Illegally denied: manipulations related to the registration of the Veps identity in the late Soviet Union

Abstract

This article raises questions about the relationship between theory and practice, legality and illegality in the late Soviet nationalities policy, and the role played by various branches of power. It focuses on the Veps, an indigenous ethnic minority in the northwest of Russia. In the Brezhnev era, quite a few officials and census takers refused to register the Veps nationality in personal identification documents and during censuses, claiming, incorrectly, that the Veps were not in the official list of nationalities or that they were a people (narodnost’), not a nationality (natsional’nost’), and hence could not be registered as one. The Veps were counted as Russians instead. These bureaucratic practices, widespread in Leningrad and Vologda oblasti, but not in Karelia, contradicted official nationalities policy, passport regulations, and census instructions. It seemed that the Soviet state no longer recognized the Veps as an ethnic community. The article claims that the mass refusal to register the Veps nationality was intentional and directed by the regional authorities. The goal was to accelerate the assimilation of the Veps, a policy that worked well. The official number of Veps decreased extremely rapidly in the 1970 and 1979 censuses, only to recover in 1989, after the manipulations had ended.

Keywords:

• Veps
• census
• nationalities policy
• Soviet Union
• assimilation

Notes

1. The Sheltozero (Šoutarv) ethnic raion (district) in Karelia survived until 1956. The nonrecognition of the Veps language place names and their replacement with Russian names was part of the Soviet nationalities policy regarding the Veps. In this article, the Veps language place names are included in parentheses.

2. 1959 data, see Itogi 1963, tables 53, 54. 1970 data; see Itogi 1973, tables 3, 5, 6. 1979 data, see Chislennost’ 1984, tables 14, 15, 16. 1989 data, see Natsional’nyi 1990, 9, 103, 104, 106. The number in parentheses mean that no data were published after the census. The numbers for 1970 and 1979 in parentheses were published later (Natsional’nyi 1990, 103, 106). The number of Veps in the Leningrad oblast’ in 1979 was also indicated in Itogi 1980, table 3, but this book was for restricted use. For the number of Veps in the Vologda oblast in 1959, see Strogalshchikova 2006, 384–385 or 2008, table 1. There are no references to the primary source.

3. According to 1926 data, 99% of the Veps in Russia lived in rural areas; in 1939, 84.9%; in 1959 70.7%.

4. Pokhoziaistvennaia kniga sel’sovetskogo ucheta (Rural Soviet Accounting Household Book) – the book in which the secretary of the village soviet kept accounts on all the households in the territory. Along with other personal data, the nationality was also included in the book. These books started to be kept in 1935 and kolkhoz (collective farm) workers were first registered there.

5. Etnograficheskii voprosnik (Petrozavodsk, 1983), 450 copies, each intended for interviewing two persons.

6. I interviewed 10 people in the Leningrad oblast and 11 in the Vologda oblast’. I indicate the interviewee’s gender (man or woman), date of birth, and oblast’ (Leningrad or Vologda).

7. On how Soviet Jews and Germans tried to change their passport nationality, see Karklins (1986, 34).

8. An interesting case in this context is Khrushchev’s data on the 614 passports issued to Veps between 1940 and 1979 by the Shugozero (Šugarv) passport office in the Leningrad oblast’. In 150 cases, those applying for passports wanted their nationality to be recorded as Russian, but observing the official rules, the passport official refused and they remained Veps based on their parents’ nationality (Khrushchev 1996, 44).

9. Strogalshchikova subsequently searched for these complaints in the archives, but did not find them. Of course, they did not make their way into the press at that time.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Eesti Teadusagentuur [9271].