“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. In this way, the post-Stalinist Sovi- the tracks decoding, causality projections and et society was rather ready to create and use the emotional attitudes into a relatively uncontro- enemies to experience complex time regimes versial whole. The combination of poor rep- and implement cultural hierarchies, than to resentation means and the endless scale of the eliminate them. unexpressed is universal and doesn’t refer to In the Soviet Transbaikalia, the collective the era of epistemological doubts, as well as imagination was mostly focused on the mythol- to the end of grand narratives directly. Those ogy of the Semenov movement. In the perspec- societies, who maintain their memory by rigid tive of this legend, the public consciousness of teleological views, inevitably face the control the late USSR conceptualized alternative and boundaries both over the language of past rep- less desirable models of the Russian culture resentation and over its understanding (Zalejko, and the opposition between ethnic and political 1994). The Soviet society was not an exception. solidarities (Peshkov, 2010). Being something The sacralization of political language was not close (representing a lost subculture) and act-

– 667 – Ivan O. Peshkov. “Returning Home as an Enemy”. The Languages for Description and Self-Description… ing as a semi-criminal anti-communist, a Se- citizens from the Cossacks’ own space, which menovite was a complete stranger. The issues remained untouched by the Sovietization, fixes of metisation, anti-communism and territo- a virtual Semenov’s territory as a boundary ries untouched by modernization were raised between the modern life and the past that is within this discourse as an ideological context completely lost. It should be noted that such of absolute evil. Formal and informal stories a statement, which is undoubtedly a discrim- about the cruelty of Semenov and his follow- inatory practice, was still a form of symbolic ers identified the Soviet Transbaikalia and an exclusion, which was practically not supported element of denial practices of decossackization by the repressive apparatus of the Soviet state. and the long-term Old Settlers marginalization. Paradoxically, this only strengthened the pow- Following this discursive logic, the denial prac- er of the legend, turning it into a semi-official tices reverse the context of events completely, knowledge of how things really look in the bor- representing the Communists repression as a der areas. form of public defense against a stigmatized Speaking on behalf of the dead, leaving group (Peshkov, 2010). them in the past – that is one of the main is- After Stalin’s death, the stories about the sues culture deals with. But haunting the past, Ataman and his followers became a collec- one, to some extent, is haunting the dead, with tive retro-hallucination of a cross-border an- their demands and their rights. The example of ti-communist resistance network in the region Antigone and Hamlet convince us that people that threatens the Soviet people. The Soviet are weak to imagine all the consequences of the specialists in Mongolia, soldiers of the Trans- dialogue with the past if one takes the dead’s baikal military okrug (district) and the Soviet rights seriously. Even the instrumental use of population in Mongolia People’s Republic, the return of the passed leads to new problems, migrants in Transbaikalia from other parts such as the appearance of new communities, of the USSR, and even KGB (Community for which “recognize” themselves in other peo- State Security) officers are so mesmerized by ple’s biographies, or extreme politicization of the semi-official legend of the Semenovites’ other people’s biographies that reproduces the presence, that they start to recognize them in past conflicts. By inhabiting the conventional the marginal groups of Russian Old Settlers of border regions of Inner Asia with revived white Inner Asia, who had nothing in common with guards, the Soviet society met the problem of them. The problem of negative description of how to treat their real or fake descendants. sterile and militarized border areas cannot be raised in simple categories of factual truth. One Genealogy of a non-community can assume, that the spatial representations of Where a non-community comes from? the world on the other side of the border com- The historical prototype of the imaginary Se- bined with the temporal patterns enabled the menov’s non-community in Inner Asia was a possibility to meet with the difficult Revolout- part of the Transbaikal Cossack community, ionary past and its uncompromising imperative which supported the white guards in Transbai- political definition. kalia and continued to fight against the Soviet As the Soviet soldiers in Transbaikalia and power till the end of the World War II (Pesh- Mongolia remember, the Mongolian and Trans- kov, 2012). After the anti-communist statehood baikal periphery made it possible to see the in Transbaikalia was defeated, the most politi- Semenov’s Cossacks settlements which were cally active part of emigration didn’t stop their closed to the Soviet citizens. Such meetings attempts to cross the border and continue fight with the enemy, rumors of closed stanitsa (Cos- in the USSR with the Chinese and Japanese sack settlements) and attempts to feel the ene- military support. After the Kwantung army my express both the unconscious willingness was crushed, the whole residence areas were to recognize the enemy, as well as a imaginary forced to obey the Red Army and the NKVD geography of the Soviet frontier. Constantly re- (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) – peated stories about the expulsion of the Soviet all this led to the fact that the Cossack emigra-

– 668 – Ivan O. Peshkov. “Returning Home as an Enemy”. The Languages for Description and Self-Description… tion’s political activity was almost ceased. The and the Cultural Revolution (Peshkov, 2014). Transbaikal Cossacks in the USSR and abroad Their memory of living together with the Cos- were completely depoliticized, plaguing into sacks is generally negative, they do not want to the Soviet life or turning into a new emigrant have anything in common with the “Cossack community (the Cossacks from the Three Riv- Vendée” (Basharov, 2010). ers Region), which oriented to peaceful coex- The local Russians in Mongolia represent istence with the Soviet government. Still, ster- a mixed community of the descendants of Rus- ilization the border areas of Transbaikalia and sian peasants, Western Buryats, Cossacks and Mongolia was not the end, but the beginning Chinese who escaped from the hunger and col- of a new history of the Semenovites’ symbolic lectivization; it is recognized in the dictionary presence in the Soviet Transbaikalia, Mongo- of frontier disloyalty (Mikhalev, 2008). Despite lia and China. Surprisingly, inevitable de-mil- fighting in the Great Patriotic War and being itarization of the community took place at the generally loyal to the Soviet regime, the com- same time with increasing of its symbolic role munity was not able to overcome the negative in the cultural policy of the Soviet Transbai- image of being an implicit enemy. The rapid kalia. Semenov’s regime becomes the main of- growth of the Soviet-Mongolian cooperation ficial trauma of Transbaikalia: all the regional after 1966 caused a mass arrival of the Soviet memorials commemorate the victims of the At- specialists and military officers who were sur- aman Semenov’s rule. The real and fake crimes prised by the existence of non-Soviet Russians committed by the Semenovites are a crucial in Mongolia. The story of Ungern-Sternberg element in the Soviet Transbaikalia identifica- Cossacks’ descendants, hiding in Mongolia, is tion, as they create a picture of absurd kingdom becoming the label of this community. Though of terror, which even now determine the per- they live with the Soviet citizens together but ception of the region’s history. separately – nominally compatriots, but always Then, what groups were recognized as the perceived as former enemies. The complete followers to the Ataman’s dubious fame? First, recognition of their civil rights in 1979 did they are the residents of the former Cossack not change the situation: neither they, nor the settlements of Transbaikalia, the Mongolian soviet specialists noticed any changes. Alexei Russians and the Russians (former and present) Mikhalev described the relations between the who live in the Three Rivers Region, in China. Mongolian Russians’ civil status, historical ex- Among all this collection of groups, who of- perience of the frontier banditry and the com- ten had no idea about each other, repatriation munity being used as a disciplinary mechanism didn`t touch the descendants of the Transbai- as follows: kal Cossacks, who stayed in the USSR, and the “(...... ) the local Russian were compared to contemporary Russians in China. Those who the white guards and enemies. This model was belonged to the first community were ordinary easily naturalized because till the mid-1930s, Soviet people, whose only difference was to there were the military units subjected to dif- preserve unofficial memories about the Civil ferent atamans on the Mongolian border, who War events: now the atrocities of the Semen- were engaged into the cross-border banditry. ov’s were a wise (prosperous) attempt to pro- Such pattern which explains the origin of the tect the Cossacks from further sufferings, and local Russians stigmatized this community and the legendary heroes are analyzed on the ba- set the task “to atone for the Motherland”. This sis of common origin. The second community guilt was formed by the social exclusion – de- (Chinese Russians) is a group which includes nied access to political rights or to profitable mainly the descendants of mixed China-Rus- work, as well as the gaps in consumption and sian-Mongolian Orthodox families who live in social distance. The latter was especially im- the region at the present time. Their identity is portant because, as the guidance of the Soviet based on the oral version of their history, made specialists says, “for communication with the up of three traumas: the Civil War and fam- local Semenovites, one will be deported to the ine in Transbaikalia, the Japanese occupation mainland” (Mikhalev, 2016: 110).

– 669 – Ivan O. Peshkov. “Returning Home as an Enemy”. The Languages for Description and Self-Description…

After 1991, the local Russians were no massive amnesties (caused by sentences re- longer considered as the Semenovites, but re- statements) and general optimism of the Thaw mained aliens. Now they had to tackle the empowers the caesura of political repression. Transbaikal acculturation, manifested in But the category “enemy” did not simply disap- non-classical Orthodox practices and visits to pear from the political horizon, but rather took shamans and lamas. Such strange Orthodoxy on new and, in most cases, unexpected forms. is quite ironically becoming a new marker of The massive return from the camps leads to exclusion: the former Communists demand new problems to families, employment, and to canonical Orthodoxy from the former white public places (Humphrey, 2010). A new round guards. of the battle against religion, causes new vic- The Cossacks-repatriates community of tims, which cannot be compared with the Sta- the Three Rivers Region was associated with lin’s scale, but still very significant. The collec- the problematic region, social estate and time. tive guilt undergoes a careful revision: most of The Three Rivers Region (Sānhé qū) is the the deported peoples can return to their small Russian name for the delta of the three tribu- motherland, but some must patiently wait for taries of the Argun River (i.e. Derbul, Haul and their chance. This leads to the first dissidents Gahn), which underwent an integrated agricul- and public creative communities’ emergence tural colonization by refugees from the former that violates the party strategy. Russian Empire and then became the main Rus- In this perspective, despite that punitive sian agricultural center in China. Emergence of measures are generally mitigated, the catego- Manchukuo which led to semi-forced partici- ry of “enemy” becomes more complicated, in pation of the emigrants in protection of the bor- a new way combining the past, present and der. (Perminov, 2008). All this completely de- future in the people’s perception. “Former monized the community in the Soviet society’s people” are replaced by former prisoners and eyes. The aspect of real and mythical collab- exiled men, often restricted in their rights on oration largely pre-determined the community mobility and residence. The “enemy” becomes life after the War. When the Kwantung Army an anachronism that does not suit the “era of was defeated, the local Cossacks began step by space and corn”, which is marked by a bright- step moving to the USSR – first, as a forced er future vector. Obviously, not everyone can deportation to the Soviet camps, and after Sta- enter this future: the state still does not trust a lin’s death, as a semi-forced repatriation with huge number of people. Slightly changing the restricted rights for settlements in the Northern well-known words of Anna Akhmatova, both, Kazakhstan and the Ural Region. Only in 1994, “executed Russia” and “executing Russia”, 15 families returned in Transbaikalia to the must look into the eyes of the state first, which settlement of Senkina Pad’, near Priargunskiy suspect their executers as well as their victims. Rayon (District). It is worthy to note, that there There comes a new phenomenon: the so- was another emigration movement. Fearing re- ciety begins to outpace the state when recog- pressions, a big part of the Cossacks emigrated nizing the enemies. Thus, the disappearance through Shanghai to the USA, Canada, Austra- of punitive vocabulary from the code of crim- lia and the Philippines, and arranged their own inal procedure leads to a shift in the process agricultural settlements there. of enemy creation. If the state must call the enemies allegorically (a sectarian, freeloader, The enemy after the Thaw distributor of prohibited literature or pervert), What does it mean “to be an enemy after then the society takes the right to clearer the Stalin’s death”? When the judicial category definitions over. O. Kharkhordin describes the “the enemy of the people” disappeared (1958)1 shifting processes, which convert the mainte- it did not mean neither the old enemies van- nance to more subtle and horizontal and only ished nor new ones stopped being created. Of strengthen this trend (Kharkhordin, 2016). But course, a dramatic fall of political sentences, what is the status of the recognized enemy? Of course, through the lens of law, the enemy 1 Fixed in the Constitution till 1977 (Gutarova, 2012). – 670 – Ivan O. Peshkov. “Returning Home as an Enemy”. The Languages for Description and Self-Description… cannot be recognized without the state’s sanc- the fact, whether people from the past had a tion and support, i.e. it does not have any legal right for a brighter future. The situation wors- force and cannot be regarded as a performative ened by certain reactions to emotional black- act. But how do the society and the recognized mailing by the Soviet society. The problem was groups treat that? In this case, the situation not the rumors about a happy life abroad: the looks quite ambiguous. One should not under- former emigrants, except for the brave old Cos- estimate these more simple and weaker forms sack women-repatriates, quickly understood of performative activity. The recognition cre- the rules and restrictions. The problem lied in ates a semi-fictitious control community and avoidance and silence [Humphrey 2005], re- no less fictitious community of enemies. The inforcing the idea that they had something to reproduction of this regime does not result in hide. The emotional atmosphere of the Soviet the criminal prosecution, though may lead to work did no imply silence, the silenced Russia long-term restrictions on the real rights and of the prisoners and emigrants seemed a thrill- consent to exclusions. While direct forms of ing anachronism and nobody knew what to do discrimination can theoretically be suppressed with it. The encountered silence only increased by the state involved in the discussion about the distrust; avoiding conversation was a challenge person’s status, then more implicit forms of en- that called the public’s desire to understand emies distancing can occur automatically and who became one of them into question. This still be not so much clear (Humphrey, 2010). seems paradoxical, but such fear evoked a hid- In this way, “the public legal creativity” den voice and concealed thoughts: in the eyes shows increasing control of the society over the of the society, avoiding confrontation looked state (referring to the values ​​of confrontation like a confirmation of the deepest concerns. and clear friends-enemies distinction). One When speaking “Russian emigration”, may ask a question about the mechanisms of one might not think of the rural refugees creating new enemies. First, this relates to the from Transbaikalia, patiently reconstructing people who had lived abroad and after 1945 the ruined village life in the border areas of were massively returning. Who were they? Mongolia and China. The world of Cossacks, Were they innocent? Was it possible to redeem peasants, Old Believers and Christianized for- their past sins? The answers are not that sim- eigners, fleeing hunger and repression, seems ple as it may look. The emigration posed the to be completely lost in the maelstrom of great questions about the attitude to the past on the events and dramatic changes in the frontier ar- territory of the enemy. How to measure in- eas. Their life there, first, as incomprehensible, volvement (which is compulsory) into the army and then often negatively recognized commu- of other state or into the work of political body, nities, turned simple stories of the village life study at an intelligence institution, or just a qui- into a part of the massive process of the border et life away from a warring country (Ablazhei, territories filtration. It is the border that links 2007). How far they can be called “the Sovi- the time and place into an insoluble substance et citizens”? How can they prove their loyalty made of suspicion, fear and negative thoughts. to the country? The Soviet Union received the In this perspective, the former people of the right on a part of the emigration, but did the Russian settlements in Inner Asia represent emigrants receive the right to live among us? a forbidden life, condemned by the state and The answers were hard to find due to society to a collective name, responsibility and a new round of the Revolution and the Civ- penance. They had no place in the state’s fate il War cult, directly related to the attempts to and, thus, they were forever locked up by the bring Lenin back. The purity and humanism official versions of its past. of revolutionaries put the framework of eth- The Soviet people’s imagination demon- nic and political solidarity under discussion ized the local Mongolian Russians, fitting into once again. The Civil War quite convincingly this myth the normal features of the peripheral demonstrated that the ethnic solidarity does and agrarian group of the region: metisation, not guarantee political consent. This doubted aggression and bilingualism. The “Semeno-

– 671 – Ivan O. Peshkov. “Returning Home as an Enemy”. The Languages for Description and Self-Description… vite” in Mongolia becomes a symbol: an ag- of living together with the Semenov’s follow- gressively disposed metis – a descendant of ers form the one side and the general negative the Soviet power’s enemies and the one who no Soviet stereotype of Semenov’s from the other, longer related to the modern Russian culture. their public memory focuses on a mutual dra- The response aggression towards the Soviet ma of the Civil War and on “peaceful” aspects Union confirms the rumor, and the commu- of their parents life in Manchuria (economics, nity’s closed nature and its partial accultur- religion, community). Indeed, contrary to the ation in the Mongolian culture leads to new Soviet stereotype, the Cossacks of the Three mythologization. On the other hand, the local Rivers Region and their descendants recognize Russians accept this name by themselves, often themselves as a peaceful and politically passive not quite capturing its meaning. To put simply, group, which was the instrument of Japanese they played a game, not feeling its rules. All at- policy and became a victim of the Soviet and tempts to compromise and unite with the com- Chinese repressions. Their motherland met patriots are stopped even at the school level: the them with the black fame of the Ataman and Semenovites and the Soviet people live in dif- the official label of being Semenovites. The ferent styles and try not to meet each other. The lack of Soviet socialization and the real ex- people from the past evoke different feelings: perience of life in the border areas made any fear, respect, contempt, hate, but not mercy and dialogue impossible. The society did not want sympathy. Their feelings and intentions are to hear about the past, and the repatriates did vague, they are completely in the shadow of the not understand the black-and-white picture of imposed hostile image, which makes it impos- the Transbaikal disaster. For the community it sible to be interested in their internal problems. was hard to learn the Soviet semiotic field: to One of my respondents described a life full of speak the language of power (Kotkin, 1997), to contradictions in two ways: a normal Soviet remain silent (Humphrey, 2009) and to adapt school girl in Mongolia and a recognized mem- narratives about the past to the capacities of the ber of the enemy community: “We still do not host society (Figes, 2007). fully understand why the Soviet people hated The popular Soviet version and its influ- us so much. We just wanted to be and indeed ence on the attitude of institutions-society rela- were like them, but no one heard or took us se- tions cause de-politicization of biographies and riously. We had to be enemies, traitors, descen- family histories. The surnames and events used dants of the white guards”. The transformation in the Soviet narratives (Semenov, Semeno- of peasant refugees (Scott, 2009) into fearsome vites, collaboration with the Japanese army) enemies of the Soviet regime was supported by are generally excluded from the dictionary and a lack of clear story about their experience. The the main emphasis is put on universal neutral group described in terms of exclusion (non-So- elements of the memories: family, religion and viet, non-Mongols, non-Chinese) has never be- Chinese exoticism. Being unable to confront come more than a regional community. Their the Soviet propaganda machine, the group memory concentrates on the horrors of the Civ- completely rejected the political components of il War, hunger and hard life in Mongolia. the family history. The stories about the past For the Cossack repatriates, the life in of the Cossacks are aimed at opposing the So- China and Kazakhstan grounds the group viet cliché about the Semenovites’ crimes to a identity. Except a few senior members of the semi-idyllic image of a peaceful and hardwork- families born in Transbaikalia, the Manchuri- ing community. The complete de-politicization an experience has determined the community of the past was a natural reaction to the political identity. Its memory is centered around a happy conflict provoked by the Soviet society. The So- childhood and youth in the Three Rivers Re- viet propaganda and the collective imagination gion and the Soviet life. The first post-Cossack of the Soviet people artificially politicized the generation lives in an ideological vacuum: they group, considering them as anti-communists are far from both the anti-communist move- and enemies of the Soviet society. When they ment and the USSR: being seized by the reality returned to the USSR, the group did not have

– 672 – Ivan O. Peshkov. “Returning Home as an Enemy”. The Languages for Description and Self-Description… any strong anti-Soviet position, and the crash border population through the prism of inev- of the Semenov alternatives was obvious. itable political impurity, using the experience One can state, that the de-politicization of of repatriates from Inner Asia as example. The narratives about the past strengthened its alien- communities captured by this phantom are not ation in Soviet society, rather than led to the able to resist the language of accusation: they group’s Sovietization. Being out of the policy either do not understand the essence, or do not sharpened the need for the family indepen- know how to speak the language of the Soviet dence, religion and individual work ethics as memory. The complex temporality of the So- the main criteria for the identity. After 1991, viet worldview made the past a realm of po- the community continued to distance from the litical struggle and sharply politicized almost post-Soviet versions of the Civil War, but, un- neutral reactions: avoidance, silence, misun- like the pro-Soviet residents of Transbaikalia, derstanding, or tiredness from a wild history it finds the cause of the region’s economic and of the border regions. In this way, the foreign social crisis in the politics of Soviet period. guests immediately became “the people from The dangerous past of the border regions is the past”, reinforcing the concerns and fears haunting the Cossack-repatriate communities about the credibility to the Soviet state. Unlike and the local Mongolian Russians in the unex- the Stalin period, when panic and fear were pected form of symbolic exclusion, almost not a strictly planned performance of the loyalty, supported by the repressive state policy. Both now we deal with the public initiative, only communities were weak to understand, much partially and with huge limitations supported less to accept the projected collective guilt for by the state. the Civil War, representing typical agriculture Even though a certain degree of distrust of refugees. The lack of the Soviet socialization in the ethnic or political conformity of new in the first case or the basic stigmatization in citizens is almost universal, the described case the second, leads to leaving and avoiding the highlights the intensity of the public demand political language through the family stories. from “normal” citizens for the doubts about In both cases, communities try to get away the repatriates’ loyalty. The described ways for from the politics, constantly emphasizing their creating and recognizing the enemy represent severe fate, hardworking nature and loyalty to possible turning political actions into fanta- the Russian culture. sies, silence, or even misunderstanding. In this perspective, the need for the enemy can be far Conclusion from what the state expects and continues to The article analyzes the specifics of the be the main obstacle to reconciliation after a Soviet practices of suspicion, restricting the national catastrophe.

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«Вернуться на Родину врагом». Языки описания и самоописания репатриантов из Внутренней Азии

И.О. Пешков Университет имени Адама Мицкевича в Познани Польша, Познань

Аннотация. Статья исследует сомнения и тревоги, связанные с возвращением в поле советского гражданства двух сообществ русских старожилов Внутренней Азии: казаков-­репатриантов из Трехречья и местнорусских из Монголии. Теорети- ческой основой статьи является положение об эпистемологическом характере при- сутствия прошлого, что обозначает определяющее влияние современных условий на историческое познание в его любых формах. В этой перспективе память о про- шлом может рассматриваться не только как его субъективное отражение, но и как социальная практика, определяющая статус сообщества. Задача данной статьи – показать, как советский человек использовал речевые практики по отношению к временному и пространственному несоответствию репатриантов. Способы линг- вистического создания образа врага и его освоение целевыми группами в обычной жизни будут главными вопросами этой статьи. Вызывающее недоверие и тревогу решение о репатриации в этой перспективе является удобным маркером включения локального политического фольклора в конфликт между этнической и политиче- ской солидарностями в советском обществе.

Ключевые слова: мифология китайско-российско-монгольской границы.

Научная специальность: социальная антропология.