The role of assimilation in the path of the development of indigenous communities has been evaluated by anthropologists with regard to different periods of history of aboriginal groups. In the twentieth century, for example, it has been noted concerning the industrial development of Canadian indigenous groups that:
it seemed clear, however, that both separatism and assimilation were undesirable and unworkable. … [A]s the separatist alternative meant giving up the products of mod-ern industrial society, few aboriginals would have preferred it. At the same time, as-similation seemed impossible, not only because white racism would not have permit-ted it but also because many aboriginals did not want to abandon their native lan-guages and other aspects of their traditional cultures (Bartels & Bartels 1995, x).
Such attention to assimilation is impossible in the case of Soviet society. Under the centralised policy of building a new culture, the erosion of traditional society and assimilation happened in everyday life and economic activities.
This erosion was so present in the everyday life of Soviet indigenous groups that foreign scholars sometimes even classified it thus: they “did not face the false choice of assimilation or separation. They could pursue industrial or other non-traditional occupations in their own regions without giving up their language and culture”
(Bartels & Bartels 1995, x).
clearly and understandably for everyone – do not ignore the national language of the Vepsians” (Sheltozero 1931, 1).
In this period the leadership in collective farms was often filled by people sent by the Communist Party from central cities and towns – the so-called people “from the raion” (district). “Speaking at the congress against the candidacy of Ryabinkin, who was nominated by VKP(b) as head of the RIK (the Regional Executive Committee), Petrik said: ‘Ryabinkin is not Chud’ (the native population of that region is Chud’): he would not be able to sense the needs of the population; besides, he is rude and in Gornee Sheltozero he threatened that if 700 rubles in agricultural taxation were lacking, it would be necessary to put the guilty in prison…”
(Makurov 1997, 98).
One of the most important tasks of modernisation through sovietisation was the elimination of illiteracy among the non-Russian population through teaching in the native language. In 1931 in the Leningrad Region work began on the written Vepsian language, training teachers for Vepsian schools, and for the management of such schools. In February 1931 the first Vepsian written language was created in the Latin alphabet, and in 1932 the first school textbook was published. During the period of the existence of the written Vepsian language about 30 textbooks were published, mainly translated from Russian (Klement’ev 2007, 13).
By the end of 1932 school education in Vepsian had started, and “by 1935-36 this process was completed, providing primary and secondary education in the Vepsian language” (Klement’ev 2007, 13). After 1932 the Lodeinoe Pole and Domozhirovo teaching colleges, as well as intensive courses, were preparing teachers for Vepsian schools. Educational policy in the Republic of Karelia differed from that in the Leningrad Region. The Vepsian schools of the Leningrad Region began teaching in Vepsian only in 1937.
This process was interrupted in 1938, when teaching in native languages was abolished both in Karelia and the Leningrad Region and those national schools were accused of nationalism. The main school subjects, except history, culture, and language, were taught in Russian (Klement’ev 2007, 13). These sovietisation processes also included the prohibition of the use of Vepsian at official meetings.
By the end of the 1930s all these activities were ended and revived only in 1989 (Zaitseva 2003, 352). The reasons for the unsuccessful policy of ‘korenizatsia’ are indicated in foreign policy decisions.
According to the principles of the ‘korenizatsia’ policy in Karelia its application to Karelians and Vepsians did not fulfil the main aim towards non-Russian peoples, which was the creation of a written language and the development of a culture based on native languages. Foreign policy was a determining factor. On the eve of the Sec-ond World War this territory was seen as a possible theatre of military operations.
National schools and national-territorial constitutions, especially for the representa-tives of the national minorities perceived as potential enemies in the approaching war
– the Germans, Finns, and the peoples related to them – were eliminated as a preven-tative measure against the ‘fifth column'. Living on the border was already a basis for repression, in particular in the form of forced relocation (Strogalschikova 2016, 101).
“The move away from korenizatsia and toward international integration through Russification in the latter part of the 1930s was in large part a reaction by the central authorities against rising national territoriality and separatism” (Kaiser 1994, 95).
Russian ethnographers (Klement’ev 2007, 13) call this first period ‘the period of Vepsian national rebirth’ (Klement’ev 2007, 13). My research shows that it would be more proper to call this period ‘the first stage of sovietisation’. All social and cultural changes in Vepsian society were necessitated by the requirements of the Soviet state and Soviet modernisation. The driving forces for linguistic, educational, and cultural changes originated in the needs of Soviet modernisation and the state’s political structure. The second stage of sovietisation turned out to be markedly consequential for many of the country’s ethnic minorities. For the Vepsian population it brought drastic changes to the existence of their society.
4.2 EROSION OF SOCIETY
The role of assimilation in the path of the development of indigenous communities has been evaluated by anthropologists with regard to different periods of history of aboriginal groups. In the twentieth century, for example, it has been noted concerning the industrial development of Canadian indigenous groups that:
it seemed clear, however, that both separatism and assimilation were undesirable and unworkable. … [A]s the separatist alternative meant giving up the products of mod-ern industrial society, few aboriginals would have preferred it. At the same time, as-similation seemed impossible, not only because white racism would not have permit-ted it but also because many aboriginals did not want to abandon their native lan-guages and other aspects of their traditional cultures (Bartels & Bartels 1995, x).
Such attention to assimilation is impossible in the case of Soviet society. Under the centralised policy of building a new culture, the erosion of traditional society and assimilation happened in everyday life and economic activities.
This erosion was so present in the everyday life of Soviet indigenous groups that foreign scholars sometimes even classified it thus: they “did not face the false choice of assimilation or separation. They could pursue industrial or other non-traditional occupations in their own regions without giving up their language and culture”
(Bartels & Bartels 1995, x).
…The process of the Russification of villages near Voznesenie was completed after it had lost its role as an important trading centre on the Svir’ river during the Soviet period. This role was transferred to Lodeinoe Pole. Gradually it led to a divide be-tween the Onega Vepsians and the Vepsians living above the Svir’ river. Before the 1950s Vepsian settlements located beyond the Svir’ river made up a solid ethnic unit (Strogal’schikova 2014, 13).
This might be seen as mutually beneficial political correctness in application to the process of cultural erosion, and as avoiding the real scale of the process.
Furthermore, my research aims at defining the tendencies of the influence of Soviet modernisation on indigenous groups throughout the USSR – being involved in directions of modernisation (industrialisation, collectivisation, sovietisation) and being pressed by newcomers (the system of prison camps and their successors).
And “assessing gains and losses from assimilation or non-assimilation is, like the concept of structural/cultural integration, inadequate for dealing with relations between northerners and non-northerners during the Soviet period. ... This focus misses the fact that the traditional cultures of all national and ethnic groups were radically changed as a result of Soviet state policy” (Bartels & Bartels 1995, 4).
Indeed, we can apply the notion of assimilation to Soviet processes only when taking into consideration mainstream sovietisation and the building of the new person regardless of his or her present status, former background, and ethnic belonging. All were consumed by the Soviet modernisation avalanche.
This does not mean, however, that this type of assimilation was more moderate or secure than the concept of assimilation used, for example, by North American social scientists. This North American vision states that “the concept of assimilation focuses on what an assimilated group retains or loses from its traditional culture and what it gains from or contributes to a ‘dominant’ culture” (Bartels & Bartels 1995, 4). In the USSR the indigenous minorities were the ones to suffer destruction in the first place (Bartels & Bartels 1995, 4).
I deliberately do not stress that this was cultural destruction; on the contrary, it was a set of complex destructive processes under the cover of modernisation. These complex processes included industrialisation, collectivisation, and the ‘building of the new person’. However, the result was that at ground level it led to the erosion of ethnic groups and large-scale invisible assimilation – both in statistics and in real life.
Here are a few words about some different views of the new Soviet person that the Vepsians had to deal with. The effect on ethnic minority groups from the industrial applications of the Gulag system was a reality from the 1920s to the 1960s, regardless of the location of exploration, the density of the local population, their lifestyle, and level of ‘civilisation’. On the large scale the camp structure’s influence on rural settlers is hard to exaggerate. It was the White Sea-Baltic canal which gave the Russian language the term ZK (‘zek’), meaning prisoner,
‘imprisoned canal army soldier’ (zakliuchennyi kanaloarmeets), and the term perekovka (‘reforge’) in the 1930s. A ‘reforged’ prisoner was not simply a conscious and reformed former criminal, but rather a new Soviet person, perfected for the socialist system.
“In the First Five Year Plan period, the term ‘cultural revolution’ was used in a special sense, different from earlier or later Soviet usages. … The aim of cultural revolution was to create a new ‘proletarian intelligentsia’. The method of cultural revolution was class war” (Fitzpatrick 1978, 8). For example, the campaigns for the mass education of peasants were carried out simultaneously with collectivisation (Fitzpatrick 1979, 159).
“This cultural revolution was quite unlike Lenin’s understanding of the process as graduate and nonmilitant” (Fitzpatrick 1978, 8). Stalin’s first important thesis on the national question defined the nation as an “historically evolved, stable community of people, occurring on the basis of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture” (Stalin 1946, 296-297).
For the Vepsian population the process of social and cultural modernisation via the policy of korenizatsia ended with administrative changes in 1937. In September 1937 the Northern Region was divided into the Arkhangelsk and Vologda Regions.
The Eastern and Northeastern districts of the Leningrad Region were transferred to the Volodga Region. Among these districts there were 9 rural districts (sel’sovety) with Vepsians as the dominant population. This amounted to almost 8,000 people (Klement’ev 2007, 13). Subsequently, in May 1938 in the Leningrad Region all national-territorial units were abolished, being considered artificially created. In the Republic of Karelia the Sheltozerskii district, settled by the Vepsians, was eliminated in 1956 (Klement’ev 2007, 13).
These general facts concerning the creation and abolition of national districts do not provide a picture of everyday Vepsian social and cultural life. As I have already cited, the volume on the indigenous minorities of the Leningrad Region, published in 1929, outlined the major complexity for the modernisation of indigenous groups because of their low population density, distant settlements, poor connections between the settlements, and dispersed settlement among the Russian population.
Therefore, neither process was easy – to introduce modernisation massively to the entire Vepsian population whether in Vepsian or, after the abolition of national districts, in Russian. It was not so easy to push the process of sovietisation through, given the situation in some distant Vepsian villages.
In the 1920s many Vepsian villages were divided into two parts: one part belonged to the landlord and the other to the peasants. For example, as late as 1927, ten years after the October Revolution, the Vepsian villages of Nadporozhie were described as follows:
…The process of the Russification of villages near Voznesenie was completed after it had lost its role as an important trading centre on the Svir’ river during the Soviet period. This role was transferred to Lodeinoe Pole. Gradually it led to a divide be-tween the Onega Vepsians and the Vepsians living above the Svir’ river. Before the 1950s Vepsian settlements located beyond the Svir’ river made up a solid ethnic unit (Strogal’schikova 2014, 13).
This might be seen as mutually beneficial political correctness in application to the process of cultural erosion, and as avoiding the real scale of the process.
Furthermore, my research aims at defining the tendencies of the influence of Soviet modernisation on indigenous groups throughout the USSR – being involved in directions of modernisation (industrialisation, collectivisation, sovietisation) and being pressed by newcomers (the system of prison camps and their successors).
And “assessing gains and losses from assimilation or non-assimilation is, like the concept of structural/cultural integration, inadequate for dealing with relations between northerners and non-northerners during the Soviet period. ... This focus misses the fact that the traditional cultures of all national and ethnic groups were radically changed as a result of Soviet state policy” (Bartels & Bartels 1995, 4).
Indeed, we can apply the notion of assimilation to Soviet processes only when taking into consideration mainstream sovietisation and the building of the new person regardless of his or her present status, former background, and ethnic belonging. All were consumed by the Soviet modernisation avalanche.
This does not mean, however, that this type of assimilation was more moderate or secure than the concept of assimilation used, for example, by North American social scientists. This North American vision states that “the concept of assimilation focuses on what an assimilated group retains or loses from its traditional culture and what it gains from or contributes to a ‘dominant’ culture” (Bartels & Bartels 1995, 4). In the USSR the indigenous minorities were the ones to suffer destruction in the first place (Bartels & Bartels 1995, 4).
I deliberately do not stress that this was cultural destruction; on the contrary, it was a set of complex destructive processes under the cover of modernisation. These complex processes included industrialisation, collectivisation, and the ‘building of the new person’. However, the result was that at ground level it led to the erosion of ethnic groups and large-scale invisible assimilation – both in statistics and in real life.
Here are a few words about some different views of the new Soviet person that the Vepsians had to deal with. The effect on ethnic minority groups from the industrial applications of the Gulag system was a reality from the 1920s to the 1960s, regardless of the location of exploration, the density of the local population, their lifestyle, and level of ‘civilisation’. On the large scale the camp structure’s influence on rural settlers is hard to exaggerate. It was the White Sea-Baltic canal which gave the Russian language the term ZK (‘zek’), meaning prisoner,
‘imprisoned canal army soldier’ (zakliuchennyi kanaloarmeets), and the term perekovka (‘reforge’) in the 1930s. A ‘reforged’ prisoner was not simply a conscious and reformed former criminal, but rather a new Soviet person, perfected for the socialist system.
“In the First Five Year Plan period, the term ‘cultural revolution’ was used in a special sense, different from earlier or later Soviet usages. … The aim of cultural revolution was to create a new ‘proletarian intelligentsia’. The method of cultural revolution was class war” (Fitzpatrick 1978, 8). For example, the campaigns for the mass education of peasants were carried out simultaneously with collectivisation (Fitzpatrick 1979, 159).
“This cultural revolution was quite unlike Lenin’s understanding of the process as graduate and nonmilitant” (Fitzpatrick 1978, 8). Stalin’s first important thesis on the national question defined the nation as an “historically evolved, stable community of people, occurring on the basis of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture” (Stalin 1946, 296-297).
For the Vepsian population the process of social and cultural modernisation via the policy of korenizatsia ended with administrative changes in 1937. In September 1937 the Northern Region was divided into the Arkhangelsk and Vologda Regions.
The Eastern and Northeastern districts of the Leningrad Region were transferred to the Volodga Region. Among these districts there were 9 rural districts (sel’sovety) with Vepsians as the dominant population. This amounted to almost 8,000 people (Klement’ev 2007, 13). Subsequently, in May 1938 in the Leningrad Region all national-territorial units were abolished, being considered artificially created. In the Republic of Karelia the Sheltozerskii district, settled by the Vepsians, was eliminated in 1956 (Klement’ev 2007, 13).
These general facts concerning the creation and abolition of national districts do not provide a picture of everyday Vepsian social and cultural life. As I have already cited, the volume on the indigenous minorities of the Leningrad Region, published in 1929, outlined the major complexity for the modernisation of indigenous groups because of their low population density, distant settlements, poor connections between the settlements, and dispersed settlement among the Russian population.
Therefore, neither process was easy – to introduce modernisation massively to the entire Vepsian population whether in Vepsian or, after the abolition of national districts, in Russian. It was not so easy to push the process of sovietisation through, given the situation in some distant Vepsian villages.
In the 1920s many Vepsian villages were divided into two parts: one part belonged to the landlord and the other to the peasants. For example, as late as 1927, ten years after the October Revolution, the Vepsian villages of Nadporozhie were described as follows:
In smoke-houses people had splinters of light, did not know Russian, had never heard of such things as a samovar. In the old days the main activity was agriculture on slash-and-burn plots, which were becoming permanent agricultural lands. The entire village was divided into two parts: the landlord’s (with serfs) part and the free peas-ants’ part. It may sound strange, but this division lasted until the October Revolu-tion, and still persists (Svetliak 1927a, 2).
In 1928 another local newspaper published a piece on a similar topic. “In earlier times the small village of Vonozero (Podporozhie district) was divided between two landlords into two landlord parts” (Koptilkin 1928, 2) (this settlement no longer exists). A publication from 1929, twelve years after the October Revolution, tells us more about such division:
It is necessary to say that Shamenichi is a real home for the gentry. Noblemen are packed in here at every step. More than half the population are noblemen. However, the noblemen are very poor, and the surname is the same for everyone – the Neelovs.
… There was also one specific thing which distinguished these noble Neelovs from the very poor peasants from Tenenichi. The Neelovs had their own small forest cot-tages. Meanwhile, the Tenenichi peasants lacked arable land. Altogether these had generated an age-old strife. There were occasions of intermarriages between them:
they married, became godparents, and yet some remained ‘noblemen’ and others
‘coarse peasants’. The Neelovs accepted the October Revolution badly (Ershov 1929, 1).
This publication is an interesting description of contemporary pure Vepsian society and the interaction within it. The article continues:
This publication is an interesting description of contemporary pure Vepsian society and the interaction within it. The article continues: