Sowieci na Wysokiej Północy

Sylwia Hlebowicz

doi:10.31648/ep.12156

Published: 2025-12-15

No. XXVI/2 (2025)

Soviets in the High North

Sylwia Hlebowicz

Echa Przeszłości

Section: ARTICLES

https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.12156

Abstract

Norwegian-Russian contacts in the North Calotte are not only a neglected but also an insufficiently examined issue. Meanwhile, trading activity in the historical region of Bjarmaland (presently the Murman Coast) was described already in the 9th century. Russian and Norwegian merchants, known as the Pomors, traded goods in the area in the 18th century. These trade contacts intensified over time and gave rise to a pidgin language known as Russennorsk. Northern Norway was dependent on grain supplies from the east. The Kola Peninsula became a strategically significant area of trade and political activity. It remains relatively unknown that in addition to its indigenous peoples, the Peninsula was colonized by the Kola Norwegians after Russian Tsar Alexander II permitted their settlement on the Murman Coast in 1860. Russian-Norwegian relations remained friendly until the period of the Great Terror. Beginning from 1930, the Kola Norwegians were forced to work in a collectivized fish processing plant (Polar Star). Approximately 150 settlers were sentenced to death or sent to a forced labor camp (gulag) for violating § 58 of the Soviet penal code concerning espionage, sabotage, and counterrevolutionary activity. In the summer of 1940, all Norwegian settlers were relocated to Karelia, but they were forced to evacuate when the Finnish offensive began in 1941. Many Kola Norwegians died of starvation and exhaustion. After the war, they were not allowed to return to their households, and they lost contact with the Norwegian community. It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union that the Kola Norwegians found the courage to tell their story.

Keywords:

Kola Norwegians, ethnic cleansing, High North, discourse analysis

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Hlebowicz, S. (2025). Soviets in the High North. Echa Przeszłości, (XXVI/2), 213–244. https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.12156

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