Dr. Eftihia Voutira (Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki)
Repatriation to where? The failed repatriation project of the exiled Greeks from Kokand to Symferopol, Crimea
This paper presents the case of a community’s self-organized attempt for a planned repatriation to the pre-exile (1944) area from Central Asia back to the Ukraine in the early 1990s. The Greeks from Kokand constitute a fairly unique deportee community in Central Asia in that they were deported and settled in one area rather than been dispersed in different regions, as was the Stalinist forced migration practice. The analysis follows the dilemmas of the community members, as they were articulated in the early 1990s, and the way they, eventually, were resolved despite themselves. It focuses on the ambiguities of the concept of ‘repatriation’ as ‘return to an antecedent homeland’ (Crimea) or ‘a historical homeland’ (Greece), which was the manner in which the original dilemma ‘of return’ became articulated for the majority of these people. It shows that the majority opted for a transhumant, ‘coming and going’ migration pattern rather than permanent settlement to a particular place. Their access to Greek citizenship, as Greek repatriates, entailed a privileged status concerning their migration to and from the Black Sea region.
