Education Of Deported Children Of North Caucasus Peoples In A Special Settlement

Abstract

The deportation of the peoples of the North Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War is a tragic page in the history of our Fatherland. And the farther the years of deportation go from us, the more majestic the feat of the representatives of these peoples on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War and the titanic labor of special settlers in the places of resettlement seem. Most of the settlers were poorly provided with clothing and footwear, overcrowding in trains and many lice led to an outbreak of typhus along the way. After arriving at the places of resettlement, the settlers faced unsatisfactory living conditions, as well as a sharp change in climatic conditions and an inability to adapt to local conditions. As a result, epidemic diseases became widespread and caused high mortality among the settlers. And among the settlers, there were a considerable number of children. Despite the difficult process of socialization, the special settlers sought to educate their children, and they, in turn, showed the desire and perseverance in acquiring knowledge. However, not everyone could study, someone had to grow up very early and become the breadwinner in the family, and someone simply had nothing to wear. However, on June 20, 1944, an order from the Council of People's Commissars signed by V. Molotov was issued, which established that the education of children of deported peoples would be carried out in Russian in the existing primary classes at their place of residence.

Keywords: Deportation, education, Great Patriotic War, Kazakhstan, special settlers, school

Introduction

During the Great Patriotic War, representatives of the peoples of the North Caucasus were evicted to Kazakhstan: Kalmyks, Balkars, Chechens, Ingush, and Karachays. The fate of the settlers was tragic. A considerable number of them, especially women, children, and the elderly, died on the way. Completely different climatic conditions awaited them in the place of the new settlement.

Those evicted to the territory of Kazakhstan were in the status of special settlers. All able-bodied special settlers were obliged to engage in socially useful work. In January 1942, for example, all Germans aged 15 to 55 were united in labor columns, in which they remained until the end of the war. Special settlers did not have the right to leave the settlement area. Leaving the area was considered an escape and was subject to criminal liability. Special settlers were required to report to the NKVD within three days about all changes that had occurred in the composition of the family (birth of a child, death of a family member, or escape).

The answer to the question about the duration of the expulsion of deported peoples to remote places of settlement is given by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on November 26, 1948 "On criminal liability for escapes from places of compulsory and permanent settlement of persons evicted to certain places of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War." Its preamble states: “To strengthen the settlement regime for the Chechens, Karachais, Ingush, Balkars, Kalmyks, Germans, Crimean Tatars, and others evicted by the Supreme Body of the USSR during the Patriotic War, and also because during their resettlement no the terms of their expulsion were determined, to establish that the resettlement to remote regions of the Soviet Union of the above-mentioned persons was carried out forever, without the right to return them to their former places of residence (Ibragimov & Ibragimov, 2017).

The same idea is repeated in the order of the Minister of State Security of the USSR No. 00776 dated October 24, 1951: “to persons of the listed categories of German, Chechen, Kalmyk, Ingush, Balkarian, Karachay, Greek and Crimean Tatars, that they, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme of the USSR dated On October 9, 1951, they were left in a special settlement forever.

The Soviet government set the goal of permanently deporting the designated peoples. The Soviet government also chose the means to achieve this goal corresponding to this goal. The most severe sanctions were established for those who did not reconcile with this goal and opposed its implementation: for unauthorized departure (escape) from the places of compulsory settlement of the named deportees, the perpetrators were subject to criminal liability with a penalty of 20 years hard labor. Persons guilty of harboring deportees who fled from places of compulsory settlement, or contributing to their escape, were also subject to liability; persons guilty of issuing permission to evacuees to return them to their places of former residence, and persons who assisted them in settling them in their places of former residence. The sanction for these persons was unequivocal, namely, imprisonment for 5 years (Tsutsulaeva, 2018).

The whole powerful punitive-repressive machine of the state was thrown into ensuring that the deportees forgot about their native lands and got used for the idea of ​​eternal settlement in new places.

The status of special settlers was characterized by humiliating procedures for registration, re-registration, and marks in the local commandant's offices and other bodies of the NKVD. With police meticulousness, every step of the special settlers was regulated in detail and strictly controlled, and to perform many elementary actions, one had to ask the permission of the supervising authorities. And under these conditions, the question of the education of the children of special settlers had to be decided (Bugai, 1994).

Problem Statement

In many regions of Kazakhstan, numerous facts related to the involvement of children of special settlers in education have already been observed. In the majority of cases, unfortunately, the enrollment of children of special migrants in schools was very low. This was explained, first of all, by the lack of clothing and footwear, especially in winter. Many school-age children of special settlers knew neither Russian nor Kazakh. However, teaching in schools in rural areas was conducted in only one of these languages.

As Kazakh researcher Yermekbaev (2009) notes in many references, reports, and memos of the time, local authorities refer to the weak work of public education departments. The educational departments did not carry out explanatory work with the parents of special settlers at the proper level to fully cover their children with studies and did not make efforts to conduct additional classes in the lessons with the children of special settlers.

Research Questions

During the years of the deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, their national languages ​​and cultural traditions completely disappeared from those officially recognized and supported by the Soviet state. This consequence of the deportation was not accidental, but it was a deliberate state policy, which was aimed at erasing the historical and cultural basis for the existence of the repressed peoples, at preparing them for their socio-cultural and linguistic assimilation (Elbuzdukaeva, 2012, p. 55).

Along with the employment of the adult able-bodied population, the local authorities at the same time paid some attention to the coverage of school-age children of special settlers with education. This trend was typical for Kazakhstan, as well as for other areas densely populated by deported peoples.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the article is to show the first, difficult years of the formation of school education for children of special settlers in Kazakhstan during the years of deportation (1944–1957).

Research Methods

The methodological basis was the principles of objectivity, scientific character, and historicism, which involve the study of facts and phenomena in all their diversity, in the specific historical conditions of their emergence and development and allow highlighting both the positive and negative sides of the problem under study.

Findings

A special role in the future education system of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the education of children of special settlers in primary schools was to be played by the Order of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 13287-rs dated June 20, 1944. According to this order, the education of children of Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, and Crimean Tatars, resettled in the Kazakh, Kirghiz, and Uzbek SSRs, was produced in Russian in existing schools at the place of residence (Elbuzdukaeva, 2012).

However, the problem of schooling children in their native language began to be raised by special settlers only in the mid-1950s. Currently, there was a tangible relaxation of the regime of special settlements after the last XX Congress of the CPSU. However, before the adoption of the Order of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (June 20, 1944), an official letter from Beria was addressed to Molotov on June 19, 1944, based on which the above Order was adopted. The essence of this letter highlights two points that are very important for L. Beria from the point of view of the Soviet ideology that existed at that time: a) the lack of supposedly at that time-proven teaching staff to teach children in their national languages; b) to teach the children of special settlers only in Russian at schools at the place of residence.

In the light of the foregoing, it will be interesting to cite the contents of Beria's letter to Molotov dated June 19, 1944: "As part of the families of immigrants (Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, Crimean Tatars) up to 300 thousand children, and under the age of 16 arrived in the Kazakh, Kirghiz and Uzbek SSR in 1944. Special settlers are placed in small groups in collective farms and districts mixed with the local population (Russian, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Kyrgyz). They live under a special regime that prohibits citizens from moving freely outside the points of residence. It is not possible to organize an elementary school for children of special settlers (Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, and Crimean Tatars) with instruction in their national languages ​​due to the lack of appropriate proven teaching staff. Due to all these conditions, the NKVD of the USSR considers it expedient to teach the children of special settlers in Russian in existing schools at their place of residence" (Patiev, 2004).

The Order of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 13287-rs dated June 20, 1944, also provided for a special procedure and conditions for the education of children of special settlers (Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, and Crimean Tatars) in secondary and higher educational institutions on the territory of the Kazakh, Kirghiz, and Uzbek SSR. According to this Decree, training was conducted in existing educational institutions of the listed republics with the right to move students to the location of the educational institution but without the right to leave the republic, both during training and after graduation from this educational institution.

In addition, this Decree determines a list of those universities in which the children of special settlers could receive an education. The issuance of permits for the children of special settlers to move within the republic at the locations of these secondary and higher educational institutions was entrusted, respectively, to the People's Commissariats of Internal Affairs of the Kazakh, Kirghiz, and Uzbek SSRs (Patiev, 2004). Some digital data on individual regions and cities of the Kazakh SSR, in which special settlers were compactly settled and lived, testify to the state of school education of children of special settlers.

Thus, in the Pavlodar region, out of 2386 children of school age in the 1944 – 1945 academic year, only 295 children attended school. As of July 1, 1946, 3,617 children of special settlers were registered in the North Kazakhstan region. In the 1945 – 1946 academic year, 801 children studied here, of which 768 children were in schools with the Russian language of instruction, 33 students with the Kazakh language of instruction, and 2816 children of school age did not study at all.

In the Kokchetav region in the 1944–1945 academic year, out of 7818 children of school age, only 433 children were enrolled in studies. In the Karaganda region on January 1, 1948, out of 5890 children of school age, only 1306 children were enrolled in studies.

In the city of Temirtau, Karaganda region, in 1948, 504 children of school age were registered, of which only 295 students attended school (Yermekbaev, 2009). Only in the autumn of 1945 did the NKVD of the USSR begin to keep records of the children of special settlers of school age to enroll them in primary schools in the autumn of 1946. In May 1946, out of 89 thousand children of special settlers who were supposed to attend elementary schools, only 22 thousand studied.

In the 1944–1945 academic year in the Kazakh SSR, only 6,099 school-age children out of 50,329 children of special settlers of different nationalities were enrolled in studies. Including the following situation in the regions: Alma-Ata – 644 children, Aktobe – 377 children, Akmola – 1500 children, Karaganda – 1270 children, Kokchetav – 280 children, Kustanai – 627 children, North Kazakhstan – 938 children, Semipalatinsk – 373 children, South Kazakhstan – 90 children (Yermekbaev, 2009).

However, in the first year of resettlement, according to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, the situation with school education was extremely difficult.

This was because most of the children did not know the language in which teaching was conducted, individual facts of opposition to learning by parents, as well as undressing and undressing, because of which in the winter periods most of the children involved in studies were forced to stop attending schools. Nevertheless in Kazakhstan, already in the 1945–1946 academic year, out of 89.102 people, school-age children, 22.020 people studied, of which 1.050 children graduated from vocational schools and schools of the FZO. In Kyrgyzstan, of those registered in 1946. 21.240 school-age children were attended by 4.560 people. And by 1950 almost all children of special settlers studied at school (Akhmadov, 2015, p. 70).

During the years of deportation in the Kazakh SSR, of course, some work was carried out to eliminate illiteracy among special settlers. However, this problem was far from its final solution. Local public education authorities kept records of school-age children, and these children studied at the very least in schools, but the adult population of Chechens for the most part remained illiterate at that time. Thus, in the Tauride region of the East Kazakhstan region in 1952, out of 831 Chechens, almost 55 % remained illiterate (Elbuzdukaeva, 2012).

In places densely populated by Chechens and Ingush in Kazakhstan, special classes were also created to teach children of special settlers. Among the teachers, there were also representatives of special settlers. So, in the Upper Uba secondary school in the 1949–1950 academic year, the teachers were Babatgireev, who had secondary pedagogical education and 13 years of teaching experience, as well as a teacher Ezhaev, who graduated from the 3rd year of a teacher training college and with 4 years of teaching experience. Teacher Kaisarov with secondary education and two years of teaching experience also continued to work as a teacher in Kazakhstan, etc. In the East Kazakhstan region in the 1954–1955 academic year, a total of 315 Chechen children of school age were registered, of which 275 children were enrolled in studies. In the 1955–1956 academic year, 1.041 Chechen children studied in the schools of this region. In the 1956–1957 academic year, it was planned to organize in Ust-Kamenogorsk, in secondary school No. 17, an elementary school in the Chechen language for children of deported Chechens. In secondary school No. 33, education was organized in the native language of the children of the deported Chechens.

The children of deported Chechen and Ingush parents graduated from seven years old and completed secondary school. After they began to enter specialized secondary schools (technical schools, pedagogical and medical schools) and higher educational institutions. During the years of deportation, a certain part of the children of preschool and school-age Chechens and Ingush were left without parents. Homeless children were registered and placed in orphanages.

So, in the northern Kazakhstan region in 1944–1946, the homeless children of deported Chechens and Ingush were 108 people. Of these children, 72 children were placed in orphanages. The rest of the children were in families with relatives. It is also known that the deported Chechens and Ingush did not leave children of preschool and school-age in orphanages whenever possible. Upon learning that the children of relatives by blood or acquaintances were left without parents and were in orphanages, the Chechens and Ingush immediately tried to take them to their families. "This was a characteristic national feature of these peoples, where taip kinship did not allow remaining with oneself outside the community. This property distinguished them from other deported peoples" (Yermekbaev, 2009, p. 71).

The deported peoples of the North Caucasus had an extremely difficult, difficult, and tragic situation. Unfortunately, in the places where special settlers arrived, there were cases when certain officials in the field of education had facts of dishonest and dishonorable attitudes toward the needs of special settlers.

Conclusion

The bodies of local authorities of Kazakhstan paid some attention to the coverage of education for children of special settlers. At the same time, the children of special settlers were given the right to attend schools in place of their compact settlement. There was a special Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 13287-rs dated June 20, 1944, regulating the education of children of Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachais, and Crimean Tatars in Russian in existing primary schools at their place of residence. At the same time, numerous facts in various regions of Kazakhstan testified to the problems associated with the education of children of special settlers. In many regions of the republic, the attendance of children of special settlers in schools was low. This was explained by the lack of clothing and footwear, especially in winter, and sometimes by direct abuse by some employees of the education departments of the regional executive committees. Many school-age children of special migrants knew neither Russian nor Kazakh, and in primary schools in rural areas, as a rule, education was conducted in only one of these languages. Teaching the children of special settlers in their native language in primary schools, unfortunately, was impossible due to the lack of appropriate cadres of teachers with special pedagogical education from among the deported persons. Numerous certificates, reports, and memorandums of local authorities also testified to the weak work of public education departments, which did not conduct proper explanatory work with the parents of children of special settlers on the ground regarding their full coverage of studies, did not take an active part in conducting additional lessons and classes with students.

References

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