Deportation of the Tat (1951)

The deportation of the Tat was the forced removal by the Soviet authorities, in March 1951, of the whole population of the Khirnou valley in the upper Chatkal, about 2,600 Tat, to the Kyzyl Oktyabr cotton state farm on the rim of the Fergana Valley. The valley lay inside the Talas–Chatkal Regime Zone, and the official reason was prospecting for uranium and antimony; nothing was ever mined there. The deportees were taken by truck over the passes.^[1]

Heat, malaria and dysentery killed about 400 of them in the first two summers, remembered by the Tat as Garm sol, "the hot years". The valley was listed as a "village without prospects" and dropped from maps. Families began to return secretly from 1979, and about 150 people lived there by 1991; after 1992 the clans encouraged the return. The Iradi Freedom Society recognized the valley as Tat land at the Kurultai of 2008. The authorities of the Irad Special Economic Zone have made no apology. A memorial stone was placed in the cemetery of Kyzyl-Oktyabr in 1997.^[1][2]

References

1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 215: Directorate of Internal Affairs of the Iradi SSR, Talas–Chatkal Regime Zone (1946–1968).
2. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press, Talas.