Meskhetians: Homeward Bound…
Publisher: ECMI, Caucasus
Volume: 226 page, pdf
Description:
From the 1920s to the early 1950s, the leaders of the Soviet Union routinely used forced migration as a repressive measure to control and intimidate the populations of the multiethnic state. Historians estimate that some six million people were deported from their native lands during this period, including eight entire ethnic groups who were exiled to Central Asia, Siberia and Russia’s Far East. Germans from the Volga region as well as Balkars, Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars and Meskhetians from the Caucasus and the Black Sea regions fell victim to these collective deportations, either because of alleged collaboration with the German forces or, in the case of the Meskhetians, out of Stalin’s fear that they might sympathize with Turkey in the event of a war with the country.