Against Their Will
The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the
USSR
Pavel Polian, Researcher at the Institute of
Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow,
and a Professor of the Stavropol State University; currently
a scientific employee of the Cologne NS-Documentation
Center in Cologne, Germany
English translation by Anna Yastrzhembska
During his reign over the former Soviet Union, Joseph
Stalin oversaw the forced resettlement of six million
people - a maniacal passion that he used for social
engineering. The Soviets were not the first to thrust
resettlement on its population - a major characteristic
of totalitarian systems - but in terms of sheer numbers,
technologies used to deport people and the lawlessness
which accompanied it, Stalin's process was the most
notable.
Six million people of different social, ethnic, and
professions were resettled before Stalin's death. Even
today, the aftermath of such deportations largely predetermines
events which take place in the northern Caucasus, Crimea,
the Baltic republics, Moldavia, and western Ukraine.
Polian's volume is the first attempt to comprehensively
examine the history of forced and semi-voluntary population
movements within or organized by the Soviet Union. Contents
range from the early 1920s to the rehabilitation of
repressed nationalities in the 1990s, dealing with internal
(kulaks, ethnic and political deportations) and international
forced migrations (German internees and occupied territories).
An abundance of facts, figures, tables, maps, and an
exhaustively-detailed annex will serve as important
sources for further researches.
Contents
Foreword to the English Edition; Introduction;
Forced Migrations: Pre-History and Classification; Part
I.: Forced Migrations within the USSR: Forced Migrations
before the Second World War ; Forced Migration during
and after the Second World War (1939-1953); Patterns
of Deported Peoples' Settlement and Rehabilitation Process;
Part II.: International Forced Migrations: Internment
and Deportation of German Civilians from European Countries
to the USSR; Employment of Labor of German Civilians
from European Countries Repatriation; In Lieu of a Conclusion:
Geo-demographic Scale and Repercussions of Forced Migrations
in the USSR; Supplement 1; Supplement 2.; Supplement
3.; Supplement 4.; Bibliography; Abbreviations
Used in the Book; At the Crossroads of Geography and
History: Afterword. Index of Personal Names;
Index Geographical Names
"The sheer magnitude, inhumane nature, and geographical
layout of the deportations documented in Polian's book
are mind-boggling. The following historical parallel
from a 1923 article by Osip Mandel'shtam, quoted in
the book, comes in handy: "Egyptian builders treat
the human mass as the material that has to be sufficient
and supplied in any quantity" (90). Polian's book
is a must for all those interested in the nature and
quintessential inner workings of totalitarian political
regimes." - Slavic Review
"This big book is a milestone in he publication
in English of materials relating to the forced displacement
of population in twentieth century Russia. ... Polian
covers a huge amount of ground. His impressive scholarly
compendium will be an important resource for students
of the subject who wish to obtain reliable information
on deportations and to analyze it in order to reach
their own conluisons. To this extent Polian's careful
study has placed scholars of modern Russian history
considerably in his debt." - European Review
of History
"The work under review is in the very best tradition
of glasnost scholarship, motivated by and imbued with
a vigorous sense of humanity and compassion, and concerned
first and foremost to bring a long-hidden history to
light and to the attention of the widest possible circle
of readers in the most accessible and systematic manner.
The author's evidently conscious eschewal of interpretation
for the sake of concentrating on identifying, itemising,
classifying and describing these brutal acts of mass
terror, only renders more shocking its impact as an
indictment of the Soviet regime and its means of rule."
- The Global Review of Ethnopolitics
"Meno Pavla Poliana sa oplatí zapamatat'.
Uz vyse 10 rokov usilovne a bohato publikuje k téme,
ktorá v tunajsom lokálnom variante este
lena caka na komplexné spracovanie, k histórii
a geografii nútenych migrácií...
Knihu doplna mnozstvo tabuliek a máp... Nápomocné
sú i styrí velké prílohy...;
d'alej extenzívna bibliografia a slovnícek
speciálnych vyrazov a skratiek. Dokonaly dojem
doplna mal'ba na obálke. Povestná ruka
s fajkou v rukáve od uniformy hrnie pred
sebou po bielej ploche more malickych l'udí.
Téma knihy je strsná, kniha je skvelá."
- Historicky casopis
2003
444 pages
ISBN 978-963-9241-68-8 cloth $54.95 / €46.95 / £34.95
ISBN 978-963-9241-73-2 paperback $25.95 / €21.95 /
£16.95
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