Aigi Rahi (Tartu University)
Project A Joint Register of Estonian Population
Losses:
sources and methods of research
1. Soviet occupation and Estonian population
losses. The current state of research.
The research into
repressions, based on source materials, began in Estonia at the end of the
1980s. The first stage of the research attempted to estimate the scope of
repressions – how many people were repressed and through whose fault. Lists of
those who were repressed began to appear in newspapers and in separate
publications, books on memoirs became available for readers. Within the last
dozen years praiseworthy research into repressions has been conducted in
Estonia.
Regrettably, I have
to admit that many of the questions remain without an estimate or concrete
answer. For instance, a generalising and scientifically founded analysis of the
Estonian direct and indirect population losses is lacking. The categories of
the repressed have been studied on various levels and with a different focus.
Numerous conclusions and generalisations in the literature are based on
approximate calculations but not on verified data and therefore assessments
continue appearing.
Naturally, the
situation was caused by concrete reasons:
1. The basis of sources is fragmentary. Files or
lists with a considerable generalising potentiality are lacking. Many important
materials were taken to Russia. Various archives that contain necessary data
have not been brought to proper order to date. It compels to work through
numerous second-rate sources that, in turn, presupposes the presence of the
staff of adequately qualified historians. With professional historians
wanting, a large part of the work has been left for amateurs to do, hence the
results.
2. Distraction of lists and databases compiled by
various committees and researchers. Non-coordination has brought about the
duplication of work.
3. In case of various published data poor source
reviews or the lack of the latter becomes evident. Conclusions often rest upon
one original source only, without making use of possibilities of checking data
on the same person in other databases (e.g. a person was listed as a deportee,
arrested for political reasons and died in the prison camp). Thus the
biographical data of one and the same person circulate in several incorrect
variants.
Considering what has been said above, the past decade in the area of the
research into repressions can be regarded as the period of search,
reconstruction and preliminary statistical analysis of sources.
2. On the background of the project on population losses.
Numerous groups of
researchers, committees and individual researchers have attempted to elucidate
Estonian population losses.[1]
All of them have observed one or another category of the repressed, however, a
broader historical assessment or a comprehensive work is still lacking to date.
One of the obstacles has been an imperfect methodology of research. As long as
a single and integrated database is lacking, we cannot speak about verified
data about population losses, on the other hand, current data are dispersed and
often contradictory. I emphasise again – a single and integrated database is
lacking. This is my keyword.
And although we live
in the era of information technology, numerous lists still exist only on paper
and not as computerised databases. It is a matter of regret that part of
qualified researchers assume a role of publishers of individual facts about the
repressed in the form of a book and regard common use of existing materials in
databases as unnecessary.
On the other hand,
the composition of an integrated database that would draw together all existing
databases is inevitable. We have reached the stage in which we need to focus on
linking together and specifying databases of individual facts. The research into
repressions presumes a complex application of various sources, composing
reliable databases to be elaborated and analysed professionally.
Research into whatever demographic, national and social aspects requires
availability of representative statistical data. In the situation where people
are constantly on the move (jumbled demographic processes took place, normal
births and deaths were disturbed, people migrated east or west, forcibly or
voluntarily, various mobilisations etc.) and an adequate demographic statistics
was lacking, the restoring of correct and trustworthy data may be rather
time-consuming.
3. On the project
In 2000 the Chair of
Archival Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia, launched an extensive
research project “A Joint Register of Estonian Population Losses”. The project
is going to be financed by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of
Estonia. The purpose of the project is to compose an integrated joint register
for Estonian population losses from 1940 to 1989, indicating all the
categories of those who suffered in the course of various occupations. Parallel
to the information about permanent population losses, the data about the
categories of people who left Estonia, either for good or temporarily,
including new settlers, fugitives, mobilised persons, evacuees, etc. are also
fed in the register. Thus the project is planned to contain both direct and
indirect population losses caused to Estonia.
The launched project
“A Joint Register of Estonian Population Losses” is scheduled as a longer-term
and multi-staged undertaking. The register will be formed on the strength of
the databases of similar contents, created already (or forthcoming) by various
commissions and work teams. It certainly presupposes that all these commissions
and researchers get along very well and share common interests. Substantially,
it is going to be the composition of a new integrated type of sources.
During the first
stage of the project a maximum amount of the repressed persons’ individual data
was gathered and fed in the integrated database. At present the main task is to
enter into the computer the so-called KGB-files, kept in our National Archives
(c. 800,000 cards). As at different times several filing cards (6 on the
average) may have been filled in per one person (there may have been even 20
cards and more) then there are essentially more cards on file than persons
concerned.
The
files under discussion form the backbone for the prospective register of
Estonian population losses, they are being supplemented by other specified
data. The files include data about all categories of population losses. The
persons having no reference in other sources can often be found on these
files. Until now the material has been used fragmentarily and very
sporadically.
Up
to now the realisation of the project has conventionally taken two major
courses, first, entering the filing cards into the computer and, second,
drawing together and making earlier existing databases compatible.
4.
A
short word about making earlier data files compatible.
Within
the last decade Estonia has published, one after another, lists that contain
data about various categories of the repressed. The lists that are better known
comprise the deportees of 1941 and 1949, those arrested for political reasons,
forest brothers, those killed in the WWII, victims of the red terror et al.[2]
The majority of the lists are being supplemented and adjusted, but there are
only preliminary lists concerning numerous other categories and many important
files have not yet been started.
Concerning
the work already accomplished, the main problems include the dissipation of
existing data and often also their inconsistency. Only when drawing all the
data together into one integrated database is it possible to avoid
contradictions, find out errors and pay attention to imprecisions. Drawn
together, various databases begin to supplement one another mutually, thus
making a considerable step forward in restoring the whole picture of the past
events.
At
the present time the project can make use of c. 20 databases. The work on them
started off by writing an overview of exact contents and structure of the databases
as well as the completeness of the data. A number of the databases are planned
to be published in the form of a book, because they were not structured as an
information system, having an independent function. The integration and
presentation of complex inquiries is possible only in the databases with a
homogenous structure. Since up to now, the co-ordination of making lists has
not been successful and, besides, they were composed by various work teams,
then, as a result, there are numerous variegated databases. In addition to
major mismatches in structures, different abbreviations, marking of dates etc.
have been used and all these discrepancies need unification. In integrating
earlier databases the major issue to face is the “purity” of data fields. Therefore,
before unified application of earlier databases it is necessary to restructure
them, in the first place.
Step
by step, we have started testing mutual matching of various databases. For this
purpose we have already carried out a number of common inquiries for data both
in databases and on file. Gradually, all databases are added to the integrated
system of databases – MySQL. In the limits of existing means we attempt to
carry out database inquiries. By the interaction of various databases it is
possible to observe some family history along a rather long temporal axis. In
case of a novel approach old familiar sources may also offer new facets, not
previously known.
5. About the work on files.
The files of
individual data, better known as the so-called KGB-files, are now kept in the
Estonian National Archives. From the aspect of archival records, the files are
a collection whose first cards come from 1919 and the last ones from the end of
the 1980s. Completely various sources have been melted into the integrated
files.
In
the 1920s the Security Police, Criminal Investigation Police and Political
Police of the Republic of Estonia gathered information about the persons who
were conspicuous by their political attitudes or criminal activities. Among
them were those who illegally crossed the border, smugglers, communists and
their acquaintances, potential spies (persons regarded with suspicion), new
settlers to Estonia, members of the League of Veterans of the Estonian War of
Independence or the so-called Vapses and many others.
In
1940 the files were taken over by the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs
of the Estonian SSR. The State Archives, subjected to the Ministry of Internal
Affairs in the Estonian SSR, played a definite role in carrying out the
repressive policy. It was possible to operatively get data about the persons or
organisations concerned. The decree No 001345 as of 23 October 1940, issued by
the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR, ruled that all the
archival materials be used in the operational work.[3] In
accordance with the decree, for discovering enemies of Soviet power all more
interesting archival files had to be systematically inspected. Therefore the
files, compiled as a result of the work, are called the KGB-files.
A
few years ago central archives of Russia – State Archives of the Russian
Federation (GARF) and Russian State Military Archives (RGVA) were seeking for
special files of the Head Office of the NKVD of the USSR. Eventually some
fragments of the special files, around 1.5 million cards were found in Siberia,
the town of Jalutorovsk. The number of cards is estimated to go up to 10
millions. At present the use of the files is complicated, also, part of the
files has been destroyed.
The
files, concerning the counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet element in, were
started in 1939. The files had an all-Union scope and reflected 27 categories
of persons with various “political colouring” (the Soviet term). The files
included the Czar’s family and members of the provisional government, members
of the White Guard, gendarmerie, Mensheviks, socialists-revolutionaries etc.
ending with foreign special agents. On 23 October 1940 the departments of the
NKVD archives in the Ukraine, Belo-Russia, Moldova, Karelia, Latvia, Lithuania
and Estonia were ordered to set up a register for their own
counter-revolutionary element.
Compromising materials about persons were
sought for fund-by-fund. A filing card was drawn up about every suspicious
person (see card) with his/her name, year and place of birth, officially fixed
place of work and occupation, various compromising relationships and a reference
to the source of information. Those persons were entered into separate lists,
in 3 copies, and sent to the archives of the NKVD of the USSR, the People’s
Commissariat of Internal Affairs for the realisation and to the Head Office of
the NKVD Archives.
By 1941, the working plan of the department
of special funds of the State Archives of the Estonian SSR provided that the
first materials to be investigated for the Chekist-operational work were those
that had belonged to the Defence League, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Public Prosecutor’s Office, Military Court, Political Police,
party organisations the Patriotic League and the Vapses. From January through
May 1941, the files for “political colourings” registered 37,794 persons in
Estonia and responded inquiries about 27,597 suspicious persons. The work was
stopped when the war broke out but continued in 1942 behind the Soviet front line where the earlier card catalogues of the political police and various materials of ministries and parties had been evacuated.
Likewise,
during German occupation various files were composed, for those, for instance,
who were not politically trustworthy. A special file was kept about those
Estonian citizens who had been killed, wounded, imprisoned or missing on the
front. After the war the cards drawn up by German occupation authorities were
added to the general files. Consequently, most varied sources were melted into
a unified file.
Since the
files have a very long history and survived various regimes and principles of
formation, a special attention is to be paid to the source-criticism. Numerous
references need cross-checking, meaning that it is necessary to return to
original sources. At the same time the compilers of the files have made use of
documents, destroyed by now, and their onetime existence can be seen only
thanks to references on filing cards.
It is regrettable
what happened to the archives of the Defence League. In March 1944, during the
bombing of Tallinn, the materials of the State Archives also sustained losses.
The documentation from the years 1925-1940 of the Headquarters of the Defence
League and their military units were destroyed by the fire. During the post-war
period many former members of the Defence League hoped that their association
with the Defence League could not be proved and they would escape arrests. But
unfortunately Soviet officials had gone through too many materials, later
destroyed in fire, and the registration forms, drawn up in 1940-41, were there
as a sufficient argument for arresting thousands of people. Thus, in 1944 the
Soviet ministries of power, when returning to Estonia, partly had the lists of
the so-called anti-Soviet element in their possession and the elimination
process could be continued.
The files do not
consist of similar cards but of about 40 types of most various cards among
which one can find original cards of institutions (on specially worked-out
forms) as well as adjusted forms and cards on a casual piece of paper. Information
on the cards is very varied, too. Since many cards have been added over a great
length of time, there is no homogeneity in them. In a number of cases there are
incomprehensible remarks or memos, jotted down on them, that caused much
trouble during the preliminary stage of feeding them into the computer. Many
such seemingly casual signs obtain a meaning when growing in mass. As it
appears, the structure of the database under construction on the basis of cards
is rather complicated. The data of the files, rather heterogeneous in places,
offer rich material for further analyses.
6. A preliminary analysis of joint data.
As
mentioned before, the current realisation of the project can be divided into two
parts, first, entering the files of individual data into the computer and,
second, getting earlier existing databases into a unified system. Since the
files are only in the stage of being entered and earlier out-of-date databases
are prepared for entering into a unified system, the analysis can be performed
only to a limited extent. Therefore we have deliberately avoided publishing
outstripping materials. I would only mention a few subdivisions that are being
worked on at present.
The
Soviet repressive policy did not consist of single actions only, as, for
instance, deportation operations. In their case, also, it was scrupulously
thought over against whom to direct repression. One repression led to another.
In Estonia, the WWII produced en mass untrustworthy persons in the eye of the
Soviet authorities. It concerned those who had served in German army or in some
particular area of civil service, participated in Self-Defence, left Estonia, a
person’s mentality etc. Therefore we have attempted to observe inter-repression
relationships, for instance, how belonging to the Defence League by one member
of the family had an impact on the further destiny of the whole family etc.
One
of the peculiar topics is made up by individual data on the communists in the period
of the Estonian Republic (1919-1944). In the years from 1920 to 1940 the
Estonian political police observed the activities of these persons who belonged
to the underground ECP, or some other illegal organisation, who were believed
to share communist world outlook or just people who had stood out as leftists.
In connection with Soviet rule, many of them became activists, who, in the
course of time, can be found among the fighters of the destroyer battalion,
evacuees to the Soviet Union in 1941 or those who were killed during German
occupation. Regrettably, today I cannot yet explain concretely why, both in the
1960s and 1970s, the Soviet authorities so very carefully investigated the
materials of the persons who served in the destroyer battalion. Or perhaps it
is the application of the principle divide and rule – it was necessary to keep
an eye on underlings. Thus, in the same files we find the names of both – the
repressed and repressors. Part of them belongs to those who were executed
during German occupation and are included also in the lists of Estonian
population losses.
The files include numerous characteristics that
need a scrupulous follow-up checking and supplementary thorough research on the
level of individuals. The circle of the persons described is one of the
examples from the controversial categories to be analysed. The existing data
enable to propose a number of independent themes, many of which go back to the
period of 1920-1940.
The voluminous database project is a noteworthy achievement against the
background of the Estonian History and Computing. But, hopefully, it is the
topic of a subsequent conference.