Victoria Kim

In August 1937--after years of planning--Joseph Stalin approved the order to deport the entirety of the ethnic Korean population of the Soviet Union’s Far East away from the country’s periphery. Stalin and his comrades were worried about Japanese spies among the Koreans peaceably living just north of what is now North Korea, a region at the time under Japanese Imperial rule. The bulk of the Koreans hustled onto cattle trains with scant notice were unloaded in Uzbekistan, some were transported to Kazakhstan, and many died along they way--their bodies left in the snow.

Victoria Kim’s Korean grandfather--Kim Da Gir--was one of the more than 170,000 Koreans transported to Central Asia. This family history haunted her, Kim says, eventually providing the motivation to embark on a quest to uncover and record the complex history that remains a difficult subject in independent Uzbekistan still. She authored a multimedia project, “Lost and Found in Uzbekistan: The Korean Story,” which is a first step in peeling back the layers of the past. Kim hopes to pay tribute to her grandfather and preserve the tragic (but also heartening) story of how Koreans came to Uzbekistan and how Uzbekistan eventually became home.

Why did the Soviet Union decide to deport ethnic Koreans living in the Far East in the late 1930s? What happened to those who were not deported with their families?

The decision to deport ethnic Koreans in 1937 from the Far East to Central Asia is surrounded with many legends up until now. The most widespread opinion about it is the fact that Joseph Stalin and his closest advisors at that time, including Beria and Molotov, considered Soviet Koreans as Japanese spies.

The historical background to this theory is in the complexity behind the Russo-Japanese relationship throughout the beginning of the 20th century and up until the late 1930s-early 1940s.

In 1905, Russia lost the war to Japan with a historic defeat of its army and navy in the battle of Tsushima and subsequent occupation of Sakhalin island by Japanese troops. At the same time, Japan had already been aggressively moving toward the Russo-Chinese border in the Far East since the early 1890s, when in the course of the first Sino-Japanese War it acquired full influence over the Korean peninsula and--after the Russian defeat in 1905--formalized that control by annexing Korea and making it a Japanese colony in 1910.

At the same time, Japan had also been strengthening its military influence over Qing dynasty-run Manchuria in northeast China right until the moment it officially seized the region in 1931 during the Mukden Incident.

That very same volatile border between Russia and China was the place where ethnic Korean peasants from the north of the Korean peninsula had been moving to since the late 1850s and into the early 1860s, trying to escape dire poverty and starvation in the feudal and rundown Korea of that time. They had been moving first to the Chinese territory and then to what officially became Russian land after the treaty of Peking was signed between the Qing dynasty and imperial Russia in 1860. The first 13 Korean families were found by a Russian military convoy along the Tizinhe river in 1863, and this is the precise event and date to which post-Soviet Koreans or Koryo Saram (as they call themselves) date as their arrival to Russia.

We can, with all certainty, say that those regional wars fought with Japan by Russia and China along the Far Eastern borders reflected the uneasy global situation of that time, and ethnic Koreans became the immediate victims of that situation and those wars.

Korean peasants in the Russian Far East were regarded as suspicious subjects ever since 1905, when Russia started recognizing the Korean peninsula as Japanese territory. Since 1907, anti-Korean laws were effectively applied against those Korean peasants residing on Russian territories; for example, their lands were seized by the Russian government.

At the same time, more and more ethnic Koreans from the north (mostly from Hamgyong province) were escaping the war and Japanese colonization on the Korean peninsula by crossing the border into Russia. By the early 1920s, their numbers exceeded 100,000 in total. After the Soviet revolution in 1917, all ethnic Koreans in the Far East became Soviet citizens. They heroically fought against the Japanese during the Civil War in the Far East throughout the early 1920s, and lived mostly in Maritime province (Primorsky Krai) in the Korean national district of Posyet established during the Soviet policies of Koreanization from the original 105 Soviet Korean villages in the Russian Far East.

At the same time and with the official accrual of Manchuria in 1931-1932, Japan was now populating its Manchurian territory right across the border from the Soviet Korean district of Posyet with its colonial Korean subjects, both as soldiers and forced labor. These might have been different Koreans from the south, they probably even spoke a slightly different Korean dialect from the Soviet Koreans speaking Koryo mar, which is mostly based on the northern dialect of Hamgyong province.

But in the eyes of Soviet leadership they were all the same -- unreliable people. The decision to deport all ethnic Soviet Koreans from the Far East to Central Asia had been in planning since the late 1920s and throughout the early 1930s, with intelligence reports speculating that the Japanese were effectively sending ethnic Korean spies to the neighboring Soviet Maritime province. In August 1937, Joseph Stalin signed the infamous Resolution No. 1428-326CC condemning 171,781 Koreans -- the whole Soviet Korean population of the Far East -- to be deported to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

This deportation became the first population transfer of an entire nationality (ethnic group) in the Soviet Union; it took less than two months to be effectively executed. By October 1937 all Koreans had been forcefully shipped to Central Asia with almost no possessions or resources to survive through those long and hungry winter months of crossing across Siberia in cattle trains.

Those few Koreans who were not deported with the rest of the civil population were purged and sent to the Siberian gulags, if not immediately exterminated. They mostly happened to be members of the Soviet military or party cadres, but also other highly educated Soviet Korean intelligentsia. Russo-Korean families were split up, with all Korean members deported to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, including children and the elderly, and Russian members left behind.

Central Asia was chosen to be the site of the relocation because of its remoteness and underdevelopment. Historically, many unwanted people had been deported to the southeastern outskirts of the Russian Empire, including revolutionaries, political opposition members, and even the grandson of Emperor Nicholas I, Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich Romanov, who ended up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, at the end of the 19th century. At the same time, the Soviet regime needed a labor force to develop underpopulated lands for agricultural purposes, and Soviet Koreans were put to work in what became the Soviet Union's first forced labor camps.

Your grandfather was among those deported in 1937 when he was 7 years old. You’ve written that the only story from that time he ever told you was about the long cattle train ride that brought him to Soviet Uzbekistan. Why do you think he was reluctant to say more?

I think he was reluctant to say more because he was a 7-year-old child when the deportation occurred in 1937. He did not remember all the details of that painful journey on the cattle train, except for the fact that it was very long and extremely uncomfortable.

On the other hand, the 1937 deportation of Soviet Koreans was a forbidden topic until after perestroyka and glasnost in the late 1980s. Even nowadays it is an extremely sensitive issue often not discussed publicly. The deported Koreans disclosed the dramatic and often tragic details of their train journey and subsequent ordeals only with their closest family members, passing those stories from one generation to another.

Probably, I was also still too small to learn the more painful details about my grandfather's arrival to Soviet Uzbekistan back then. And we did not really have a proper chance to discuss it later on while my grandfather was still alive...

His passing away in 2007 was partially the reason why I eventually undertook this project. I wanted to record the very scarce memories still alive, yet unknown to so many, before they would completely slip away into the sand of our past, with no way of bringing them back.

The other big and very personal reason behind "Lost and Found in Uzbekistan: The Korean Story" was to bring into light the forgotten history of the deportation of Soviet Koreans to Uzbekistan. In 1937, the total amount of the deported Koreans was approximately 172,000 people. Almost half of them were sent to Uzbekistan on the trains, and the other half forced to stay in Kazakhstan. There are several big and incredibly well done international projects in English about the Kazakhstani Koreans and the deportation of Koreans to Kazakhstan (like the documentary Koryo Saram -- The Unreliable People or the ongoing photo project The Koreans of Kazakhstan), but they do not even mention Uzbekistani Koreans or the fact that almost half of all deported Soviet Koreans were sent on to Uzbekistan after their initial arrival to Central Asia.

The probable reason behind it is the fact that nowadays Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are two independent countries. In the past, it did not really matter where exactly the Koreans were being deported to, as the Soviet Union was one gigantic state that promoted in its official propaganda the brotherhood of all its nations and the friendship of all its people. The Koreans arrived to what was still one united country; nowadays the reality has changed dramatically, but we should not forget the historical facts or try to reinterpret them. The Koreans of Uzbekistan are as important as the Koreans of Kazakhstan--they are all Korean people who have deeply suffered during and after the deportation in 1937. Therefore, the other half of all deported Soviet Koreans should not be forgotten or ignored in the global political history, and ultimately my project is about these people who have been deeply damaged by the historical and political circumstances of our common past in my home country, Uzbekistan.

After arriving in Uzbekistan, what was life like for Soviet Koreans?

Their life has been extremely hard, and those Koreans paid a full price to be recognized nowadays as one of Uzbekistan's most honored diasporas. Our state and our people recognize Koreans for their hard work and contribution to our economy (especially, our agriculture). Everyone is used to seeing Korean faces on the streets among Uzbeks, Russians, Tatars, and others. Korean food is an integral part of our Uzbekistani cuisine, with typical North Korean salads being sold in the stalls in every market throughout Uzbekistan.

Thanks to our unique history, Uzbekistan has acquired and assimilated almost all the Soviet Union's ethnic groups and nationalities. From the early 1930s, Uzbekistan began receiving Germans, Poles, Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainians, Jews, Armenians, Greeks, Turks, Kurds, Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, and others. At the beginning, people were forcefully deported to Central Asia mostly for political reasons; during World War II the Soviets were actually trying to save the civil population of Union’s west by moving it away from the actual war front to remote areas in the southeast not directly affected by the ongoing war in Europe.

As a result, nowadays we are a truly multiethnic country, where people mutually respect each other, different cultures, traditions, and beliefs. I am three quarters Russian, Jewish, and Belorussian myself, and one quarter Korean, but first and foremost I consider myself Uzbekistani and usually answer "I am Uzbek" when people ask me where I am from or what my nationality is.

However, even in Uzbekistan nowadays people do not know the realities behind the 1937 deportation and arrival of Soviet Koreans to our country. As already mentioned, this topic had been strictly forbidden by the Soviet state until our most recent past, and even now it remains very sensitive. I wanted to do this project so that--first and foremost--we ourselves know the true history of our country and all its people.

When the Koreans first arrived to Soviet Uzbekistan in 1937, they were forced to work in the swamps surrounding Tashkent back then. Under 24/7 military guard, they lived in barracks and worked drying out the swamps. In about three years, they dried the swamps out, cut all the cane and turned the lands into fruitful fields. Nowadays, Tashkent is surrounded with cotton fields and fruit orchards. Partially, this is thanks to the Koreans.

They also introduced new sorts of rice and other grain cultures and taught the locals traditional Korean agricultural techniques. As a result, Uzbekistan became the Soviet Union's granary -- rice is our staple food, and the best sorts of rice are still lovingly called Korean.

These humble, honest, and very hard working people slowly gained the trust of locals and even the Soviet military, under whose guard they were being kept day and night. Eventually, they were permitted to build their own houses out of clay and mud on the lands they had been developing and cultivating with so much love. In time, the first Korean kolkhozes (collective farms) were organized all over Tashkent province.

Initially, these kolkhozes were very closed and controlled spaces, populated and managed by the same Koreans who had earlier been forced to live and work on the same swamplands over which the Korean kolkhozes eventually appeared. Slowly, they became very prosperous and successful, and were even commonly referred to as the “millionaire kolkhozes.” Again, all of this has been achieved only thanks to the very hard work and physical labor of their Korean inhabitants and farmers. Many heroes of Socialist Labor came out of those Korean kolkhozes with numerous awards, certificates and medals.

In 1953 Joseph Stalin died, and with him some of the Soviet Union's more repressive policies. How did this change the situation of Koreans in Uzbekistan?

The real change came after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, when his personality cult started being purposefully destroyed by the next Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev. In 1956, Khrushchev took a historic decision to give the deported Koreans their full rights and freedoms back, which meant that--as fully fledged Soviet citizens--their movements were no longer restricted to the region they'd been deported to.

Surprisingly or not, most Uzbek Koreans stayed in the same kolkhozes they had developed, where they had built their homes and bore their children. They really had nowhere else to go. Uzbekistan had slowly become their one and only home.

Their children were also coming back to the same Korean kolkhozes after being educated all over the Soviet Union. The new generation of managers, engineers, and agricultural experts took care of the lands their parents had come to in 1937. Slowly and painfully, this land has become truly theirs.

Some Uzbek Koreans answered the call of Kim Il-sung to fight on behalf of the DPRK in the Korean War. You wrote that many stayed in North Korea, initially viewed as war heroes, but in the mid-1950s the relationship between the USSR and North Korea deteriorated. How did this affect families split between Uzbekistan and North Korea?

The participation of Soviet Koreans in the Korean War shoulder to shoulder with Kim Il-sung is still, probably, the most secretive part of this generally deeply secretive period in our Soviet history. Indeed, these were Koreans mostly from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan who were serving in the Soviet military or studying in military academies in Central Asia at the beginning of the Korean War. One such academy, for example, was the Chirchiq military academy near Tashkent.

Kim Il-sung personally appealed to all Koreans to join him in liberating the Korean peninsula from the capitalist "aggressors." Over 100 Central Asian Koreans in the military ranks joined him and became generals, marshals, and admirals in the newly established DPRK. Many of them married or re-married in North Korea and became members of the DPRK's first government and military apparatus. Kim Il-sung also requested that they surrender their Soviet citizenship. Many of them did, which eventually turned out to be a tragic mistake.

After Stalin's death in 1953, Mao Zedong's China and Kim Il-sung's North Korea experienced a rapid fall out with the Soviet Union. Fearing a possible coup-d'etat orchestrated by the new Soviet leadership, Kim Il-sung began suspecting that his closest advisors, consisting mostly of those Central Asian Koreans, were preparing a secret revolt. His former Soviet friends and allies who had helped him establish the DPRK were purged throughout the 1950s into the late 1960s. Their families back in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have never learned all the details of their ordeals and disappearances in North Korea. Those few lucky ones who were still able to maintain their Soviet citizenship or were somehow related to the Soviet embassy in Pyongyang managed to escape and return back to Central Asia. The majority, along with their North Korean passports and new families in the DPRK, have silently disappeared forever.

After nearly 80 years in Uzbekistan, what traditions do ethnic Koreans in Uzbekistan hold onto and is there motivation to leave?

Indeed, in 2017 we will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the 1937 deportation and arrival of ethnic Koreans to Uzbekistan.

Post-Soviet Koreans are members of a unique diaspora that left Korea in the early 20th century, when it was still a unified country. Most were from Hamgyong province in the north, and originally spoke the local dialect that served as a foundation for Koryo mar, the language of Soviet Koreans.

Unfortunately, the Soviet regulations did not permit them to keep their original language--Koreans were forced to learn Russian and study, work, and publish in Russian too. Those were the realities of the times for all Soviet ethnicities--Russian was the official language, and Soviet Russian culture was the predominant one to follow in all Soviet republics, even if they had had their own centuries-old culture, traditions and language.

Uzbek and other Central Asian Koreans were able to keep the fundamental traditions of all Korean people, like the celebration of autumn and spring equinoxes (Chusok and Hansik), the first and sixtieth birthdays (tol and hwangab), burial commemorations and wedding celebrations, and certain rituals like showing your respect to the elderly in the form of traditional kneeling. Some of these customs and traditions evolved while getting accustomed to local surroundings and ingredients--the same thing happened with Korean food and Korean language in each of Central Asian countries, where Koreans still live.

Currently, hundreds of thousands of descendants of those originally deported Koryo Saram live all over Central Asia and Russia. The realities of their lives are the same as of other ethnicities populating what used to be our common motherland, and Koreans now move voluntarily, searching for better lives and for a better future.

South Korea supports the Korean diasporas in the former Soviet Union, both in terms of funding and cultural and professional exchanges for ethnic Koreans. In Uzbekistan, younger people are able to learn the Korean language freely in language schools and cultural centers mostly sponsored by South Korea. The classical Seoul dialect, however, is quite different from Koryo mar that the older generation used to speak within their tight family circles after their initial arrival to Soviet Uzbekistan.

Some Korean Uzbeks live, study, and work in South Korea too. The question of temporary and/or permanent emigration to South Korea has always stayed somewhat complicated for our Koreans due to a number of reasons, such as language and cultural differences. Younger and more adaptable Korean Uzbeks people have been able to move and grow accustomed to local life in South Korea. The older Koryo Saram probably do not see it as their real home as it had forever stayed lost and found in Central Asia, on those swamplands and steppes they had turned into fruitful fields.

Lastly, why is it important to preserve these stories?

This is our history and our conscience, without the knowledge of which we, as human beings, simply cannot exist. The only way to change and improve our present and future lies in the preservation and acceptance of the history and the mistakes of our past. The accumulation of small and individual human tragedies and suffering--in the same way water drops accumulate into the oceans and seas--leads to those gruesome historical realities and dramas that we later see in the news and study in our history textbooks or rather may stay hidden, forgotten, and ignored by the majority of common people.

The stories of the 1937 deportation of Soviet Koreans to Central Asia, their perseverance and success on the lands they originally came to develop as a labor force is part of our common history--the history of all Koreans and all human beings, in general. The sufferings and achievements of Soviet Koreans must therefore be never forgotten.