Deportation of the Balkars

The Deportation of the Balkars was the expulsion by the Soviet government of the entire Balkar population of the North Caucasus to Central Asia on March 8, 1944, during World War II. The expulsion was ordered by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria after approval by General Secretary Joseph Stalin. All the 37,713 Balkars of the Caucasus were deported from their homeland in one day. The crime was a part of a Soviet forced settlement program and population transfer that affected several million members of non-Russian Soviet ethnic minorities between the 1930s and the 1950s. Officially the deportation was a response to the Balkars' supposed collaboration with occupying German forces. Later, in 1989, the Soviet government declared the deportation illegal.

Deportation of the Balkars
Part of Population transfer in the Soviet Union and World War II
Kabardino-Balkaria on the map of Caucasus
LocationKabardino-Balkaria, North Caucasus
DateMarch 8, 1944 (1944-03-08)
TargetExpulsion and resettlement of the Balkars, population 37,103
Attack type
Population transfer, ethnic cleansing, massacre
Deaths~3,494 died in transit(8% of the population)
~from 1944-1952 estimated 7,600-11,000 died in total(20%-25% of the population)
~Some sources claim over 50% of the population died in the deportation
Victims37,713 Balkars deported to forced settlements in the Soviet Union
PerpetratorsNKVD, the Soviet secret police
Part of a series on
Forced population transfer
in the Soviet Union
Policies
Peoples
Operations
WWII POW labor
Massive labor force transfers
  • Twenty-five-thousanders
  • NKVD labor columns
  • Virgin Lands campaign
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