Ethnic deportations

Subject / Ethnic culture
Ethnic deportations are forced resettlement carried out according to an ethnic signs. In 1935-36 in the Leningrad Oblast there were some activities on purging the zone of land with 22 kilometres wide at the border with Finland "from kulak and anti-Soviet elements". During these activities the citizens of Finnish nationality (exept the party members' families and the persons called up for the service in the Red Army) were deported mainly to the Vologda Region. After the beginning the Great Patriotic War when Finland supported Germany, in the end of August 1941 deportation of Finns and Germans of Leningrad and the Leningrad Oblast to Siberia and Kazakhstan was planned. Beginning of the siege of Leningrad didn't let carry out it. "Obyazatelnaya evakuatsya" ("The Compulsory evacuation") of Finns and Germans from Leningrad and unoccupied environs (including Oraniyenbaum bridgehead) was carried out in March 1942 (in accordance with the decree of the Council of War of the Leningrad Front No 00713). The German occupation authorities conducted deportation of population shortly before their retreating in the autumn 1943: Russians were deported to the Baltic States and Germany, Finnish speaking population (Finns of Ingermanlandia, Izhora, Votes) were deported to Finland. After withdrawal of Finland from the war (September 1944) repatriation of the Soviet citizens being on its territory began. The returning Finnish speaking residents of the Leningrad Oblast were forcibly accomodated in the Yaroslavl, Kalinin, Novgorod, Pskov, Velikye Luky regions (the decree of the State Defence Committee dated 19 November 1944 "About Resettlement of the Population of Ingermanlandian Origin Formerly Living in the Leningrad Oblast from Finland" . Some benefits to the IDPs (Internally Displaced People) (exemption from tax for the period from 1945 to 1946, giving loans for buying livestock and for building houses etc.) panned to give them but it was not made in full. The most of repatriates escaped from the places of deportation but lots of them settled in Estonia and Karelia because only the war veterans' families were allowed to live in the Leningrad Oblast (the direction of the People's Commissar Council dated to 19 September 1945). The restriction on living in the Leningrad Oblast was removed in the middle of the 1950s. According to the decree of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet "About Rehabilitation of the Finns of Russia" dated to 29 June 1993 all Acts passed in the period from the 1930s to the 1940s related to Finns of Russia were declared as "unlawful and expired". In the cemetery near Gakkovo Village (Kingisepp District) in 1989 a monument to the local people (Finns of Ingermanlandia, Izhora, Votes) died in the years of Stalin repression was placed. In addition, in S.Petersburg in Levashovo cemetery where the victims of terror 1937-38 were buried, some monuments to the Finns of Ingermanlandia (1994) and Germans of Russia (1998) were placed. Chistyakov, Anton Yuryevich
Neighbouring Territories/Estonia
Neighbouring Territories/Finland
Leningrad Oblast, the/Kingisepp District/Gakkovo Village
Neighbouring Territories/Karelian Republic
Neighbouring Territories/Novgorod Oblast, the
Neighbouring Territories/Pskov Oblast, the
Neighbouring Territories/Vologda Oblast, the
Гильди Л.А. Судьба «социально-опасного» народа. (Засекреченный геноцид финнов в России и его последствия. 1930-2002 гг.). СПб., 2003
Мусаев В.И. Политическая история Ингерманландии в конце XIX-XX веке /В.И.Мусаев. – Изд. 2-е испр. и доп. – СПб.: Нестор-История, 2004. – 450 с.: ил., 252-339
Finns
Finns of Ingermanlandia
Germen
Izhora (Izhora men)
Russians
Vod (Votes)