'This is not just deportation, but also persecution': Turkish academician on Soviet exile of Meskhetian Turks

ISTANBUL, Türkiye

The deportation of Meskhetian Turks is not only a painful event for the local community but a very "tragic" incident in Turkish history, according to a Turkish historian.

Speaking to Anadolu on the 79th anniversary of the exile of almost 100,000 Meskhetian Turks from their homeland in the Caucasus region during the Soviet era, professor Ayna Askeroglu, who is a faculty member at Istanbul university, said: "This is not just a deportation; it is a persecution. Describing this event as a deportation is an understatement. It was a plan to eliminate the Turks."

"The Soviet Union's desire to sever the ties between the Turks in border regions and Türkiye played a role in the decision to deport the people. The Soviet Union aimed to invade the eastern and Black Sea regions due to their strategic position," Askeroglu said.

Coming from a family that experienced deportation, Askeroglu said that Meskhetian Turks had nearly 220 villages near the Türkiye-Georgia border in 1944.

"Since everyone capable of holding a weapon was conscripted, only the elderly, women, and children were left in the villages. They did not engage in any armed rebellion against the USSR," he said.

Askeroolu stressed that Stalin subjected not only Meskhetian Turks but all Turks along the Türkiye border to forced migration.

"The Soviet Union dreamt of establishing an Armenian state in the vacant areas left by the Turks," he noted.

Describing how Russian soldiers placed Meskhetian people "packed like fish" in wagons used for transporting animals, Askeroglu said the people, not knowing why and where they were being sent, believed they would return and thus took nothing with them.

Askeroglu noted that some Meskhetian people died from lack of air due to the narrowness of the deportation wagons.

"Sometimes they would stop on the way, and the corpses of those who died in the wagons would be thrown onto the roads. The exact number of deaths on the roads is unknown. There are no graves, no funeral prayers, nothing," he said.

"It is unknown where and how some were thrown. Imagine people cramped in wagons under inhumane conditions for two weeks. There was no bread, no water," Askeroglu said.

On Nov. 14, 1944, around 100,000 Meskhetian Turks were deported from their ancestral lands in Georgia's Meskheti region to distant parts of the Soviet Union.

During nearly 40-day deportation from their homeland to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, around 13,000 Meskhetian Turks lost their lives due to hunger, cold weather, and diseases.

They also faced discrimination and human rights abuses before and after the Soviet deportation.

Up to 500,000 Meskhetian Turks are scattered across nine countries, including Türkiye, Georgia, Azerbaijan, the US, and the Central Asian republics.

* Writing by Zehra Nur Duz