Specifics of Depiction of Victims of Communism in Soviet Folklore (According to Imerian Oral Material)

Abstract

As soon as the Soviet government came to power, it declared a fierce fight against the traditional social order and condemned all social groups connected with it as „class enemies“. The enemy was everyone whom the Soviet government considered an anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary element. At first, the nobility and clergy close to the royal court fell into this group without hesitation. The next group to face political marginalization was represented by the Menshevik wing of the Social-Democrats. Finally, the Bolsheviks began to search for «enemies of the people» within their own ranks, labeling dissenters as Uklonists. Parallel to these personal-political internal conflicts, polarization was stirred up among the peasantry, manifesting in the conflict between the kulaks and the proletarians. This problem was directly related to the village and the peasants, so it is not surprising that it found expression in oral traditions.

The study of the specifics of the depiction of the victims of communism in folklore revealed that proletarian society shared the idea of restoring socialist justice and the main thesis of the Red Terror. As a result, hatred of «class enemies» is widespread in Soviet folklore. However, there are almost no depictions of «enemies of the people» in folklore, and if they do appear, it is only in the sense of class enemies. It seems that the essence of Stalinist repressions and the concept of impersonal «enemies of the people» became completely unclear to the public.