The German occupation of Kalmykia during World War II gave what remained of this nation a chance to express its identity and resentment of Soviet policies. When the Germans were routed in 1943. the vanguard of the Kalmyks retreated with the German armies and formed an emigre organization in the West of about 13.000. After the Red army had liberated the area. the deportation order was announced December 27. 1943. "The liquidation of the Kalmyks as an organized community was carried out informally." Although many were sent to the Krasnoyarsk area of Siberia. the majority disappeared without trace. The Kalmyk A.S.S.R. was absorbed by the province of Astrakhan. the Kalmyk capital Elitsa assumed a Russified name Stepnovy. and the leading fishing settlement Lagan became Kaspiiskoye. Lenins reference to Kalmyk history as an "uninterrupted chain of suffering." 6 had assumed a prophetic quality. Another Caucasian people whom the Soviets deported as a group are the Karachai. The Tsarist precedent for this measure occurred in the early 19th century when the Karachai were driven out of the Caucasus foothills by the advancing Cossacks. Confined to the rocky mountain area. they lived in the poverty of nomadic cattle breeding.
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deported deportation