SUUR TERROR JA ABHAASIA EESTLASED
THE GREAT TERROR AND ESTONIANS IN ABKHAZIA

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the mass repressions of Abkhazian Estonians in the years of the Great Terror 1937–1938. The aim is to analyse the course, extent and peculiarities of repressions based on documents of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and on written and oral memories. In 1937–1938, about 1 575 000 persons were arrested by the NKVD in the Soviet Union, of whom at least 681 692 were executed. The processes against old Bolsheviks, the military and the new nomenclature were long and held publicly in court, in particularly difficult cases in the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union. However, the overwhelming majority of repressions were carried out in the course of the so-called mass operations, which, unlike the exemplary processes of the accused elite, were concealed from the public. Judgements were made by the so-called troikas of the NKVD. The concept of ,mass operationsʻ comes from the time they were carried out, and they covered, on the one hand, ,national operationsʻ, on the other hand, ,kulak operationsʻ. The former were targeted against the national exterritorial minorities living in the Soviet Union, the latter against the economically more successful people. In Abkhazia, 2186 persons were arrested from July 1937 to October 1938, of them 794 were executed. At the time, there were many Estonian villages in Abkhazia: Salme, Sulevi, Upper Linda, Lower Linda and Estonia. In the course of kulak operations in the period from 11 August 1937 to 11 October 1938, 55 Estonians were arrested and convicted by the NKVD of the Georgian SSR, of them 37 persons were sentenced to death (category I) and 18 persons were sent to prison (category II). During the national operations between 25 September 1937 and 23 October 1938, 16 Estonians were convicted in the Georgian SSR, 11 of them were shot down (category I) and 5 were sent to prison (category II). Thus, Estonians were mostly convicted during the kulak operations, where the social origin of the people was the decisive factor. In addition to the troika decisions, there were so-called Stalinist lists, which dealt with representatives of the Tsarist era as well as of the Soviet elite. Among the elite could also be businessmen, noblemen and clergy, tsarist officials, as well as Communist Party and government functionaries, but sometimes also persons who had just a secondary or a higher education. From May 1937 to November 1938, six Estonians were placed on the Stalinist lists in the Georgian SSR, all of whom were sentenced to death. Estonians were accused of actions against the collectivization of agriculture, anti-Soviet propaganda and ties with their motherland, Estonia. The NKVD fabricated Estonians guilty of setting up counter-revolutionary organizations in their villages of Estonia, Salme, Sulevi, Upper and Lower Linda. According to the NKVD prosecutions, in the war that would supposedly begin in the near future, the members of the Estonian counter-revolutionary organizations were ready to organize an uprising in Estonian settlements and support the intervention of Western armies in Abkhazia by diversion acts and by mediating information for Western military forces. Also, according to the prosecutions, Estonians were expected to organize counter-revolutionary agitation in the Red Army units and urge soldiers, especially ethnic Estonians, to desert from the Red Army. Soldiers of the Red Army would be weakened by poor-quality food supplied by Estonians, who at the same time would stockpile food for Western intruders. As shown, most of the convicted Estonians were executed. Some Estonians were sentenced to prison; however, in many cases imprisonment could have been the same as the death penalty because only a few Estonians returned from prison camps to their home villages. Based on fictional accusations, the cultural and economic elites of the Estonian villages in Abkhazia were destroyed.

• Details
• Contents