“Why not love our language and our culture?” National rights and citizenship in Khrushchev's Soviet Union

Abstract

This paper highlights campaigns for national rights among two non-titular communities in the Soviet Union and places them in local historical contexts. Drawing on archival sources and oral history interviews, the author not only delves into the campaigns themselves, but also explores broader debates about the nature of Khrushchev's Thaw and Soviet citizenship, which was far from an empty concept in the Khrushchev era. Petitioners invoked discourses that indicate both an awareness of national rights and an expectation of the state's obligation to protect them. Oral history interviews with surviving petitioners and community members support the notion that petition language can serve as a reflection of how petitioners viewed their place in Soviet society and interpreted the Soviet citizen contract.

Keywords:

• Soviet nationality policy
• Khrushchev
• citizenship
• Soviet history
• nationality politics
• post-World War II era

Notes

1. The research and writing of this article were made possible by support from the US Department of Education's Fulbright-Hays Program, the Social Science Research Council, and the University of Michigan. Earlier versions of this article were presented to the 2012 SSRC Eurasia Program DDA Fellows Workshop at Georgetown University and to the Soviet Nationalities Question after 1945 Symposium at the University of Toronto. I am grateful to these workshop participants, to the editor and anonymous readers of Nationalities Papers, and to Douglas Northrop, Ronald Suny, Bruce Grant, Golfo Alexopoulos, James von Geldern, Ian Campbell, and Claire Pogue Kaiser for their suggestions. Thanks also to Zbigniew Wojnowski for organizing and editing this issue. For the epigraph, see Azərbaycan Respublikası Prezidentinin İşlər İdarəsinin Siyasi Sənədlər Arxivi, Baku (hereafter ARPIISSA) f.1, op.48, d.405, l.90.

2. Work stoppages and other acts of protest occurred in the late Stalin era as well, but behaviors evolved over time. By the late 1950s, the CPSU Central Committee had approved the return of exiled Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, and Kalmyks and reconstituted their republics, but failed to similarly rehabilitate others such as the Crimean Tatars (Pohl 2002; Westren 2012, 331–430).

3. There is no agreement about the definition and use of the terms Ingilo and Georgian to describe this population. The anonymous petitioners in the epigraph, for example, identify themselves as “Mohammedans” [magometane] from “Ingilo” villages. They also specify that they consider themselves to be part of the Georgian narod (ARPIISSA f.1, op.48, d.405, ll.89–93). Moscow-based and Georgian ethnographers generally categorize this population as an ethnographic group of the Georgian nation. For example, ethnographer N.G. Volkova defined “Ingilo” as a term used by Ingilo people and Azerbaijanis to refer to the “Georgian population” of northwest Azerbaijan (1977, 87). Azerbaijani scholars tend to emphasize differences between Georgian and Georgian-Ingilo origins and favor the Ingilo ethnonym. I use the term “Georgian-Ingilo” here in order to be inclusive of the different ways in which people have identified themselves to me and in archived petitions – including as Ingilo, Georgian, Azerbaijani Georgian (Ingilo), and Georgian-Ingilo.

4. Soviet censuses put the number of Georgians in Azerbaijan at 10,196 in 1939 (Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1939 goda 1992, 71) and 9526 in 1959 (Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie SSSR 1963, 134–135). These numbers probably only account for Christian Georgian-Ingilo settlements and Georgians elsewhere in the AzSSR as the Muslim Georgian-Ingilo population generally was categorized as Azerbaijani in Soviet passports and censuses. Other population estimates are similarly vague and inconsistent. In 1924, for example, Liaister and Chursin documented 15,000 “Ingilo” (also called Zaqatala Georgians and Georgian-Muslims in the text) in Azerbaijan (1924, 282). In 1944, the first secretaries of Azerbaijan and Georgia, Mir Cafar Bagirov and Kandid Charkviani, reported to Stalin that there were 8147 “Ingilo” persons in Qax, Balakan, and Zaqatala (sak'art'velos šinagan sak'met'a saministros ark'ivi II, Tbilisi [hereafter, sšssa (II)], f.14. op.18. d.180. l.5). An undated document likely produced in the late 1950s or early 1960s for the Central Committee of Azerbaijan's Communist Party reported that there were 6000 “Ingilo” in Azerbaijan, but it is unclear who it counted as “Ingilo” (ARPIISSA, f.1, op.48, d.405, l.38). In the late 1970s, meanwhile, ethnographer Volkova reported that 5000 “Georgians” lived in the “Qaxingilo” administrative area of the Qax region (1977, 88).

5. This article is based on archival research and more than 120 oral history interviews that I conducted between 2007 and 2013. I briefly worked with documents about Soviet nationality policies in the archive of Azerbaijan's Communist Party (ARPIISSA) in 2008, but archive employees informed me that my research topic was no longer permitted in later trips. The archival records of Georgia's Communist Party proved valuable for this project, but the Lezgin case is not richly documented outside of Azerbaijan. A search of available files in the Central State Archive of the Republic of Dagestan turned up few documents about Lezgins in Azerbaijan. This indicates a lower level of kin republic support for Lezgins and is in line with information that I collected in oral history interviews.

6. For the Muscovite period, see Kivelson (2002) and Kollmann (1999).

7. Marshall's definition of citizenship, for example, has been used to evaluate the Soviet case (Marshall 1964, cited in Alexopoulos 2006, 495 and in Varga-Harris 2006, 114). Alexopoulos, for example, juxtaposes Soviet citizenship with Marshall's triad of civil, political, and social protections and finds that only social citizenship (or “the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security”) was meaningful in the USSR since economic rights there were “reasonably protected” (2006, 495). Alexopoulos notes, however, that European and American citizenships also have fallen short of “the modern ideal of an equality of citizens” (2006, 487).

8. This resonates with Kozlov's argument that mass disturbances in the post-Stalin years often reflected popular investment in the Soviet system rather than anti-regime or anti-Communist dissent (Kozlov 2002). Kevin O'Brien formulated the notion of “rightful resistance” in his work on China, but it is also helpful for thinking about the Soviet case. According to O'Brien, rightful resistance

 entails the innovative use of laws, policies, and other officially promoted values to defy ‘disloyal’ political and economic elites; it is a kind of partially sanctioned resistance that uses influential advocates and recognized principles to apply pressure on those in power who have failed to live up to some professed ideal or who have not implemented some beneficial measure. (1996, 33)

9. Margaret Somers's approach to citizenship is productive for theorizing Soviet citizenship. Somers foregrounds the localized and uneven nature of rights regimes and explores the “relational settings of contested but patterned relations among people and institutions” that shape citizenship formation (1998, 161). She further draws on Hannah Arendt and Earl Warren to define citizenship as “the right to have rights,” with access to political and social membership serving as baseline parameters (Somers 2008, 5–6).

10. Given the delayed pace of non-titular national cultural development and minority region indigenization in the 1920s and 1930s, many Georgian-Ingilo schools were switched from Azerbaijani- to Georgian-language instruction only in 1937 and 1938. This means that they functioned as Georgian-language schools for just a few years before being converted back to Azerbaijani-language schools in the early 1940s (sšssa (II), f.14. op.18. d.180. l.6).

11. Georgian archives contain complaint letters and informational reports written by a few other individuals. For example, Archil Gavrilovich Dzhanashvili was from Qax, built his career in Tbilisi, and sent the Georgian government lengthy reports explaining why Balakan, Qax, and Zaqatala should be transferred to Georgia (sšssa [II], f.14, op.18, d.180, ll.46–94).

12. See, for example, sšssa (II), f.14, op.20, d.271, l.2; sšssa (II), f.14, op.24, d.296, l.1.

13. People in Zaqatala, Qax, and Balakan frequently talked about Gamkharashvili's activism in oral history interviews.

14. Cited pages translated for the author from Georgian to Russian by Timothy Blauvelt. Charkviani came to know Gamkharashvili either in person or through the complaint letters that Gamkharashvili sent him, but does not seem to know Gamkharashvili in the early part of the 1940s. For instance, in a letter to Charkviani and Valerian Bakradze, the Chairman of the Georgian Sovnarkom, in 1943, Gamkharashvili introduces himself by claiming acquaintance with Comrade S. Khoshtari (sšssa [II], f.14, op.18, d.180, l.31). He might be referring to Semyon Khostaria, a deputy in the Council of Nationalities (Sovet natsional'nostei).

15. Ibid., ll.5–7.

16. Azərbaycan Respublikası Dövlət Arxivi, Baku [hereafter, ARDA] f.411, op.25, d.521, l.156, and ARPIISSA f.1, op.220, d.50, ll.22–23. The latter document is cited in Gasanly (2008, 461–464).

17. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow [hereafter, GARF] f.3316, op.29, d.576, l.2.

18. GARF f.3316, op.29, d.576, l.3.

19. I did not find evidence of an official “lezgi pulu” policy, but various sources indicate that it was an informal practice in Azerbaijan. “Lezgi pulu” is a pointed topic in myriad oral history interviews, in a lengthy complaint letter written by a group of Lezgin poets, writers, teachers, and other cultural figures in 1963 (ARPIISSA f.1, op.56, d.38, l.372), and in a short book of Lezgin history written in 1990 by a Lezgin activist and his son (Rizvanov and Rizvanov 1990, 30). I also heard similar stories in oral history interviews that I conducted with people from other national communities in Azerbaijan. For example, Lezgins complain that they had to pay a special fee to attend school if they did not change their registered nationality to Azerbaijani. A Lak woman from Zaqatala, meanwhile, recounted that she and other students from “Dagestani” nationalities could attend Azerbaijani-language schools for free in the 1940s, but had to pay a special fee to enroll in the local Russian-language school.

20. Vasil Mzhavanadze – who became first secretary of the Georgian SSR in 1953 and stayed on until 1972 – was Georgian, but was something of an outsider in the republic. He developed his political career in Ukraine and was one of Khrushchev's protégés.

21. Not long after Beria's execution in December 1953, Bagirov was expelled from the Party and arrested, charged with supporting anti-Soviet elements and condemned for his close relationship with Beria. Bagirov was executed in 1956.

22. Hasanli is transliterated as Gasanly in citations for his Russian-language publications.

23. ARPIISSA f.1, op.46, d.110, ll.324–325.

24. ARPIISSA f.1, op.53, d.36, l.123.

25. ARPIISSA f.1, op.48, d.405, l.72.

26. Ibid., l.4.

27. Ibid., l.138.

28. Azərbaycan Respublikası Dövlət Arxivinin Şəki filialı, Shaki (hereafter, ARDA SF), f.201, op.1, d.202, l.286. The name of Qax-Gurcu was later changed to Qax-Ingilo.

29. ARPIISSA f.1, op.46, d.110, ll.316–319.

30. ARDA f.411, op. 8, d.536, l.58.

31. Ibid., ll.59–61.

32. ARPIISSA f.1, op. 48, d.405, ll.58–59.

33. Ibid., l.6. No date is given in the document, but the content suggests it was written in 1962 or 1963.

34. Ibid., ll.129–130, and Ibid., ll.123–126. This was a common narrative in oral history interviews, including one that I conducted with a former school inspector, who detailed ways in which enrollments in Georgian school sectors were underreported and parents were pressured to enroll their children in Azerbaijani sectors.

35. Ibid., l.8.

36. ARPIISSA f.1, op.53, d.36, ll.127–128.

37. Ibid., ll.129–134.

38. Azerbaijan government reports from the 1960s hint at the widespread nature of agitation about Georgian-Ingilo national rights after school conversions began in 1954, but archives also preserved petitions sent in the 1960s from Tbilisi student dorms, Zayam, Mosul, Qax-Gurcu (which later became Qax-Ingilo), Aliabad, and elsewhere. See, for example, ARPIISSA f.1, op.48, d.405, l.86; Ibid., ll.100–104.

39. Khrushchev called for a return to socialist legality in his Secret Speech. It was a euphemism for due process, stronger legal institutions, and better adherence to laws and legal norms.

40. Rikhin Gaf (known as Serdechnoe Slovo in Russian) first met on 18 October 1959, and functioned until 1988 (Rizvanov [undated samizdat], 115).

41. ARPIISSA f.1, op.56, d.38, ll.357–360. The Lezgin decree was adopted in August 1962.

42. Azərbaycan Respublikası Dövlət Ədəbiyyat və İncəsənət Arxivi, Baku (hereafter, ARDAIA), f.340, op.1, d.990, ll.39–40.

43. ARPIISSA f.1, op.56, d.38, l.348.

44. For example, Pyle shows that peasants seeking state assistance during World War I both invoked specific legal rights and appealed to informal “rules” or moral principles (1997, 60). In her study of housing petitions in Khrushchev-era St. Petersburg, Varga-Harris argues that a new mode of negotiation developed during the Thaw, but also finds that complainants in her study often blurred the lines between supplicant and citizen (2006, 111).

45. Fitzpatrick also identifies a citizen type who invokes a language of rights; criticizes policies, officials, or miscarriages of justice; and denies, underplays, or conceals personal motives connected to the complaint, but this type is underdeveloped in comparison with her supplicant profile (1996, 104).

46. sšssa (II), f.14, op.18, d.161, ll.1–19.

47. For example, sšssa (II), f.14, op.20, d.271, l.5.

48. Ibid., l.13.

49. sšssa (II), f.14, op.18, d.180, l.30.

50. sšssa (II), f.14, op.20, d.271, l.2.

51. sšssa (II), f.14, op.18, d.180, l.31.

52. Ibid., ll.74–94. Saingilo is the term that many Georgian-Ingilo and Georgians use to describe the three regions where Georgian-Ingilo live in Azerbaijan.

53. ARPIISSA, f.1, op.48, d.405, ll.79–80.

54. Ibid., l.100.

55. Ibid., l.144. Akhundov replaced Mustafaev in 1959.

56. Ibid., l.143.

57. ARPIISSA, f.1, op.56, d.38, l.373.

58. Ibid., l.333.

59. ARPIISSA, f.1, op.48, d.405, l.90.

60. ARPIISSA, f.1, op.56, d.38, l.366; ARPIISSA, f.1, op.48, d.405, ll.141–144.

61. Several people recounted comparable narratives in oral history interviews, but Rizvanov provides the most complete description of repression directed against participants. Khvathal [KIватIал] was an informal name for Rikhin Gaf.

62. Peris links this pattern to a long-standing belief in the benevolence of authority figures, but finds in his case that central officials often forwarded the complaints to local officials instead of resolving them.