Didžiosios tremtys. Buriatija. 1948 m.

• Rudienė, Dalia, redagavimas [edt]
• Navakauskas, Benas, parengė [edt]

LTKnyga yra skirta Lietuvos gyventojams, 1948 m. gegužės 22-25 d. ištremtiems į Buriatiją. Trys ešelonai, atvežę tremtinių šeimas (4132 asmenis), buvo iškrauti birželio 8-10 d. Zaigrajevo ir Chorinsko r. Kelionės, trukusios beveik tris savaites, sąlygos buvo baisios: trūko maisto, ypač vandens, alino tvankumas, antisanitarinės sąlygos. Pakeliui į tremtį mirė ne mažiau kaip 10 asmenų. Didžioji dalis į Buriatiją atvežtų tremtinių buvo iš Panevėžio, Plungės, Pasvalio, Šiaulių ir Telšių rajonų. Dėl išgyvenimui nepalankių sąlygų - bado, šalčio, sekinamo darbo - mirė 600 tremtinių. Tremtinių lemčiai buvo pasmerkti 1271 vaikai iki 16 metų. Visų į Buriatiją ištremtų asmenų pavardės yra žinomos. Pačių tremtinių ar jų šeimos narių pateiktos žinios apie jų gyvenimo ir darbo sąlygas tremtyje, 55 gyvenviečių aprašymai, kapinių planai, nuotraukos visapusiškai ir nuosekliai atskleidžia tremtinio būtį, kuri iki šiol tik fragmentiškai atsispindėdavo asmeniniuose memuaruose. Svarbią knygos dalį sudaro Rusijos mokslų akademijos Sibiro skyriaus Mongologijos, budologijos ir tibetologijos instituto istorijos mokslų daktaro Vsevolodo Baškujevo išsamus straipsnis, kuriame autorius remiasi slaptų vietos administracijos ir tremtinių gyvenimą kontroliavusios komendantūros dokumentų ir realios tremtinių padėties lyginamąja analize. [Iš Pratarmės]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Masinės deportacijos iš Lietuvos; Buriatija; Tremtiniai; Gulagas; Tremtinių kultūrinis ir religinis gyvenimas; Massive deportations from Lithuania; Buryatia; The deported people; GULAG camps; The cultural and religion life of the exiles.

ENIt is estimated that the Soviets deported over 131 600 Lithuanians for forced labour to remote areas of Soviet Union. Deportations, which affected all social strata, were launched in June 1941, on the eve of war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. After the war ended, relocations continued until 1953. The largest-scale deportation operation, the code name Spring (Весна,) was carried out on May 22-23,1948. In such a short span of time, over 40 000 people were transported from Lithuania to exile in Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Buryatia-Mongolia Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Authorities under Stalins rule took advantage of forced relocation to break the armed anti-Soviet resistance in Lithuania, promote collectivisation there and provide the extensive territories of Siberia with cheap labour force. Due to deportations, families were destroyed and community ties disrupted. Families with small children, the elderly, pregnant women were torn away from their homes in the Homeland, lost all property they had had, while many of them lost even a possibility to return. This publication focuses on a story of one of the most massive deportations from Lithuania - relocation operation to Buryatia-Mongolia Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (today - the Republic of Buryatia) that was carried out on May 22-23,1948.To compose this study, the archive of former exiles was used (over 650 items of recollections of Buryatia deportees), as well as collections of photographs taken of deportation sites, reports on expeditions to former deportation destinations, testimonies of participants in the expeditions, special files of the Information Centre of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), kept at the Central Archive of the Republic of Buryatia, documents of “BurMongolLes” trust and other Buryatia’s forest industry enterprises and papers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and Ministry of State Security (MGB) of Buryatia-Mongolia. All these documents have been analysed by Doctor of Historical Sciences Vsevolod Bashkuev. In May 1948, from Lithuania to Buryatia-Mongolia Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, 4132 persons were forcibly displaced. More than 1200 deportees were teenagers and children, about 600 of the exiles were people over 60 years of age. In 1948, Lithuanians constituted the largest group of displaced people to Buryatia, they made up about 45 per cent of all deportees of that time. Lithuanians in Buryatia were categorized as special type deportees - special settlers. Formally, they were not prisoners, they were not stripped of the citizen rights, yet, after deporting they occurred at the disposal of special command posts, which were empowered to do anything they wanted with the deported people. The Lithuanians exiled to Buryatia used to be sent to different locations to work for indefinite terms. Their passports were taken away, their freedom of movement was limited by command posts, which had been tasked with supervision of exiled settlers. If these settlers violated the imposed rules, they were threatened with imprisonment in GULAG camps.The deported to Buryatia Lithuanians were assigned to the “BurMongolLes” trust under the Ministry of Timber, Paper and Wood Processing Industry of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Lithuanians, who mostly were families with minor children and incapable grandparents, were intended to be employed for massive deforestation of Buryatia’s boreal forest, known as taiga, as well as for construction of logging industry railway lines and building of settlements for workers in sparsely populated mountain valleys. Many Lithuanians were dispersed across Zaigrayevsky and Khorinsky districts in the central Buryatia. The exiles were transported into abandoned, empty camps of prisoners of war, in which Japanese officers and soldiers from Kwantung Army deployed in East China were imprisoned in 1945-1948. The POW had been captured by the Soviet Union during World War II. In the former POW camps, the deported people were forced to live in the unheated barracks, surrounded with mud and parasites, under permanent threat of infectious diseases. Former Japanese camps became the largest settlements of forest workers in the entire region. Such were the settlements of Chelan (Khorinsky district) and Upper Ara Kuorka (Zaigrayevsky district). In total, in 1948-1949, in the former Japanese camps about 65 percent of Lithuanians deported to Buryatia lived - approximately 750 deported families (about 2600 persons). Other exiles were placed in some old small villages of Buryats and in small towns located along the Trans-Siberian railway, among them - in Il’ka or Novo-Ilyinsk. In this publication, a total of 55 identified Lithuanians’ deportation sites in Buryatia are described. Some were large ones, where more than 500 people lived, while the others were small, remote settlements in taiga forest felling areas. [From the publication, p. 621-622]