The Late 1950s Restoration of Autonomies for Repressed Peoples of Kalmykia and the North Caucasus — and the Problem of Rehabilitation: Debating Issues of Contemporary Russian Historiography

Introduction. The late 1950s restoration of autonomies for the repressed peoples is an important era in the history of those ethnic statehoods. Still, even over 60 years thereafter quite a number of issues remain essentially problematic. And the main question is as follows: Can one interpret the late 1950s restoration of autonomies for the repressed peoples of Southern Russia as a rehabilitation? Materials and Methods. The study analyzes a number of scholarly Russian historiographical publications examining the mentioned period, and employs the historical genetic and historical legal methods. Results. The article considers a range of problematic issues, such as substantial features of ‘rehabilitation’ for repressed peoples in the Soviet era, political and historical essentials of the process, general issues of periodization of the rehabilitation (including that of the Soviet era), debating aspects of the phenomenon in respect to the restoration of autonomies, contemporary political and legal aspects related to the Soviet restoration of South Russia’s ethnic autonomies. Conclusions. In Russian historiography, there is a consensus as to the identification of the period of the restoration of autonomies for the repressed peoples as a rehabilitation, though incomplete one. The paper shows observation of the principle of historicism presupposes this period be viewed in a general context of the whole Soviet era that witnessed the rehabilitation of repressed peoples pinnacled with the rehabilitation decrees of perestroika. Since 1992 there emerged a new — Russian — stage of the rehabilitation. As for critical notes on outdated norms of the RSFSR Law On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples, it seems evident that the agenda of its complete implementation was never actualized by federal government agencies since the mid-1990s. It is possible that another law be created in future to comprise the rehabilitation experiences of the Soviets, including that of the initial stage from the late 1950s. This would require explicit political and legal assessments of the repressed peoples’ rehabilitation in a historical perspective. 

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