Russian autonomous labor colony in the People’s Republic of Tuva as a unique case of Russian regionalism

Authors

  • Vladimir G. Dazishen Siberian Federal University

Keywords:

Tuva; history of Tuva; People’s Republic of Tuva; Russian Autonomous Labor Colony (RALC); Russians in Tuva; regionalism in Russia

Abstract

The article examines the experience of Russian regionalism in mid-19th – early 20th century Tuva, which took shape of setting up a colony of Russian subjects and became one of the most powerful factors behind the declaration of the People’s Republic of Tuva. Russian Autonomous Labor Colony (RALC) was established in early 1920s and lasted for 10 years as a unique political entity in the history of Russia.

RALC was fully controlled by official representatives of the Soviet state. Its stable population of over 10000 was mainly involved in cattle breeding, agriculture, crafts and even trade. RALC had its own legislation which even provided for certain elements of statehood. It was allowed to create its own flag and emblem, control its budget, and had its own military unit. The land under use by the colonists was on official lease from the government of the People’s Republic of Tuva (PRT). Ethnic Russians with Soviet citizenship complied with the legislation of the RSFSR. RALC had its own court, with convicted criminals serving their sentence in the PRT.

Both RALC and PRT passed through several stages of increasingly radical left-wing reforms, which gave Moscow a firm grip over the local political establishment. In the second half of the decade the sociopolitical structure that included the RALC started to crumble away. On May 24, 1932, the autonomy was abolished by the new USSR-PRT agreement that oversaw the transformation of the colony’s remnants into Committees of Soviet Citizens.

The article introduces a number of unpublished or little-known documents from the state archives of Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk and other cities of the Russian Federation.

References

Aranchyn, Yu. L. (1977) RSTK i TNR. In: Velikii Oktiabr' i problemy noveishei istorii Tuvy, ed. Iu. L. Aranchyn. Kyzyl, Tuvinskoe knizhnoe izd-vo. 148 p. Pp. 72-89. (In Russ.).

Istoriia Tuvy (1964) : in 2 vol. Moscow, Nauka. Vol. II. (In Russ.).

Istoriia Tuvy (2007). Novosibirsk, Nauka. Vol. II. 202 p. (In Russ.).

Kan, V. S. (2007) Stanovlenie i razvitie gazetnoi periodiki Tuvy (1921–1985 gg.), Abstract of Dissertation… Candidate of History. Omsk. 23 p. (In Russ.).

Mollerov, N. M. (1990) Russkaia samoupravliaiushchaiasia trudovaia koloniia v TNR i ee rol' v ukreplenii sovetsko-tuvinskikh otnoshenii (1917–1932 gg.), Abstract of Dissertation… Candidate of History. Novosibirsk. 25 p. (In Russ.).

Mollerov, N. M. (2005) Istoriia sovetsko-tuvinskikh otnoshenii (1917–1944 gg.). Moscow, Institut molodezhi. 326 p. (In Russ.).

Sat, S. Ch. (2002) K voprosu o deiatel'nosti russkoi samoupravliaiushcheisia kolonii v Tuvinskoi Narodnoi Respublike. Vestnik Mezhdunarodnogo tsentra aziatskikh issledovanii, no. 7. (In Russ.).

Smirnov, A. I. (1931) Verkhnii Enisei, kak torgovyi put' v Mongoliiu i Tannu-Tuvu. In: Sovetskaia Aziia, book 3–4. Pp. 153–163. (In Russ.).

Spiski naselennykh punktov Eniseiskoi gubernii i Uriankhaiskogo kraia (1921) : sostavleny po dannym vserossiiskoi sel'sko-khoziaistvennoi perepisi 1917 goda i po drugim issledovaniiam 1916-1919 gg. Krasnoiarsk, Tipografia Yeniseiskogo Gub. Soyuza Kooperativov. Vol. 1. (In Russ.).

Published

03.09.2016

How to Cite

Dazishen, V. G. (2016) “Russian autonomous labor colony in the People’s Republic of Tuva as a unique case of Russian regionalism”, The New Research of Tuva, 3. Available at: https://nit.tuva.asia/nit/article/view/461 (Accessed: 24.11.2024).

Issue

No. 3 (2016)

Section

Pages of History

Author Biography

Vladimir G. Dazishen, Siberian Federal University

Doctor of History, Professor and Chair, Department of general history, Institute of the Humanities, Siberian Federal University.

Postal address: Office A-444, 82 Svobodny Ave., 660041 Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation.

Tel.: +7 (391) 2-06-26-77.

Email: dazishen@mail.ru

Author(s) license holder(s) grant rights for their work to the journal (grantee of a license) under the simple non-exclusive open license in accordance with Art. 1286.1 «Open license for a research work, work of literature or fine arts», Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

New Research of Tuva publishes articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (CC BY-NC).

Since it is an open license, author(s) reserve the right to upload the article to their institutional repository, submit it to another journal (if it allows republications), or republish it on their own website (in full, or in part).

However, several conditions apply here:

a) The republished version must always contain the name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s), the original title and the hyperlink to the original version on the New Research of Tuva website;

b) It must be in open access, free of charge, and no category of readers must be in any way whatsoever advantaged over general readership.

c) should the contribution be submitted elsewhere by its author(s) without substantial modification (30% or more of original text unchanged), the body of the article should contain a disclaimer that the original version was published in New Research of Tuva (with a link to the respective page)

The CC-BY-NC is a non-revocable license which applies worldwide and lasts for the duration of the work’s copyright.