AUS AndrejAUS Kotljarchuk In the Forge of Stalin Gammalsvenskby is the only Swedish settlement to the east from Finland, founded in 1782. In the past of Gammalsvenskby the history of the Soviet Union, Sweden, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis the international communist movement and Nazi Germany combined in a bizar- Stockholms Studies In History, 100 re form. And even when the ploughmen of the Kherson steppes did not left their native village, the great powers themselves visited them with the intention to rule forever. The history of colony is viewed through the prism of the theory of “forced normalization” and the concept of “changes of collective identity“. The author intends to study the techniques of forced normalization and the strategy of the In the Forge of Stalin collective resistance. Swedish Colonists of Ukraine in Totalitarian Experiments Andrej Kotljarchuk is an associate professor in history, working as a university of the Twentieth Century lecturer at the Department of History, Stockholm University; and as a senior rese- archer at the School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University. His research focuses on ethnic minorities and role of experts’ communities, mass Andrej Kotljarchuk Stockholm 2014 violence and the politics of memory. His recent publications include the book chap- ters “The Nordic Threat: Soviet Ethnic Cleansing on the Kola Peninsula” (2014), “The Memory of Roma Holocaust in Ukraine: Mass Graves, Memory Work and the Politics of Commemoration” (2014); as well as the articles “World War II Memory Politics: Jewish, Polish and Roma Minorities of Belarus”, in Journal of Belarusian Studies (2013) and “Kola Sami in the Stalinist terror: a quantitative analysis”, in Journal of Northern Studies (2012). ISBN electronic version 978-91-87235-95-5 (Stockholm University) ISBN printed version 978-91-87235-96-2 (Stockholm University) ISSN 0491-0842 (Stockholms Studies In History) ISBN 978-91-86069-96-4 (Södertörn University) ISSN 1650-433X (Södertörn University) Department of History In the Forge of Stalin Andrej Kotljarchuk Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis Stockholm Studies in History, 100 In the Forge of Stalin Swedish Colonists of Ukraine in Totalitarian Experiments of the Twentieth Century Andrej Kotljarchuk ©Andrej Kotljarchuk and Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis 2014 The publication is availabe for free on www.sub.su.se ISBN electronic version 978-91-87235-95-5 (Stockholm University) ISBN printed version 978-91-87235-96-2 (Stockholm University) ISSN 0491-0842 (Stockholms Studies In History) ISBN 978-91-86069-96-4 (Södertörn University) ISSN 1650-433X (Södertörn University) Printed in Sweden by US-AB, Stockholm 2014 Distributor: Stockholm University Library Cover Picture: Unknown children from Gammalsvenskby, ca 1917. Arvid Norberg’s private collection In memoriam of my teacher, Professor Alexander Mylnikov (1929–2003) Contents Abbreviations ................................................................................................ 9 Maps and Figures....................................................................................... 12 Acknowledgements ................................................................................... 19 Preface ......................................................................................................... 21 Introduction ................................................................................................ 22 How to write the history of Stalinism? ................................................................ 22 Historical background: a Swedish colony on the Dnieper River ..................... 24 Theoretical framework ............................................................................................ 29 Sources, method and previous studies ............................................................... 32 On the outline of the book and practical matters .............................................. 36 Chapter 1. Gammalsvenskby versus Staroshveds’ke. From foreign colonists of the Russian empire to the ethnic minority of Soviet Ukraine ........................................................................................................ 38 1.1. A new historical canon and a vision of the future ..................................... 38 1.2. The main political actor .................................................................................. 43 1.3. A new socioeconomic landscape .................................................................. 45 1.4. A new administrative–territorial landscape ................................................ 46 1.5. A new cultural–linguistic landscape ............................................................. 51 1.6. The creation of a new social hierarchy and a new cultural and educational policy .................................................................................................... 56 1.7. A new gender policy ....................................................................................... 62 1.8. A new religious standard ............................................................................... 66 1.9. A mass exodus to Sweden in 1929 and the strategy of collective resistance .................................................................................................................. 75 1.10. Concluding remarks ...................................................................................... 87 Chapter 2. A Little Red Sweden in Ukraine.The 1930s Comintern Project in Gammalsvenskby .................................................................... 90 2. The Main Political Actors.................................................................................... 90 2.1. The Comintern and Swedish Communist Party ......................................... 90 2.2. The Soviet government .................................................................................. 95 2.3. Configuration of the new boundaries ........................................................ 101 2.3.1. A new historical canon and new vision of the future .......................... 101 2.3.2. A new administrative and geographical landscape.............................. 106 2.3.3. Creating a new hierarchy ......................................................................... 109 2.4. Holodomor and the strategy of collective resistance .............................. 114 2.5. Concluding remarks ...................................................................................... 129 CHAPTER 3. Normalization through terror. Gammalsvenskby on the advent of World War II .......................................................................... 132 3.1. Spies in the kolkhoz. Conceptualisation and propaganda of the Great Terror in the national village. .............................................................................. 132 3.2. Sweden as an enemy of the socialist fatherland ..................................... 145 3.3. Isolation as instrument of covert policing actions .................................. 151 3.3.1. Diplomatic, border and consular isolation ............................................. 152 3.3.2. Limitation of correspondence with foreign countries .......................... 158 3.3.3. Strengthening of control over trips of Scandinavian delegations and tourists .................................................................................................................... 160 3.4. Terror as a method of social engineering. The investigatory records of “A Swedish nationalistic counterrevolutionary spy organization” ................. 163 3.5. Liquidation of the Swedish national institutes ......................................... 178 3.5.1. The Great Terror and the fate of the Swedish Lutheran parish ........ 178 3.5.2. The abolishment of the Swedish National Village Council .................. 179 3.5.3. The suppression of the Swedish school ................................................. 182 3.6. Concluding remarks ...................................................................................... 188 CHAPTER 4. Normalization through deportation: Swedish Colonists of Ukraine in the Komi Gulag ................................................................ 192 4.1. Altschwedendorf under Hitler ..................................................................... 192 4.2. A new normative standard .......................................................................... 201 4.3. A creation of new boundaries ..................................................................... 205 4.4. Mass violence and a strategy for collective resistance........................... 207 4.5. Concluding remarks ...................................................................................... 212 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 221 Bibliography .............................................................................................. 230 Appendices ............................................................................................................. 256 Maps and Figures..................................................................................... 263 Abbreviations ARAB Arbetarrorelsens arkiv och bibliotek (Labour Movement’s Archives and Library) Stockholm, Sweden BSSR Belaruskaia Savetskaia Satsyialistychnaia Respublika (Bela- rusian Soviet Socialist Republic) DAKhO Derzhavnyi arkhiv Khersonskoi oblasti (State Archives of Kherson Oblast) Kherson, Ukraine