARF

- Soldiers taken prisoner in the war or who had served in the Armenian Legion

- Repatriates.

On that night, 2,754 families (12,300 individuals) were exiled from Armenia to the Altay region. Ten per-cent of them, 1,578 individuals, were repatriates.

ALAIN PIRIAN

Repatriated from France in 1947 / Lives in Marseilles

I was five years-old. I would play and didn’t feel a thing. But I can imagine how hard it was for my parents. We spent seventeen days on the road. We reached this place and were again placed in trucks. We traveled on and were then let out in this huge forest where there were four-five barracks. They put us inside. The barrack was a long building with a corridor and rooms running down it. Each family had a room. There was a Russian stove made of brick in the middle.

As opposed to individuals who were tried and imprisoned according to the decisions of the court, military tribunal, or the special consultative body of the state security ministry, the deported didn’t have personal case files with investigation material, with interviews of the deportees themselves or of witness, or material evidence.

People were exiled. They spent some two weeks travelling in cargo trains and were relocated to the forest enterprises and state farms in the Altai region, without ever knowing their crime or reason for being deported. The mass relocation was ‘legalized’ later, during the period of November 1949-June 1950. Documents regarded as substantiation for the deportations, were compiled by a special advisory board attached to the USSR MMS in the name of the senior member of the exiled family or that member who was the reason for the deportation.

STEPAN VERANYAN

His family immigrated from Greece in 1947 / Lives in Yerevan

They took him for interrogation in the taiga and tried to pry some confessions from him. There were scars on my father’s back, knife marks. They had tortured him to sign some documents that he was a spy.

Those exiled were told of these documents at the commandant’s headquarters at their new places of residence. Here, they were also told that their banishment was permanent, until they died. They were warned not to leave their residence, and threatened with twenty years’ imprisonment or hard labor if they did so. The exiled person had to report to the commandant’s office once a week and sign in.

Geoghlanians in Siberia, 1955

Once the deportees learnt about the documents prepared by the special advisory board attached to the USSR MMS, they started to write letters to top officials – Stalin, Beria, Malenkov, Mikoyan, Voroshilov, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia Grigor Harutyunyan, and others. They wanted to know their transgressions and what crimes they had committed. They wrote about lives and suggested that officials interview this or that individual in order to verify their innocence. They described living conditions in their places of exile. These conditions, to put it mildly, were far from tolerable.

In rare cases, such entreaties and complaints were acted upon and families were freed. More often than not, the standard reply was, “Your case is not subject to review.”

It is hard to imagine what the fate of these unfortunate people would have been had Stalin not died on March 5, 1953 and the internal politics of the country not have changes as a result. Authorities started to respond to the letters written by deportees after the death of Stalin, in hopeful terms – “Your case is being reviewed.”

HAKOB FILYAN

Repatriated from USA in 1947 / Lives in Paris

We were in school when Stalin died. Crying, director Suzan Haroutyunyan, told us, “Father Stalin has died.” They placed black ribbons with Stalin’s photo on our chest, as if we really loved him. One month hadn’t passed and they started to criticize Stalin. Afterwards, we enjoyed a bit more freedom. We had more freedom to express ourselves and life started to change.I was at home when my father returned. I ran to school. My brother was in class. I told him that our father had been freed and to run home. He didn’t ask permission from the teachers. He immediately left the classroom.

From the investigations conducted after the death of Stalin we often see that the evidence hadn’t been sufficiently studied, that the information provided by the ‘sources’ hadn’t been properly examined, that extenuating circumstances weren’t take into account, etc. Given this contradiction, it becomes clear that confessions resulted from physical and psychological pressure, and witness testimony due to an environment of fear.

Photo: Tyagun 2016, Altay region. Nothing has changed except the means of communication


This article is prepared within the framework of “Two Lives: The Cold War and the Emigration of Armenians” project financed by National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Comments (1)

Peter
The above article reads like a high school social studies report. No context, either political or economic. And the cultural references regarding the repats are anecdotal at best. Markar, why can't you admit that the USSR made its share of mistakes as well? Your arguments would ring that much more convincing.

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