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«BULLETIN OF THE IRKUTSK STATE UNIVERSITY. GEOARCHAEOLOGY, ETHNOLOGY, AND ANTHROPOLOGY SERIES»
ISSN 2227-2380 (Print)

List of issues > «Geoarchaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology Series». 2026. Vol 56

Ethnocultural Heritage of Central Asian Labor Migration to the Southern Urals, 1942–1944

Full text (russian)
Author(s)

A. A. Avdashkin1,2

1 Institute for Humanities Research of Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Perm, Russian Federation 

2 Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation

Abstract
During the Great Patriotic War, a significant contingent of laborers from the Central Asian Military District was mobilized to work at industrial enterprises in the Southern Urals. Unlike mobilized ethnic Germans, who remained in the region permanently and formed visible localities (the so-called “German quarter” in Chelyabinsk’s Metallurgical District, Lutheran and Catholic churches, and a memorial cemetery), Central Asian laborers began returning home as early as 1944. This article aims to systematize the memory of Central Asian laborers in Chelyabinsk and Kopeysk (1942–1944) by analyzing photographs from the newspaper “Kopeysk Worker” (1943–1944) and 22 in-depth interviews with long-term residents, supplemented by five expert interviews with historians of the Soviet economy. The theoretical framework draws on the concept of translocality, which allows us to see wartime mobility not as an isolated episode but as a process that maintained multiple connections between the Southern Urals and Central Asia even after the laborers returned home. The findings reveal a sharp divergence between oral memory and official discourse. Interviewees – both direct witnesses (born 1930–1931) and their descendants (born 1942–1963) – recall the Central Asian laborers through markers of difference: clothing (“Uzbek robes, belts, skullcaps”), language barriers (“muteness”), fear of mine work (“there is a shaitan underground”), bodily practices (exhaustion, scurvy), and informal exchanges (dried fruits for bread). In contrast, “Kopeysk Worker” constructed an idealized image: the teahouse (chaykhana) as a space of care, Stakhanovite heroes with names and faces, and the rhetoric of “fraternal unity” that masked real isolation. This divergence explains why no material traces of Central Asian laborers survived: they were treated as a temporary resource, and after their departure no stable diaspora or spatial markers emerged. The only remaining testimonies are the photographs in old newspaper issues and the fragmentary stories of the oldest generation. Thus, the photographs and oral accounts examined here constitute precisely such heritage – a scattered, non-material form that nonetheless carries social memory and makes visible a migration episode that would otherwise have been forgotten.
About the Authors
Avdashkin Andrei Alexandrovich, Candidate of Sciences (History), Leading Researcher, Institute for Humanities Research of Ural Branch RAS; 13A, Lenin st., Perm, 614000, Russian Federation Senior Researcher, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAS; 32A, Leninsky av., Moscow, 119334, Russian Federation e-mail: adrianmaricka@mail.ru
For citation
Avdashkin A. A. Ethnocultural Heritage of Central Asian Labor Migration to the Southern Urals, 1942–1944. Bulletin of the Irkutsk State University. Geoarchaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology Series. 2026, Vol. 56, pp. 63–73. https://doi.org/10.26516/2227-2380.2026.56.63 (In Russ.)
Keywords
Central Asia, Southern Urals, Great Patriotic War, labor mobilization, ethnocultural heritage, translocality.
UDC
94(470.55)+331.556.2+314.7
DOI
https://doi.org/10.26516/2227-2380.2026.56.63
References

Sources

  1. Author's field materials 1. The interview was conducted in February 2015 in Chelyabinsk (informant – Elvira, born in 1931).
  2. Author's field materials 2. The interview was conducted in March 2025 in Chelyabinsk (informant – Expert N 1, born in 1975).
  3. Author's field materials 3. The interview was conducted in May 2018 in Chelyabinsk (informant – Lidiya, born in 1932).
  4. Author's field materials 4. The interview was conducted in December 2016 in Chelyabinsk (informant – Vasilii, born in 1931).
  5. Author's field materials 5. The interview was conducted in August 2023 in Chelyabinsk (informant – Maria, born in 1932).
  6. Author's field materials 6. The interview was conducted in February 2025 in Kopeysk (informant – Polina, born in 1933).
  7. Author's field materials 7. The interview was conducted in February 2025 in Chelyabinsk (informant – Yuri, born in 1931).
  8. Author's field materials 8. The interview was conducted in February 2025 in Chelyabinsk (informant – Yuri, born in 1932).
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