The Repression of Soviet Koreans during the 1930s1

In the opinion of many historians of the USSR and Russia, the 1920s and 1930s were the most contradictory and tragic of the Soviet state's history. An important part of those years constitutes the process that Russians have given the generic name of "repressions," even if these were conducted for different reasons and under various slogans. Among the most tragic episodes was the persecution of individuals because of national traits, which, in essence, flew in the face of Soviet support for the equality of peoples. The scars of that drama survive until this day, and continue to have an impact both on politics and the way in which the national question plays out in general in contemporary Russia. The first victims of these ethnic repressions were Soviet Koreans, a national minority living in the Far East that was not hostile to Soviet power and to a high degree loyal to the Soviet leaders' policies. The goal of this article is to present a more nuanced and comprehensive picture of the repressions against the Soviet Koreans, based not merely on archival materials and the works by Soviet or Russian scholars, but also on the recollections of witnesses who underwent the national persecutions from the 1930s to the 1950s.