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Published January 7, 2025

Operation Ulusy

My grandparents fled their Soviet Union home. If they hadn't, they would have been forcibly relocated during World War II.
Page 1 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. The colour scheme and style of the illustrations take inspiration from Central Asian textile art, particularly Kalmyk embroidery. Panel 1 shows a Kalmyk mother and two children looking worried at two partially seen people in military uniform. It is snowing and the family is bundled up and carrying their belongings. Around them, and throughout the comic, embroidery motifs from Central Asia convey their rallying spirit in this trying time. The caption reads: “On the 28th of December 1943, the deportation of the Kalmyks began.” Panel 2 reads “Driven into cattle cars, 93,000 people (virtually the whole ethnic Kalmyk population) were exiled.” The mother watches as uniformed men point the way to cattle cars in the snow. Panel 3 reads “Overnight Elista, the capital, was renamed and the republic's land was parcelled off to neighbouring states.” A Russian person lifts the curtain and the glow of their warm home is in stark contrast to the shadows of the people walking in the cold in front of their house at gunpoint. Panel 4 reads “Most would not go back for years. Many would never return.” In the Siberian forest the train pulling endless cattle cars cuts through the cold night, spewing red smoke into the blue night sky.Page 2 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. Panel 1 reads “Who are the Kalmyks? They are a Buddhist ethnic minority of Mongolian origins who roamed along the Volga river from the 1600s.They were used as a barrier to the south when they became a part of the Russian empire”. The wide panel has a map showing Kalmykia’s location between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the southwestern steppes of Russia. A nomadic man in Kalmyk clothes – robes with a vest and an angular hat – rides a horse while tuning a dombra as a camel transports heavy items. Behind him is a set of white gers, tents often called yurts in English that are circular, made of felt walls with an open top in the middle. Panel 2 reads “During the Russian Civil War they fought on the losing side, so a part of the population fled in 1920” and depicts horseback fighting in the snow. Panel 3 reads “That was when my maternal grandparents left Kalmykia”. The narrator in the year 2024 is reading the Wikipedia entry for The Deportation of Kalmyks.Page 3 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. Panel 1 reads “Though they had it tough as refugees in eastern Europe, they avoided what was to come”. It shows the narrator’s grandparents in their twenties, smiling and walking across a square in Bulgaria. Panel 2 reads “The Kalmyks that remained in the now Soviet Union resisted collectivisation until the late 1920s.” Two Kalmyk men confer in the warm dark of a ger’s interior. Panel 3 reads “Previously nomadic herders, common throughout the region, the guerillas fought new policies that caused famine and ruined their way of life.” A young Kalmyk herder rides a horse and looks out into the open steppes where his sheep are grazing. Panel 4 reads “But they were no match and throughout this decade many tens of thousands in Central Asia would die in the famine.” In the yellow desert, the skull of a cow shines white. A lone horse rider leaves a ger in the distance.Page 4 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. Panel 1 reads “During the Soviet anti-religious campaigns beginning in the 1930s, all 175 of the Buddhist temples in Russia were destroyed.” Two Buddhist monks look through the wreckage of a plundered temple. Papers are strewn about and the peaceful room is a mess. Panel 2 reads “At this time Stalin also began deporting populations by ethnicity alone, starting with the exile of 172,000 Soviet Koreans.” People wearing traditional Korean clothing carry their belongings in a line. Panel 3 reads “During World War II, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union,” and depicts a German tank advancing in the open steppes. Panel 4 reads “capturing Kalmykia and enlisting 5000 to the Kalmyk Cavalry Corps.” A Nazi officer walks tall and proud, behind him are enlisted Kalmyk men wearing traditionally Kalmyk clothing.Page 5 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. Panel 1 reads “Although more than four times as many Kalmyks fought for the Red Army against the Nazis, because of the Cavalry Corps, Kalmyks were deemed disloyal subjects.” This panel depicts General Oka Gorodovikov of the Red Army Cavalry, who in World War II defended Russia in the Battle of Stalingrad. Behind him the cattle cars he helped organise send the population of Kalmykia to the gulag. Panel 2 reads “During the journey to Siberia in the winter of 1943, 1400 died in transit.” In the inside of one of the cattle cars, people huddle together on the floor and on wooden shelves for warmth. Panel 3 reads “And a further 16000 died in forced labour camps. But Kalmyks were only one of a great many displaced by the empire.” The walled camp in the cold is patrolled by a guard.Page 6 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. Panel 1 is a map of Russia at the time of the Soviet Union. Red lines criss-cross the map violently. The captions reads “About 3.5 million people of ethnic minorities in Russia were forcibly resettled between 1940 – 52.” Panel 2 reads “Of these, up to 43% died of malnutrition and disease.” It depicts an emaciated Kalmyk man wrapped in blankets on the crowded wooden bunk of a typical gulag housing unit. Panel 3 shows the wooden barricade of the gulag’s entrance open to the Siberian wilderness. It reads “The Kalmyks were released more than a decade later.”Page 7 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. Panel 1 reads “They returned to become a minority in their own land.” It depicts white Russians smiling in the foreground of a photo opportunity and a few Kalmyk people behind them. Panel 2 reads “Kalmyk language, cultural and religious practices were nearly irrevocably destroyed.” It depicts the ripped-up pages of Kalmyk clear script, Kalmyk adapted into Cyrillic, and lastly Russian. Panel 3 shows the encroaching desertification of the Central Asian steppes. It reads “Harsh agricultural policies imposed on the area caused the desertification of large areas of the steppelands, and it remains one of Russia's poorer republics.” Panel 4 shows the memorial to the Kalmyk Deportations, a complicated statue with many faces, small and large, smashed up against each other into a strange shape. A large Buddha-like figure looks solemn and a goat in front sheds a tear. The caption reads “True reckoning did not begin until the late 80s when a film and memorial cracked open discussions of the past.”Page 8 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. Panel 1 reads “My family were, I suppose, the lucky ones. Both my maternal and paternal sides escaped deportation.” A map shows the narrator’s family’s journey through Europe with their mother’s side going through Istanbul, Sofia, Beirut and off to the US and their father’s side going through Munich, Paris, London and the US. Panel 2 reads “Although fleeing through war-torn Europe during the 1940s could not have been easy.” Refugees in a bombed-out city carry their belongings across rubble. Panel 3 is a collection of photos of the narrator’s relatives. They smile and sew or stroll in the park or stand outside their small house. The caption reads “The persistent smiles of my grandparents hid what difficulties they faced.” Panel 4 reads “I've never been to Kalmykia and I may never get the chance. I've only seen the memorial to the deportation in video.” It depicts a video playing in the gallery Kunstraum Kreuzberg.Page 9 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. Panel 1 shows the monument again from afar. It stands high on the flat steppes and many people in a mass circle upwards to it to pay their respects in the cold. The caption reads “In it, people circumambulate upwards to "Exodus and Return.” Panel 2 shows a close up of Kalmyk people in remembrance as they walk. It reads “Heads bowed and reflective. It reminded me of my grandfather's death.” Panel 3 reads “We circled the temple as the monks prayed, but we did not know why.” The narrator at a young age bounds out of the temple with her sister and her mother shouts “Kids not that way!” indicating that they must circumambulate in a clockwise manner. Panel 4 shows the pair with their heads bowed, wondering. It reads “We quietly respected a tradition no one could explain to us.”Page 10 of a 10 page history comic called Operation Ulusy. Panel 1 reads “I think history is the same.” A tangle of arrows intertwine and branch off as the narrator views ancestors who came before in their different timelines. Panel 2 reads “Some things we may never know, because not all histories were created equal.” A ripped apart photo of an old-fashioned Kalmyk man- the narrator’s great grandfather who was taken away by the Stasi. Panel 3 reads “But we can circumambulate the complex systems we know existed. And pay respect to those who came before and those we never got to know.” The narrator walks out under a red Buddhist gate, a trail of embroidery motif behind her. The horse side of “Exodus and Return” cries out as if in fear, an iconic bird from the epic Jangar flies above and a memorial to the train deportation of Kalmyks is smashed apart as the real life memorial in Russia was destroyed only two days after its unveiling in 2023.This comic is dedicated to all those who had to leave.

Sources

The artist would like to thank Dr. Elvira Churyumova for her work and for always sharing her knowledge.

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