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Meskhetia is again discovered country
By Prof. Konstantin MatveevSuffering is the only word that may describe everyday life of Meshetians who were charged falsely by betrayal to start an endless journey of terror.
If you put this term -Meshetia- into a crossword, I bet you, you will hardly be able to guess what country we are speaking about, where it was and is located. The reason is, that Stalin - the former leader of the Soviet Union- and his minister of Internal Affairs Beria not only evicted the Meshetian people -the Meshetian Turks- from their own Meshetia, but liquidated the name itself of their country, and crossed it out from the geographical guidebooks, encyclopaedias, and from literary sources in general. Where was it located? Why its people were guilty before Stalin? The country with such a name was situated of South and SouthWest Georgia -a former Republic of the ex-Soviet Union. It was located at the height of 2000 metres over the sea level, in a big, wide and long valley with a general territory ot 8600 km. Before the Meshetian Turks' eviction from their own places, their number was 158000 men and they lived in 212 villages. All these villages are located near the city of Batumi -the capital of Autonomous Republic of Adzharia- between two rivers - Chorokh and Kura. When I was there in Batumi on one of my trips in 1975 and tried to know some words about Meshetia, the local people -the Georgians and the Adzharians- waved their hands, hid their eyes and looked at me with suspicion as if I was an agent of foreign agencies. It was forbidden to get interested in this country and these people, as you could bring suspicion of the soviet State security (KGB). I did not know that at that time; and the behavior of the local people seemed strange to me. They feared something -I thought- or they could not remember a thing. At that time I thought that the local people were like "savages" and illiterate, don't know what was before their nose. They knew how to trade and to earn from their commerce. But in reality, the local people knew much about that region, but feared to speak about Meshetia and the Meshetian people who were exiled by Stalin and Beria from their places in 1944. And the Turks seemed to disappear from the face of the earth smashed from it by whirlwind, storm or by epidemic, which was Stalin himself. That's why today a word "a Turk" often arises a surprise among our compatriots, that this Turk lives in our country by some reason; and at the attempt to know the image of the Soviet Turk from the side of an unknown, ill-informed person appears before your eyes, a constant fez over sparkling eyes and a big crooked nose, colourful wide trousers and with it you imagine a curved sabre (though in doubt, a mind can prompt here that a yataghan long ago became a museum exhibit). 1 Meshetia, the country of the Meshetian Turks was always located in the Caucasus, in Georgia but not in Turkey. It was seized by the Ottoman Empire in its time, during the great Turkish conquests in Fore Asia. In 1829, according to the Adrianopol Peace treaty, this part of the Ottoman empire was transferred to Russia. Russia on the basis of Ahalgtsikh vilayet (province), where Meshetia was located, formed a district of the same name. The Meshetian Turks, at the transference to Russia, were already Muslims of the sunnite trend, though before that time they were Christians, belonged to two churches - the Orthodox and the Catholic. Some scholars consider that they are Turks by origin, who settled down here since the time of coming the Turks to Fore Asia. By their arrival at the Caucasus, the Turks, as the scholars say, forced out the local population from their places and settled down themselves in that district. The other scholars, including me, think that the Meshetian Turks from anthropological point of view and many other elements of the Georgian ethnography are Georgians by descent. They adopted not only Islam from Turks, but their language. In this aspect, their fate is very close to the fate of the Adzharians and the Lazes. They -both of them- adopted Islam, but preserved their Georgian language. On the contrary, the Meshetian Turks adopted the Turkish language and Islam from the Turks. A Georgian historian Guram Mamulia wrote in connection with it, that the Meshetian Turks are Georgians. The Turks never lived in these places. But during three centuries the Turks islamised the local population. During this period of time the local population forgot their language. Meshetia was a centre of the Georgian culture. 2 I can add from my part that the ancient Assyrian cuneiform tablets of the second millennium BC mention the name - Moskh (Meskhi) - the people and their country, located in the Caucasus. At that time, certainly, the Turks did not live there and roamed far away in the Turan in the East of Asia. Though the Georgians consider the Meshetian Turks their own compatriots, this part of the Georgian population was considered during almost 300 years to be Turks with the Turkish language and the Muslim culture. The country (Meshetia) and the Meshetian Turks always arose Stalin's suspicion, as the Turks lived in an important military, strategic region of the USSR, on the border with Turkey, which after President Ata-Turk's death was always closer to the West than to Russia, as constantly feared its mighty neighbour - Russia. In the period of the Great Patriotic War (World War II) Turkey was preparing to attack the USSR together with fascist Germany in case its successful invasion to Stalingrad on the Volga river and Japan's interference on the side of Germany. By this, Stalin justified his decision to evict the Meshetian Turks, who were preparing a white horse for Hitler with the golden harness. Certainly, it was a big lie. Nevertheless the decision about the exile of the Meshetian Turks out of Meshetia was made by the State Defence Committee under the signatures of Stalin-Chairman, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Malenkov and others. At night 14-15 of November 1944 the Internal Ministry troops were moved here, which began massive eviction of the Meshetian Turks to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. These troops chased all the Turks to the village streets, dipped them into the lorries of "Studebackers" and sent them to the nearest railway stations, in which they had transported before that the livestock. Our reader can imagine that was November in Russia! it was the time of severe frosts and snowfalls, of frosty winds, but the wagons were not heated and the Turks had to go to the places of destination during one month. 3 In each carriage there were not less than 18 families, who received 2-3 loaves of bread and a bucket of watery soup. All the Turks went in 4 trains - all in all 112 000 and 40 000 were mobilized for the front. After awful tribulations and sufferings in cold carriages, in which they were without appearing in the air, they at last arrived in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. In Central Asia they were transfered to the regions of Mirzacol, Sirdaria, velikoalexeevskava, and Golden Horde. And everywhere there was an uninhabitated steppe hungry desert, called like this because nothing could grow on its soil. As a result of the diseases and famine in the first two months, 17000 people died and mainly children and elderly people. At that time, when the Turks, as slaves of 20th century, were labouring in the Hungary Steppe, the KGB spread a rumour, that the Turks had hidden their gold and golden handicrafts in their houses. And who will find it, will receive them for themselves. The reader can imagine how many wishers appeared to obtain these treasures. These hunters took with them axes, picks, shovels and crow-bars. They crushed everything around what could obtain the hidden treasures. But they could not find anything, though all the houses were destroyed, including the mosques. Nothing was left for the Meshetian Turks, who would be able to return home. In this way the local Meshetian culture was ruined and in such a way the KGB tried to deprive these people of their historical memory. As a result these Meshetians, who could return as tourists to these places, could not recognise them and were standing in front of their houses and thought as if it was something alien. Stalin evicted the Meshetian turks from their Motherland, and the Uzbek nationalists killed all whom they met of children, women and elderly. But the will to return never dies In 1956 after 19th congress of the Communist party of the USSR and N.Khrushev's report at it, where he exposed tne personality cult of Stalin, the Meshetian Turks were rehabilitated. They were allowed to go from Kazakhstan and Central Asia to any point of the USSR, except their Motherland - Meshetia. They decided to go to many republics and provinces of the USSR - Azerbaijan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Naghorny Karabagh, Chernobyl, Smolensk, Saratov, Voronesh and many others. In order to prevent them from coming back to Meshetia the local authorities built up a wide frontier zone, up to 78 km, and the former one was only 2-7 km in width. They put the border barrier up to the resort city of Borjomi. It meant, that only the local Georgians, but not the Meshetians, could come there as there was a passports' regime (control). In each passport a person's nationality was written. The border guards, looking at the passports, could recognize the Meshetians at once and refused them the visa entry. Nowadays in this region only the Georgians live. Their number is about 190,000. These Georgians use only about 30 percent of the land as they live mostly in the cities of Georgia and use the soil as summer resorts. In its time this land gave enormous quantity of stuff foods, but currently only 1/4 of the former quantity. 4 Luckily, the Meshetian Turks were not broken psychologically and moraly. They carried out their own national congress in Central Asia, created the Provisional Organizational Committee under the name "Vatan" -i.e. Motherland. The main target of this organization is to return to their native Meshetia. This Committee was sending letters, telegrams, messages to different organizations of the USSR, sent 200 delegations to Moscow with the aim of negociations connected with their returning to Meshetia. "Returning to the Motherland for the Turks is not a self-target. This is a necessary and major condition of the national salvation of the people. If not so, there will be dispersion, assimilation and disappearance. It is horrible to speak about it, when there is before you the fate of 207,000 people according to official accounts." 5 The fates of the Meshetian Turks were complicated in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. According to understandable causes the local people met them hostilely. The Turks were considered betrayers of the Motherland. The local people used to say "We were fighting against fascist Germany, saved our Motherland, our Fatherland; and these scoundrels were sitting at home, in the rearguard, betrayed us and were waiting for the Germans to come and give them benefits". It is true that when many years have elapsed the local people started to understand, that these people could not betray the USSR massively. After 1956- 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR, when the Turks were rehabilitated, they received an opportunity to move from their ghetoes -the villages- and to settle down wherever they wanted except Meshetia. At the same time they were not given an opportunity to receive jobs at factories, plants, offices, ministries, and so on. The only way, remained, was a trade. Being enterprising and industrious people the Turks organized a good trade of meat, vegetables, fruits and so on. The trade brought a quick and good income. An opportunity appeared to buy houses, plots of land, country houses and so on. After years have passed the Turks became rich, that arose envy among the Uzbek nationalists, who decided to seize their property. The other reason is growth of the Turkish nationalism, their organization and solidarity. The Uzbek nationalists started to carry out vile, low propaganda among the Uzbeks, saying, that the Turks had seized the best lands, trade and live on the account of "the poor" Uzbeks. How long will you insult the Uzbeks? - they asked. The low propaganda was lying on a beneficial soil. The economic and social situation in Uzbekistan at that time was very sharp. There was not only a match to fire a bon-fire. In June of 1989 the Uzbek nationalists raised a wave of savage violences against the Turks. They killed all whom they met -children, women and elder. Their houses were set on fire or ruined. "Down with the Turks!" "Out from Uzbekistan?", " Go to your land!", "Stop to suck our blood!". These and other slogans, one could read in many places in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. In this appaling situation the former prime-minister Nikolai Rijkov took the only correct decision - to evict the Turks from Uzbekistan to different provinces of Russia and to settle them down in abandoned Russian villages. I, for example, met these Turks in the Kursk province during the conference on International education. When I saw the Turks there, and their miserable conditions; I thought that there was no use to carry out such conferences, because we could not defend these people. I won't depict in details what happened to these people in Uzbekistan, in Muslim Uzbekistan. The Muslim Uzbeks were destroying all the Muslim Turks. It happened on 10-12 of June of 1989. The masses of the Turks rushed to railway stations, occupied the places in the trains and rushed to the North Caucasus near to their own Meshetia. Together with them, they took the killed children. 6 In my opinion the decision to settle the Turks in all the former USSR is not the solution to the problem of these people. It is only a superficial surgery operation, capable to lighten the condition of a patient at a certain stage. The main and basical for the Turks is to return to their Motherland in Georgia The delegates of the lst Congress of the Turks in 1992 appealed to the General secretary of UNO Butrus Ghali to take measures to acknowledge the rights of the Meshetian Turks from the part of Georgia, to return to their Motherland - to Meshetia-Java- hetia and secure them their human rights in the places of their current existence before their return to the historical Motherland.