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Continuing with Perm', Turning to Syktyvkar, or Standing on One's Own? The Debate about the Status of the Komi-Permiak Autonomous Okrug

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Seppo Lallukka  and
Liudmila Nikitina
Seppo Lallukka
Affiliation:
Academy of Finland and the Institute for Russian and East European Studies, Finland
Liudmila Nikitina
Affiliation:
Komi-Permiak Branch of the Institute for Language, Literature and History of the Komi Science Center, Russia
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Extract

On 26 February 1925, the Soviet government, or the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, passed a resolution that, in effect, ensured the continuation of the separate development of the southern and the northern Komi, that is, the Komi-Permiaks and the Komi-Zyrians. In more detail, the Presidium decided,

(1) Considering the great territorial distance of the Permiak region from the Komi area, and owing to the lack of mutual economic ties between these two territories, to refuse the request of the Komi autonomous area and representatives of the Permiak population for inclusion of the Permiak region in the Komi area, thus keeping the Permiak region within the Urals province. (2) To consider it expedient to make the Permiak region into a special national okrug [that is, national district] with special concise staff and to subordinate the okrug directly to the Executive Committee of the Urals province.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 2001 , pp. 129 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. S. I. Ponomarev, “Sozdanie natsional'noi gosudarstvennosti komi-permiatskogo naroda i ee rol' v sotsialisticheskikh preobrazovaniiakh kraia,” Trudy Moskovskogo istoriko-arkhivnogo instituta, tom 28 (1970), pp. 426–27.Google Scholar

2. Ust'-Sysol'sk was the capital of the Komi (Zyrian) autonomous area. Since 1930 it bears the Komi name Syktyvkar.Google Scholar

3. In connection with an administrative-territorial arrangement, at the beginning of 1924, Perm' province became a part of a large Urals province with its center in Ekaterinburg. Perm' province re-emerged in 1938 as a separate unit.Google Scholar

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9. Ibid., pp. 131, 160–61. The 1926 census recorded a total of 149,500 Komi-Permiaks; 78.6% of them were residents of the Komi-Permiak Okrug. The proportion of the titular nationality in the okrug reached 77.0% of the entire population. The composite number of Komi-Zyrians was 226,400, and 84.5% of them were found in the Komi (Zyrian) autonomous area, where this nationality accounted for 92.2% of total population. See Vsesoiuznaia perepis' naseleniia 1926 goda (Moscow: Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie SSSR, 1928-29), Vol. 1, table 9, Vol. 4, table 9, Vol. 17, table 6. For the developments in the population composition of these autonomous units, see Seppo Lallukka, Komipermjakit—perämaan kansa (Helsinki: Venäjän ja Itä-Euroopan instituutti, 1995a), pp. 81–97, and Paul J. W. Fryer, Elites, Language and Education in the Komi Ethnic Revival (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1998), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

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14. D. A. Batiev, “K trekhletiiu Avtonomnoi Oblasti Komi,” Komi mu, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1924a, pp. 3–4; Obrazovanie Komi avtonomnoi oblasti (1971), op. cit., pp. 127–28.Google Scholar

15. D. A. Batiev, “K voprosu ob ob”edinenii vsego naroda komi,“ Komi mu, Vol. 1, No. 4-6, 1924b, p. 6; V. N. Epikhin, ”Maloizvestnye stranitsy istorii ob“edineniia komi-zyrian i komi-permiakov (1921-1929 gg.),” Istoriia i kul'tura komi-permiatskogo naroda v shkol'noi programme (Kudymkar: Upravlenie obrazovaniia Komi-Permiatskogo avt. okruga, 1993), p. 16.Google Scholar

16. Komi-Permiatskii natsional'nyi okrug. Istoricheskie ocherki (Perm': Permskoe knizhnoe izd-vo, 1977), p. 103.Google Scholar

17. Epikhin, “Maloizvestnye stranitsy istorii,” p. 16; Vavilin, “K voprosu o pervykh shagakh,” pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

18. Epikhin, “Maloizvestnye stranitsy istorii,” p. 17.Google Scholar

19. Vavilin, “K voprosu o pervykh shagakh,” p. 13.Google Scholar

20. Batiev (1924b), “K voprosu ob ob”edinenii,“ pp. 7–10; Ia. Pasiutin and N. Shakhov, ”Permiatskii krai,“ Komi mu, Vol. 1, No. 7-10, 1924, pp. 17, 20, 25-29; F. P. Chukichev, ”O Severo-Ekaterinskom kanale,“ Komi mu, Vol. 2, No. 8, 1925, pp. 26–29; Kulikov, op. cit., pp. 93–94.Google Scholar

21. Tarakanov, op. cit., p. 26; Epikhin, “Maloizvestnye stranitsy istorii,” pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

22. Tarakanov, op. cit., p. 26.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

24. Pasiutin and Shakhov, “Permiatskii krai,” pp. 29–30; Ponomarev, “Sozdanie natsional'noi gosudarstvennosti,” pp. 425–26; Dmitrikov, “K voprosu o konsolidatsii komi,” p. 89.Google Scholar

25. Ponomarev, “Sozdanie natsional'noi gosudarstvennosti,” p. 426; Kon'shin and Mitiusheva, “Ob”edinennaia Respublika Komi.“Google Scholar

26. Lallukka (1995a), op. cit., pp. 44–45.Google Scholar

27. Kulikov, op. cit., pp. 243–44; Iu. A. Moiseevskikh, “Istoricheskii put' i osnovnye napravleniia razvitiia komi-permiatskoi natsional'noi shkoly,” Istoriia i kul'tura komi-permiatskogo naroda v shkol'noi programme (Kudymkar: Upravlenie obrazovaniia Komi-Permiatskogo avt. okruga, 1993), pp. 167–68; V. M. Poleshchikov, Za sem'iu pechatiami. Iz arkhiva KGB (Syktyvkar: Komi knizhnoe izd-vo, 1995), pp. 6–7, 127-56, 161, 186.Google Scholar

28. Most specialists in Finno-Ugrian language studies outside Russia hold the view that there are no sound linguistic reasons why the two Komi varieties should be considered distinct languages. Rather they represent the main dialectal stocks of a larger Komi language. See, Robin Baker, The Development of the Komi Case System. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne, Vol. 189 (Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, 1985), p. 8; Péter Hajdú and Péter Domokos, Die uralischen Sprachen und Literaturen (Budapest: Akadémiai kiadó, 1987), p. 67; Atilla Dobo, “Iazyk komi kak unifitsirovannyi literaturnyi iazyk,” Linguistica, Series A, Vol. 17 (Budapest, 1995), p. 101. For an overview of language policies pertaining to Komi-Permiak see also Seppo Lallukka, “Below the Republican Level: Political Origins and Social Status of the Literary Komi-Permiak Language,” in ed. J. A. Dunn, Language and Society in Post-Communist Europe (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 47–69.Google Scholar

29. For an overview of cultural development, see Lyudmila Nikitina, “Permian Komis,” Inf (Information Bulletin of the Association of Finno-Ugric Literatures), No. 2, 1996, pp. 64–68.Google Scholar

30. M. Chechulin, “Chetyre goda Komi-Permiatskogo okruga,” Komi mu, Vol. 6, No. 7, 1929, pp. 38–43; A. Kon'shin and V. Deriabin, “Komi-permiaki: proshloe, nastoiashchee, budushchee,” Parma, 27 June 1992, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

31. For more about the economy and demography of the okrug, see Jarmo Eronen, “Venäläinen ja suomalainen periferia: Permin Komin ja Kainuun aluetaloudellista vertailua,” Bank of Finland, Review of Economies in Transition, No. 9, 1993, pp. 19–46; Lallukka (1995a), op. cit., pp. 46–49, 67-81; Seppo Lallukka, “Territorial and Demographic Foundations of Komi-Permiak Nationality,” Nationalities Papers, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1995b, pp. 353–71; Rein Taagepera, The Finno-Ugric Republics and the Russian State (London: Hurst, 1999), pp. 319–36; Komi-Permiatskii avtonomnyi okrug na rubezhe vekov (Kudymkar: Komi-Permiatskoe knizhnoe izd-vo, 2000), pp. 69–75.Google Scholar

32. Cf. Stein Rokkan and Derek W. Urwin, Economy, Territory, Identity. Politics of West European Peripheries (London: Sage, 1983), p. 30.Google Scholar

33. As a result of the trilateral treaty of 1996 between the federal center, Perm' province, and the Komi-Permiak Okrug, the province has started to finance the construction of a road between Kosa and Solikamsk. See Petr Pliev, “Komi-Permiatskii AO pered vyborami,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 3 October 1996, p. 3; Nikolai Ivanov, “Nikolai Poluianov: ‘stav nezavisimymi, my vyigrali’,” NG-regiony, supplement to Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 January 2000, p. 12.Google Scholar

34. Cf. Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism. The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 8–10, 30-43.Google Scholar

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36. “Obrashchenie predstavitelei natsional'noi intelligentsii—storonnikov demokraticheskogo dvizheniia k zhiteliam okruga,” Po leninskomu puti, 20 November 1990.Google Scholar

37. A. Bakhmatov, “I ovtsy tsely, i volki syty!” Po leninskomu puti, 31 October 1990; V. Deriabin, “Suverenitet i rynok,” Po leninskomu puti, 20 November 1990; V. Deriabin, “Vstrecha opponentov,” Po leninskomu puti, 24 November 1990.Google Scholar

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41. Until September 1991, the paper bore the name Po leninskomu puti.Google Scholar

42. Lallukka (1995a), op. cit., p. 156.Google Scholar

43. Fryer, op. cit., p. 18.Google Scholar

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