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Historisk tidskrift 131:1 • 2011

Innehåll (Contents) 2011:1

Uppsatser (Articles)

Ukrainasvenskar i Gulagarkipelagen. Tvångsnormaliseringens teknik och kollektivt motstånd

Av Andrej Kotljarchuk, Umeå universitet

 

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Summary

Ukrainian Swedes in the Gulag Archipelago. Forced normalization techniques and collective resistance

Within the theoretical framework provided in the works of Michel Foucault and Alberto Melucci the author analyzes the techniques of forced normalization used by the Soviet state in order to reorient the cultural and linguistic identity of a Swedish ethnic group in the Soviet Union.

The Swedish colony of Gammalsvenskby was founded in the southern Ukraine in 1782 by fishermen from the island of Dagö/Hiiumaa in the Baltic Sea. Villagers had frequent contacts with Sweden and Finland throughout the nineteenth century. In 1929 about 900 persons from the village emigrated to Sweden after negotiations between the Swedish and Soviet governments. However, in 1930-31 265 colonists voluntarily returned to the USSR to form a “Swedish Communist Party Kolkhoz”.

During World War II Swedish colonists accepted the status of Volksdeutsche. In 1943 all villagers together with their German neighbours were evacuated to Germany by the Nazi occupation forces. In 1945 about a hundred of the returning Ukrainian Swedes were deported by the Soviet secret police (NKVD) to the Komi autonomous republic – a Finno-Ugric region in northern Russia. The government decided to settle all former Volksdeutsche in the Gulag area alongside other enemies of the Soviet state “until further notice”.

The main purpose of the displacement and isolation of this “special contingent” was “to make them true Soviet citizens”.

Keywords

forced normalization, collective resistance, Swedish colonists, deportation, political violence, terror, Soviet Union, Gulag