PERSECUTION AGAINST THE KHAKAS TURKIC INTELLECTUALS DURING GREAT TERROR AND THE ROLE OF LOCAL SOVIET NEWSPAPERS
Erkam Temir, Fırat YaldızDuring the Soviet atrocities in 1937-1938 which realized under the leadership of Stalin 680 thousand people were shot to death and 1.5 million people were arrested and sent to concentration camps. On the one hand the persecution and massacres were conducted against the elites and on the other hand against the socially dangerous or ethnically suspicious elements. In this study it is tried to be revealed the persecution against Turkic intellectuals during the great purge period. In this context Siberian Turks Union which was established by Khakas Turkic intellectuals and the activities carried out against the members of this union are discussed. In addition, it has been evaluated the role of the regional newspapers of Krasnoyarsk Worker, Soviet Khakassia and Soviet Siberia those which serve as official propaganda and censorship tools of the communist regime and which are used to manipulate the emotions and thoughts of society in accordance with party policies. In these years, Soviet newspapers developed a systematic hate speech against the so-called public enemies. They acted to legitimize the executions, to subdue people by intimidating and to target community leaders as an enemy. In this article, the oppression and atrocities against the Khakas Turkic intellectuals and how these events are reflected in the relevant Soviet newspapers were examined in detail.
BÜYÜK TERÖR DÖNEMİNDE HAKAS TÜRKÜ AYDINLARA UYGULANAN ZULÜM VE BÖLGESEL SOVYET GAZETELERİNİN ROLÜ
Erkam Temir, Fırat Yaldız1937-1938 yıllarında Stalin öncülüğünde gerçekleşen Sovyet zulmünde 680 bin kişi kurşunlanarak idam edilmiş, 1,5 milyon kişi tutuklanarak toplama kamplarına gönderilmiştir. Zulüm ve katliamlar bir taraftan elitlere diğer taraftan sosyal açıdan tehlikeli veya etnik açıdan şüpheli unsurlara karşı yürütülmüştür. Bu çalışmada büyük temizlik döneminde bilhassa Türk aydınlarına karşı uygulanan zulüm ortaya konulmaya çalışılmıştır. Bu kapsamda Hakas Türkü aydınlar tarafından kurulan Sibirya Türkleri Birliği ve bu birliğin üyelerine karşı yürütülen faaliyetler ele alınmıştır. Ayrıca komünist rejimin resmi propaganda aracı olarak hizmet eden, toplumun duygu ve düşünce dünyasını parti politikaları doğrultusunda manipüle etmek ve şekillendirmek için kullanılan bölgesel Sovyet gazetelerinden olan Krasnoyarsk İşçi, Sovyet Hakasyası ve Sovyet Sibir gazetelerinin bu süreçte oynadığı rol değerlendirilmiştir. Zira bu yıllarda Sovyet gazeteleri sözde halk düşmanlarına karşı sistematik bir nefret söylemi geliştirmiştir. Yapılan infazları meşrulaştırma, halkı korkutarak baskı altına alma ve hedef gösterme işlevi görmüşlerdir. Bu bağlamda Hakas Türkü aydınlara yönelik baskı ve zulümler ile bu olayların ilgili Sovyet gazetelerine nasıl yansıdığı ayrıntılı olarak incelenmiştir.
In the reign of the Great Terror, Great Cleansing or Yejovshina, called after Yejov Nikolay Ivanovich, the head of the NKVD (The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs), 680.000 people were shot and killed and 1.5 million people were arrested and sent to concentration camps, during the Soviet persecution between 1937 and1938 under Stalin’s leadership. Most of those sent to concentration camps died due to severe conditions. Great cleansing period did not consist of a single process, but implies multiple oppression executions. The beginning of the period in which the most intense persecutions are experienced is known as Yejovshina. The persecution and massacres that started with the order no. 00447 were named after Yejovshina. The aforementioned order in question was referred to as “the operation of suppression of old kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements” as of 30 July 1937. In the forthcoming period, the nation-wide persecution of great cleansing continued with suchlike orders until 1938. Stalin and Yejov had planned and conducted the details of this persecution by encountering 300 times consisting of 900 hours. The persecution and massacres in the period of the Great Terror were conducted on the one hand against the elites, on the other hand against the socially dangerous or ethnically suspicious components of the society. During and after this period, Stalin’s repressive policies and the ongoing reflections were seen in many parts of the USSR and continued from Ukraine to Georgia, from Moldova to Turkestan without any distinction.
The Great Terror is not an event of oppression and persecution solely in the history of the USSR, but the most destructive of them. Almost all those people who were subjected to oppression and persecution in this period were accused of participating in counter-revolutionary conspiracies, or potentially being able to participate in such conspiracies, even though no material evidence exists. Atrocities carried out in 1937- 1938, was conducted in great secrecy.
In fact, most of the information we can get at the present time about the Great Terror period is limited to what the USSR regime wanted people to know at that time. However, in this period, there were 6680 newspapers in the USSR, which consisted of 1800 regional kolkhoz magazines and of factory newspapers, with a circulation of 38 million. In addition, it is estimated that there were about 300.000 wall newspapers and 2000 sovkhoz magazines which were reproduced by duplicating machine. These newspapers and magazines served as a tool of official propaganda and censorship for several institutions, such as Communist Party and the NKVD, which will be reorganized later as KGB for over 70 years. Newspapers and journalists were used as agents for intelligence and counterintelligence agents.
In this study, the persecution against Khakas Turk intellectuals was tried to be revealed during the great cleansing period between1937-1938. Khakas Turks differ from other Turkish societies within the USSR in historical, geographical and cultural manner. Khakases, who have a history of 2000 years, is known to be a Kyrgyz group. Their first known native land was the Yenisei River region. Epic of Manas also states that the Kyrgyzes of Khan Tengri Mountain were migrated under the leadership of Manas Khan. The Turkish communities which did not participate in this migration and continued to live near Yenisei River were referred to as Yenisei Kyrgyzes. In the following period, Yenisei Kyrgyzes adopted a different identity and formed the presentday Khakas people because of the distance between the Kyrgyzes of Khan Tengri Mountain and their acceptance of the Islam. The Khakases, who were Shamans before the annexation of their territories by the Tsarist Russia in the 18th century, were forced into (Orthodox) Christianity after the Russian annexation. While the Khakas Turks were also known as Minusinsk Tatars during the Tsarist period, they began to be known as Khakases after the Bolshevik Revolution (1917). In July 1876, Khakas Turks, who were massively baptized with the supervision of Russian soldiers, were considered to be collectively Orthodox by Tsarism. Despite the fact that, they did not break with the Shaman traditions as a majority even after this date. For this reason, Orthodoxy has historically been associated with violence and Russification for the Khakas.
Yet, in those years, Soviet newspapers developed a systematic hate speech against the so-called public enemies and they also acted to legitimize the executions, to subdue people by intimidating and to target community leaders as enemy. Accordingly, the role of the newspapers of The Krasnoyarsk Worker, Soviet Khakassia and Soviet Siberia which serve as the official propaganda tool of the communist regime and used to manipulate and formalizing the society’s emotions and thoughts in accordance with party policies, has been evaluated in this process. In this context, archives of these newspapers published in 1937-1938 were reviewed and the findings were evaluated. The Union of Siberian Turks, founded by Khakas Turkic intellectuals, and the activities carried out against the members of this union are also discussed in this manner. The oppression and atrocities against the Khakas Turkic intellectuals and how these events were reflected in the relevant Soviet newspapers were examined in detail in this article.
