The Deportation of Soviet Koreans and Its Reverberation in the Lyrics of Korean Songwriters

Oct 8, 2014 by Asya Pereltsvaig

[This post was originally published in May 2013]

One of the first groups deported by the Soviet regime on purely ethnic grounds was the Koreans of the Far East. Their deportation was conceived in 1926, initiated in 1930, and carried out in 1937, when virtually all ethnic Koreans were forcefully moved to unpopulated desert areas of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. This resettlement program was so brutal that it engendered enduring bitterness not only among the deportees themselves but also among many of their descendants as well. It is thus unsurprising that the two most famous ethnic Koreans in Russia are songwriters known for the subversive lyrics.

The history of Russia’s Koreans, who refer to themselves as Koryo saram, goes back to 1850s and early 1860s, when they began... (Continues)