The atrocities against Jews, Roma and Serbs during the WW2 period are well documented by the historians. However, there were a number of small ethnic groups living in the southern part of Russo-Finnish border, who suffered a lot as a result of WW2. These groups were related to the Finns, and spoke languages closely related to the Finnish language. There were a total of 3 different tribes, each having its own distinct language and culture - Vepsians, Izhoras, and Votes. The Vepsians however avoided extinction, partly due to their population size. There were 31,679 of them in 1939. After the WW2 (during which a lot of them were killed), thousands of Vepsians were deported to Siberia, and the Soviet authorities introduced forced assimilation methods. Now there are only 5,936 Vepsians in Russia, most of them being elderly. The Vepsian language is still spoken by some 1,000 people. (Russian president Vladimir Putin is part-Vepsian) The Izhora and Votes were not so lucky. Izhoras numbered 7,847 in 1939 and more than half of them were killed during the war. After the war, Stalin ordered that the Izhora villages should be destroyed and the survivors should be deported to Siberia. Hardly anything remains of this ethnic group now.... A few hundred elderly people still report in the Russian census that they are Izhora. No children or young people identify as Izhora nowadays and the language is no longer spoken. Votes numbered only around 700 in 1939. Their fate was same as that of the Izhoras. Their only village was destroyed and they were deported. During the 2010 Russian Census, a few elderly people claimed that they are Vote, but even they don't remember their extinct language. The Votic culture is lost for ever. Descendants of Votes in national dress (they don't identify themselves as Vod during the census):
That is an interesting story Vladimir, and one that I had not heard. It also reminds us how in many ways, Stalin was a worse evil than Hitler himself.
We were caught between the devil and deep blue sea. Some 30 million people died fighting the Nazis. Stalin killed almost twice that number. 7.5 million died of famine in 1933 alone, when Stalin ordered that all the food grain stocks should be seized. However, I will not compare Stalin with Hitler. Both of them were evil. They were the most evil people in the history of mankind. And one more thing... many people believe that Stalin was an ethnic Russian. He was not. His original name was Ioseb Dzhugashvili, and he is of mixed Georgian Jewish - Georgian Orthodox ancestry (Stalin was neither Jewish nor Orthodox. He persecuted people belonging to all religions). Stal in Russian means steel. He adopted the name Stalin later in his life, meaning man of steel.
Stalin was from Georgia. Ironically Georgia had a little war with Russia a few years ago when Georgia invaded South Ossetia and resulted in Russia see it as NATO expansion and counter-attacked. Do not believe the western figure of "killed by Stalin" is anywhere close to the truth. Just like "killed by Mao" in China. I watched those number multiplying in western propaganda every year in the last decade... it was just stupid. As for the topic, I don't know any ethnic groups were completely wiped out, but there were plenty of entire villages wiped out in WWII by both Germans and Japanese. Japanese had the infamous "loot all, kill all, burn all" policy on some of their occupied areas where they encounter the most resistance. If a single Japanese soldier was killed anywhere near a village, the whole village would be in trouble for aiding the resistance.
You are wrong there. Stalin ordered that these groups should be deported. He is the person who is mainly responsible for their plight.
In the late 90s, the number of "killed by Mao" was "1 million landlords" in our Global Study text book. Then I watched the number kept multiplying every year to 10 million, 20 million, 30 million, 50 million, 60 million, 70 million, 80 million, 90 million, and 100 million in 2011. Now it's anywhere between 100 million to 120 million by the latest propaganda, and while these latest figures are quoted often already, many other drones often quote the "outdated" propaganda figure. When someone said "Mao killed 70 million of his own people", I'd reply "It is so 2009. The latest propaganda has higher number". Seriously. If you ask any Chinese or Russian, they would know. Because if indeed such huge amount of people were killed (It is a huge percentage even to their huge population), every family would have lost someone, and everyone would have known someone who died, there is no hiding such information due to the magnitude. Which is not the case. The same crap goes on when someone quote stupid propaganda of "2 million Tibetan monks were killed since communist China invaded"... the fact there were total 1.8 million Tibetans before communists took over in 1950s blew the whole propaganda out of the window... even if 100% the population were monks... From my observation, western propaganda is a lot worse than so called "communist propaganda".
Vash, the number of those who died in China might be difficult to measure, because the Census figures for 1930-1950 period there is not reliable. However, the USSR had one of the most efficient population counting mechanisms in the world at that time. The censuses of 1926, 1939 and 1959 were conducted with a great deal of professionalism. If you check the population changes for various ethnic groups during that period, it is easy to notice that the groups which were targeted very heavily (like the Izhora) lost as much as 90% of their population.
Just ask the Poles how they feel about the Russians and they'll tell you to go look up Katyn. On the subject of Mao, I don't think you'd find your everyday Chinese person a big help, most of them don't even know what happened at Tiaman square.
Although Russophobes frequently bring up the Katyn issue, even they will acknowledge that Poles constituted for less than 1% of Stalin's victims. Russians and Ukrainians were the main victims of the Stalinist purges.... and remember that Stalin was a non-Slav.
Since it was hard to measure according to you, how was it possible for the foreigners to measure it at all? Especially when a country like China was closed to foreigners up until late 1970s. China has very strict local residential registration called Hukou. All people have it upon birth, and must report in when move to a different location. Their population in 1949 was about 500 million. I was also talking about how is it even possible for their own people not noticing a large percentage of their own family members, friends, neighbors disappearing?? It's just not possible. You can go there and talk to any of them to find out if they know someone who was killed by the government or disappeared, or died of starvation after 1949. I don't think you will have much luck. If the western statistics was correct, it would be too common and everyone would have lost someone. Like I said, that didn't happen. And you don't need that part to figure it out, since the western figure is still multiplying every year just to bad mouth the "commies". Mao died in 1976, he can't possibility still be killing after that. I know China's case better than Russian, because I had been there, so were some of my friends. I can only think the figure about "killed by Stalin" is equally absurd by simple logic.
Be that as it may, but 22000 people is hardly a small number. As far as Stalin regime goes, if you even sneezed in some way or manner in which the party didn't approve, you were probably getting an all expenses paid vacation to Siberia. As far as the Chinese go, don't let the capitalist trend that has been going on for the last 20 years fool you. It's still very much a communist state, and speaking your mind in a communist state is rarely a good idea unless it conforms with the official party doctrine. Communist states have also been known to rewrite history, meaning in a generation the people will say what the government told them is the truth.
I was actually watching a recent documentary talking about Votes. Some of the villages are actually afraid to speak the language. Because of the assimilation act. There are a few of them that fly their national flag above their homes. The get spat on by the locals but they are still proud people. They will get their houses searched or even seized from time to time for no reason at all.
