Parallel life-stories: deported people and Khanties in Western Siberia

The currently prevalent “master narrative” of the political relocations of the 1930s-‘50s only highlights the suffering of the deported; in this “suffering” there is no room for the native people who had been living in the area prior to the deportations, whereas the period of relocations was a grave shock for the Khanties as well. From the decisive majority, they turned into an insignificant minority within just over a decade: they practically dissolved in the majority society settled among them. The period of resettlement caused suffering for the aborigines and the deported alike, both are parts of the “Vasyugan Golgotha”. The two stories are not antithetical but complementary. In my paper I analyse only oral recollections. It is the outcome of my fieldwork along the Vasyugan river between 1992 and 2012; which is a large amount of written diary notes and the transcription of about 50 hours of interviews. I focus on themes that expressly touch on the interrelation between the two groups. I arrange the relations between the Khanty and the deportees around a few thematic nodes. Some narratives are overtly about the contacts between the two groups. The stereotypes they had entertained about each other are discussed here. A salient theme appears to be the fact that without the Khanty help the deportees would not have been able to survive. This help was sometimes quite unselfish, at other times it was like a speculated barter transaction, at again other times it was permanent harassment embittering everyday routine. The theme of mixed marriages is to be covered in this section. The next topic is the attempts of the deportees to escape. In successful and unsuccessful attempts to flee, Khanty feature as guides risking their lives. Finally, I analyse what possibilities there are in the Khanty stories for the evaluation of the period of translocations. It can be concluded from my analysis that there were strong interactions between the Khanty and the deportees, both parties exerting a great influence on each other’s lives. The network of relations is many-sided in the memory of both the deported and the Khanties. This cacophonic set of memories is an outcome of different personal experience, diverse positions of recollection and different narrative strategies. It does not mess up the system: it is the system of mess itself. I am convinced that in these stories it is easy to discern the dynamism that was decisive in the relationship between the aborigines and the deported social majority groups in Western Siberia in the middle of the 20^th century, and this is the foundation of their present-day system of relations, too.

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