Memories of Koreans' tragic migration fading

German Kim, head of the Department of Korean Studies at Al-Farabi University in Kazakhstan, gestures during an interview with The Korea Times at the Franciscan Education Center in Seoul on Feb. 24./ Korea Times

Scholar traces Korean-Russians' tragic migration

By Kang Hyun-kyung

In October 1937, nearly 200,000 ethnic Koreans in the Russian Far East were forced by Soviet authorities to board trains heading to then-unknown land -- Central Asia.

Their human rights were ignored and the fearful people had to brace for abuse all during their trip to the unpopulated destinations which continued for about a month. Some were dropped off in the Soviet Union's autonomous republic called Uzbek SSR, which later became Uzbekistan, and some were discharged in Kazahk SSR, now Kazakhstan.

The tragic migration claimed some 40,000 lives. About half of them were infants with weaker immune systems. People died of different causes. Some lost their lives to diseases, and some were starved to death. Some cut their lives short after failing to adapt to tough lives in the new territories.

With the passing of eight decades since, memories of ethnic Koreans' forced relocation has faded.

German Kim, a fourth-generation ethnic Korean scholar who has spent the past three decades researching the migration of ethnic Koreans from the Russian Far East to Central Asia, said academic research of the Deportation is half done.

Some parts of the massive migration have come to light, but the remaining half is still unknown because of a lack of research activities. Kim said historians will be able to put together shards of a mosaic for the full picture of the incident if academic investigation into the unknown half is completed.

"There may be some Korean scholars who are interested in the 1937 Deportation, but this is not something they can do by themselves," he said in Korean.

Kim, head of the Department of Korean Studies at Al-Farabi University in Kazakhstan, said decades-old documents about the incident are available in Russia for research. "They were handwritten and it's almost impossible for the Korean scholars to interpret the old documents. They will need help from Russian experts," he said.

Korean-Russian joint academic research would make it easier to research those old documents. But, he said, funding is an obstacle. "Funding is necessary because few Russian experts are interested in the ethnic Koreans' migration and they are not going to join the research without financial support," he said.

The forced relocations came to light in the mid-1980s in the wake of perestroika, a strenuous drive to restructure the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev. Perestroika triggered an ethnic studies boom on campus.

Academic freedom enabled students and academics to access recently declassified information, which had been off limits to them previously.

The results were amazing. Untold history was unveiled and the 1937 Deportation was one of the historical facts brought to light.

Ethnic minorities, including Korean-Russians, Greek Russians and those who have German background, broke the silence and their testimonies led to a publication boom about what they had gone through during the repressive days.

Perestroika became a life-changing experience for Kim who was born in 1953 in Ushtobe, a town in the Almaty region of southeastern Kazakhstan. "Before perestroika, I had no idea of the ethnic Koreans' migration to Central Asia because no one told me about that. I heard nothing about the incident from my father or grandfather," he said. He was then teaching university students European history in German after earning his master's degree.

Curious to trace his roots, Kim was determined to pursue a doctoral degree to do research about the migration. Three years later, Kim obtained a doctoral degree following the approval of his dissertation about the migration of ethnic Koreans from the Russian Far East to Central Asia. He is the first scholar there to do extensive research on ethnic Koreans and their migration.

He has since published dozens of books and hundreds of articles about ethnic Koreans in the Soviet era. Through these publications, he found several points that challenged existing explanations about the Deportation.

"Some claimed Stalin was the initiator of the Deportation, which is not true. He was the man who simply carried out the plan which had been in place since the 1920s when his predecessor Lenin conceived and forged the idea," Kim said.

He also rejected the characterization of the Deportation as something akin to ethnic cleansing, a popular view among Western scholars. "Some say Stalin did that to annihilate ethnic Koreans, but this view is flawed," he said.

Deportation was carried out as part of Stalin's plan to "Russianize" ethnic minorities, according to Kim.

There was a Korean community in the Russian Far East before the forced migration and ethnic Koreans there spoke only in Korean.

After they were relocated to Central Asia, ethnic Koreans were scattered in territories 10 times larger than they previously inhabited in the Russian Far East. They had to learn Russian to survive.

The 1937 Deportation was a turning point for the use of Korean language because the descendants of ethnic Koreans were encouraged to learn Russian, instead of Korean, and this led to extinction of the Korean language there.

"Stalin also pushed the relocation plan against the geopolitical, military backdrop," Kim said. Stalin planned to deploy hundreds of thousands of military forces in the Russian Far East to prepare for a possible war against Japan at that time. To carry out the plan, ethnic Koreans there needed to be relocated somewhere else.

Kim said Stalin's misconception about ethnic Koreans also played a part behind the forced migration. Stalin believed Koreans were sympathetic to Russia's enemy -- Japan -- because Korea was then occupied by Japan. So the Soviet leader concluded those Koreans needed to be moved into territories far away from the Russian Far East.

Rhee Tshang-chu, a professor emeritus of St. Petersburg University in Russia, said Professor Kim is one of the few ethnic Koreans in Central Asia who can speak Korean and his ability to access Korean language documents made it easier for him to study the forced migration of ethnic Koreans.

Rhee and Kim, along with several other experts, teamed up to raise public awareness of the forgotten tragedy on the occasion of its 80th anniversary. Approximately 80 people, including scholars, religious leaders, students and citizens, are to have their firsthand experience of the tragic history on a train from the Russian Far East to Central Asia for 14 days starting July 23.

"The Deportation is the tragic and unforgettable incident in modern Korean history, but we had few opportunities to look back on it and it still remains an area less researched," Rhee said. "We decided to launch the train project to commemorate the anniversary and also to raise the public attention on the incident so that all of us can remember what kinds of ordeals the early migrants had gone through."