Deportation means the forced resettlement of individuals or particular groups of the population. Russian authorities had practised deportation in the territory of Estonia since the Livonian War (1558–1582). During the Great Northern War, in 1708, residents of Tartu and Narva were deported to Russia. In 1781, on the orders of Catherine II, the Swedish inhabitants of Hiiumaa (Dagö) were deported to the Dnieper region. In January 1918, the Bolsheviks deported Baltic Germans from Tartu and elsewhere in mainland Estonia to Russia, alleging that they had held secret negotiations with officers of the German army.
Today, the European Court of Human Rights regards deportation as a crime against humanity.
June Deportation 1941
A year earlier, Stalin had annexed the Baltic states, and the aim was to deport from their homes the most important representatives of Estonian statehood (including state officials and local government figures, military personnel, police officers, businesspeople and wealthier farmers), together with their families. Another aim was to create fear and insecurity. During the deportation, men were separated from the rest of their families. The June Deportation took place during the night leading into 14 June, and more than 10,000 people were deported from Estonia. At the same time, mass deportations also took place in other western territories of the Soviet Union occupied in 1939/1940 (Latvia, Lithuania, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which had belonged to Poland, and Moldavia, which had been part of Romania).
Around 300 people were deported from Valga County, including 121 heads of household, who were separated from their families and sent mainly to forced-labour camps in Sosva and Severouralsk in Sverdlovsk Oblast and Saransk in the Mordovian ASSR. Their families were taken mainly to Chainsky, Krivosheinsky and other districts of Tomsk Oblast.
March Deportation 1949
The March Deportation, also known as Operation Priboi (Russian for ‘surf’ or ‘breaking wave’), was a mass deportation carried out simultaneously in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from 25 to 28 March. As the peasantry of the former Baltic states was unwilling to join collective farms, the main aim of the deportation was to accelerate collectivisation. A secondary objective was to destroy the supporters and support network of the Forest Brothers, who were fighting in forests against the Soviet occupation regime. As with the June Deportation, creating fear and insecurity among the population was also an important objective. According to the relevant lists, 22,500 people were to be deported from Estonia, but in practice slightly more than 20,000 were deported. For those carrying out the deportations, reaching the target number of deportees was more important than deporting the individuals named on the lists. More than 70% of those deported were women or children under the age of 16.
A total of 1,413 people were deported from Valga County, including 1,240 from rural municipalities and 173 from towns. The largest numbers were deported from Karula and Sangaste rural municipalities. People from Valga County were transported in four train echelons. From Elva station, people from Otepää, Pühajärve and Aakre were taken mainly to Omsk Oblast. The echelon departing from Keeni station carried people from the rural municipalities of Põdrala, Helme, Hummuli and Vaoküla, as well as from Kuigatsi, Sangaste and Tõlliste, and from Kaagjärve, Karula and Taheva. These deportees were sent mainly to various districts of Novosibirsk Oblast. The echelons stationed at Puka and Valga took deportees to Irkutsk, Tomsk and Karaganda oblasts, Krasnoyarsk Krai, the Komi ASSR and elsewhere. The most distant destination was Kobyaysky District in the Yakut ASSR. The oldest deportee in the whole of Valga County was 88-year-old Elsa Kurvits. After Joseph Stalin’s death, deportees gradually began to be allowed to return to their homeland.
