Germans in Kazakhstan: Nomads without a homeland?

Some of the Soviet nations had experienced a number of painful deportations in the 1930-40s. Tragedies of deportations also affected the Soviet Germans who mainly lived in Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia and other European territories of the former Soviet Union. With the beginning of the war (1941-1945) Soviet Germans came under double blow. First, they were blamed as traitors of the Soviet state although there was very little evidence of it, and second, they were finally deprived of the rights of full citizens of the country.  Unlike many other deported nations Germans lost their autonomic republic in Russia and their identity had changed. However, there are still questions that have not yet been fully addressed in the literature. Why was the Soviet government interested in keeping deported Russian Germans out of the Russian Federation territory after World War II? Why were they not given the opportunity to restore Volga German Autonomous Republic in Russia? What political forces were behind Moscow’s decision to establish a German Autonomic republic in Soviet Kazakhstan? And why did they fail? The paper argues that the positions of the party and state leadership regarding destinies of the Germans coincided in the following way. The Germans were to be deprived not only of full citizenship, but also to cease being part of nation-state building. That is, the loss of their national autonomous republic meant not only second rank citizenship for the Soviet Germans. As individuals they may have earned their place in Soviet society, however, as a national unit they have lost their position in the hierarchy of the Soviet nations.

 

Gulnara Dadabayeva is a professor in the department of Political Sciences and International Relations at KIMEP University, Kazakhstan. She graduated from the al-Farabi Kazakh National University, where she worked for a long time in the department of History. As a historian she was primarily interested in 1920s political and economic history. Later, her research focus shifted towards problems of nation-state building in the Central Asian region in the 1990s. Recently, Dr. Dadabayeva co-authored several articles devoted to the cultural puzzles of Soviet Kazakhstan literature. She has over 50 publications, including articles in Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, Nationalities Papers, Folklore, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, and other journals.