The Biography and Poetry of the Udmurt Poet Kuzebai Gerd as an Example of Repression of Ethnic Writers in Soviet Russia

Abstract

This article focuses on one less known episode in the history of repression in the Soviet Union. The Stalinist terror has been widely investigated. Still, it has been examined most from the point of view of the centre, from the capital cities, and less from the provinces. Moreover, a topic to which not enough attention has been devoted is the systematic attack on Russia’s nationalities, which had so much benefitted from the early Soviet system. At some time, they had become a threat, emphasising their differences from the dominant ethnic group, as they had been formerly encouraged to do. Among the first nationalities to suffer were the Udmurts. The present article concentrates on a representative case study, that of the Udmurt poet Kuzebai Gerd, who had acquired the status of a rising star for the newly promoted Udmurtness before being repressed.