‘Children of Siberia’ and Their Narratives about the Kalmyk Deportation: Interviews with V. Badmaev and A. Ovshinov

Abstract

Introduction. This publication is devoted to the issues of deportation of the Kalmyk people to Siberia (1943–1956) and the memories that the individuals have of their traumatic experience of the exile period. It consists of an introduction, two interviews, and comments on them. The narratives belong to Kalmyks who were of preschool age at the time of Siberian exile. The purpose of the publication is to focus on “children of Siberia” as a separate generational stratum, with their own specific experiences and loyalties; Siberian villages, sites of their socialization, becoming their homeland. Of relevance are the facts that contribute to the mosaic of the Siberian life of Kalmyks and the stories shedding light on the feelings and experiences of children growing up in Siberia. Also, the author was interested in analyzing the expressions and verbal formulas, plots and associations that create the protagonists’ spontaneous narratives, and the ways the language of trauma, which arises in any narrative of the traumatic event, is used in the material under study. Data and methods. The interviews were taken by the author from V. I. Badmaev (2008) and from A. N. Ovshinov (2018); presented in the form of transcribed texts, these are examined via the method of discourse analysis. Results. The discursive strategies of the two narratives indicate their largely positive character. The author shows that, for their specific exile experience, the “children of Siberia” should be singled out into a separate generational stratum. The material will be of interest to the student of the Kalmyk deportation history and the people’s memory of the exile.

Keywords

• deportation
• kalmyks
• repression
• the great patriotic war
• siberia
• memory
• narrative
• the language of trauma