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“Returning Home As an Enemy”. the Languages for Description and Self-Description of Inner Asia Repatriates

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“Returning Home As an Enemy”. the Languages for Description and Self-Description of Inner Asia Repatriates Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 2020 13(5): 665–675 DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-0597 УДК 314.747 “Returning Home as an Enemy”. The Languages for Description and Self-Description of Inner Asia Repatriates Ivan O. Peshkov* Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan) Poznań, Poland Received 07.03.2020, received in revised form 30.04.2020, accepted 08.05.2020 Abstract. The article explores the doubts and anxieties associated with the return of two communities of Russian long-term residents of Inner Asia – the Cossack repatriates of the Three Rivers Region and the local Mongolian Russians – to the Soviet citizenship. The theoretical basis of the article is the statement about the epistemological character of the presence of the past, which determines a crucial influence of the current terms on any historical knowledge. In this perspective, the memory of the past can be considered not only as its subjective reflection, but also as a social practice that identifies the community’s status. The purpose of this article is to show how the Soviet people used speech practices in relation to the temporary and spatial discrepancy of repatriates. The main characters of this article will be the ways of creating an image of the enemy linguistically and mastering it by target groups in everyday life. In this perspective, the decision to repatriate, which causes distrust and alarm, is a convenient marker for the inclusion of local political folklore in the conflict between ethnic and political solidarity in Soviet society. Keywords: China – Russia – Mongolia-frontier mythology. Research area: social anthropology. Citation: Peshkov, I.O. (2020). “Returning home as an enemy”. The languages for description and self-description of inner Asia repatriates. J. Sib. Fed. Univ. Humanit. Soc. Sci., 13(5), 665-675. DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-0597. © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0001-8923-1937 – 665 – Ivan O. Peshkov. “Returning Home as an Enemy”. The Languages for Description and Self-Description… Introduction noying accident. Someone must tell the truth Let’s imagine: the remote border re- that “the enemy always remains the enemy”. gions of the 1970s USSR are dwelled by the This image is not a fiction of a graphoma- Cossacks-like enemies, who live openly in a niac writer or dreams of an officer who is tired completely militarized and clear borders tri- of his pension time. This is a common and par- angle – the USSR, Mongolia and China. They tially embodied model for the mass perception live together with the Soviet people or separate- of events related to the implicit political and so- ly in the settlements, keeping a centuries-old cial alternatives in the Soviet, Mongolian and lifestyle. They hate the Soviet regime, as well Chinese border regions. When facing such phe- as the Soviet people; the bravest people among nomenon, the first question is the status of the them cross the Soviet-Chinese border, go- speech practices that make so huge retro-hallu- ing bold on the raids on the frontier posts and cinations possible. killing the Soviet soldiers. If they live in the The article describes a set of unexpected Transbaikal territory, they aggressively get rid effects of the distrust to the post-war Mongo- of the Soviet soldiers in the Cossack izba (log lian and Chinese repatriates, that is reflected huts), being desperate to shoot at any Soviet in the official Soviet dictionary. That sounds thing. They are dressed in old-fashioned man- quite simply: the absence of a verified past ner and armed. Though life keeps going on: and a common fear in the people who left the the collective farms and factories are trying to USSR by themselves – have led to practices of execute the plan, soldiers are serving, and the exclusion and mistrust. Most post-war repatri- parties of the border conflicts are ignoring the ates, one way or another, encountered the same rebel ataman (the Cossacks’ chieftain). Televi- problems and their route to the homeland was sion, central newspapers – even “Zabaikalskiy not always so easy. Still, it is not that simple, Worker” – remain unvoiced. The truth, terri- as it might seem. The consequences mean the ble and appealing, fragmented and hidden, was ability of speech to create a context that tear the said people-to-people, turning the vast territo- time and space framework, owing to which not ry of Mongolia, Transbaikalia and the Chinese just long-dead enemies could become alive, but border territories into a space of strange and also the border territories again plagued into impossible events. the Civil War mystery. Their unexpected na- Despite the silence, chronic to the the So- ture was to declare that there were some areas viet people, someone must stand between the in the Soviet Republics that were inhospitable idyllic country and the enemy. The soldiers, to the Soviet power. Why then, in an era when specialists from other regions who came to “the signifiers are intentionally attached to the Transbaikalia, the Soviet people in Mongo- signified” (Humphrey, 2005: 337), it is possi- lia regard such indifference of the locals as a ble to voice certain doubts in the most tolerate partnership, or maybe even a conspiracy. They dictionary, that the state can guarantee internal are not completely aware of how the state can safety? Why can the state’s decision be thrown give the Soviet citizenship to the white guards there into question? What is the language fea- from Mongolia and China. What is the sense? ture of an illegal fear of a created enemy in the A blind eye of the capital, which doesn`t see time of “vegetarian socialism”? all the specifics of the region? Underestimating The article aims finding the answer by in- the enemy’s foul play and determination or a vestigating the return of two Russian old com- forced obligation to take home a superficially munities to the Soviet citizenship from Inner reformed enemies? The Soviet people are ea- Asia, i.e. the Cossacks repatriates from the ger (or, mainly, forced) eliminate the state’s Three Rivers Region and the Mongolian Rus- mistake: the people from the past must remain sians. Methodologically the article is based on there. They do not communicate with the local the epistemological treatment of the past, which Russians in Mongolia and avoid the Chinese decisively causes influence of the contempo- repatriates. The Soviet citizenship cannot be rality on all the forms of historical knowledge withdrawn, still it can be ignored – like an an- (Kaplonski, 2010: 116-117). Both, in science and – 666 – Ivan O. Peshkov. “Returning Home as an Enemy”. The Languages for Description and Self-Description… in the memoirs of “ordinary people”, the mean- a panacea for doubts, irritation, and even for ing of the past (evaluations, lessons, emotional alternative views on the past. The analysis of component) does not exist objectively and re- dissident movement in the USSR shows that mains as a result of the experience interpreted the “real Lenin” was no less dangerous than through the prism of the present time. In this the dissident groups or “Voice of America” way, the memory of the past can be not only its (Nikonova, 2008). The reduce of the traumatic subjective reflection, but also a social practice past representations, available for the society, determining the community status. The article paradoxically caused new forms of represen- is aimed not at presenting a whole picture of tations that creatively use official discursive the Soviet citizenship’s semiotics, but – more forms to get their own goals. modest – at showing how the Soviet people The Soviet people’s collective imagina- practice their language when speaking about tion was mainly captured by the mythologies the temporary and spatial inconsistencies of the of three places of political and ethnic confron- repatriates. The linguistic means for the enemy tation, i.e. the Bandera`s Ukraine, Semenov`s image creation and for mastering it by the tar- Transbaikalia and Central Asia filled with the get groups in their everyday life are the focus Basmachi bandits. In many ways, the follow- of this article. In this way, a decision on repa- ers of Semenov, Bandera and Basmachi were triation, which rises concerns and mistrust, is the ones who shaped the geography of politi- an appropriate indicator for engaging the local cal demonology of the Soviet frontier. Despite political folklore into the conflict between eth- all the differences in time, places and culture, nic and political solidarity in the Soviet society. their dark legends were combined by the func- The article relies on the field data obtained in tion of border management, – in other words the 2015 – 2016 fall in Mongolia, Inner Mongo- they played a role of disciplinary narrative un- lia and Chitinskaya Oblast’ are used. der the frontier socialism mode. Telling about the traumatic experience of the expansion of Calling for the past: Soviet models of life, these legends were si- Soviet-China border stays the same multaneously a way of experiencing cultural The relations between language and re- hierarchies, fears, and a semi-conscious inner ality are the basic interest for the social sci- need for the material presence of the enemy. ences, which cannot be satisfied through a Their near-borders presence allowed consid- simple referential-performative opposition in ering them as a contact with something for- the description of the world (Agamben, 2018; eign and hostile in the Soviet perspectives. Benveniste, 1966). The problem becomes even Therefore, unlike the classical enemies of the more complicated if the speech practices are Soviet man, the border virtual non-communi- past-centered: the physical absence of the ref- ties (Zahra, 2010) were the groups of luminal erent (past) enables drawing the past closer by creatures made of contradictions in the Soviet complex linguistic constructions, which links worldview.
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