У каждого своя Сибирь. Две истории о депортации калмыков (интервью с С. М. Ивановым и С. Э. Нарановой)

Abstract

The paper deals with an important period in the history of Kalmykia that has been given no sufficient attention by anthropologists and sociologists — the everyday life of Kalmyk people in Siberia during the deportation years (1943–1956) and their memories thereof. The publication consists of an introduction, two interviews, and comments. The goal of the publication is to describe everyday survival practices adopted by Kalmyks in Siberia. The materials are presented in the form of transcriptions of spontaneous narratives received by the author in 2004. The interviews have been investigated through the use of the textological analysis and text deconstruction methods. The interviews reveal survival and adaptation strategies of the younger generation of so-called ‘special settlers’ (Rus. spetsperelentsy) in forced settlement locations. So, the paper describes the moving into adulthood of Sergei Ivanov, a ten-year-old boy expelled together with his family from Ulan-Kholsky Ulus of the Kalmyk ASSR to the village of Iskitim of Novosibirsk Oblast, who virtually became the head of the family when a boy. Sima Polteeva, a seventeen-year-old girl deported from Bashanta with her family to Krasnoyarsk Krai, also had to make important life decisions being that young. Through male and female narratives, the work shows different forms of resistance to the repressive regime and gender-based adaptation strategies of the Kalmyks in the host society. Texts of both the interviews mention episodes dealing with ethnic-related social exclusion, and describe how young people experienced the stigma of Kalmyk ethnicity any public manifestation of which was prohibited by authorities. The texts contain family stories and private memories of the deportation years ― without political clichés and conjuncture assessments. Simultaneously, the memories provide evidence of the 60-year-old events to be assembled now ― in the 21st century. These are memories of the deportation in a ‘first-person’ format, and details of the daily life of the Ivanovs and Naranovs are both interesting and important enough. The discursive strategies of precisely these two narratives concerning the deportation of Kalmyks show that the respondents’ eviction injuries have been largely rethought and reinterpreted. The publication will be of certain interest to researchers investigating everyday life during the Stalinist era, deportations of ‘punished’ peoples, including practices of adaptation and resistance of deported individuals in places of exile; it will also be of interest to researchers Soviet Kalmykia’s history.