Deportation of Hugarian citizens to the USSR in 1956-1957: modern aspects of studying the problem

Large-scale deportations of foreign citizens to the USSR territory, arrested and deported for political reasons, seems to be a unique case in the history of foreign affairs, especially between the USSR and its socialist regime allies. The deportation of Hungarian citizens, which took place after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, seems to be the last of such events. Since November 4th, 1956 as part of the Soviet Army operation “Vihr” a large number of Hungarian citizens were deported from the territory of Hungary to the USSR by Soviet military and security agencies. The first party of Hungarian citizens taken across the border to the Soviet Union was transferred at night on November 4th, and the last on November 15th. According to KGB statistics, the total amount of relocations was 860 people. All Hungarians were interrogated by the Soviet security agencies in KGB’s prisons in Uzhgorod and Striy and gradually sent back to Hungary up until January 7th, 1957. The aim of this study is to summarize the actual results of Hungarian historiography research on this topic. Special attention is paid to propaganda mechanisms of concealing facts of Hungarian deportations by the Soviet authorities from their own citizens, especially with the help of religious leaders from Soviet-Hungarian boundary territories. These facts were pretty well-known among locals, and the situation came to a serious conflict between church authorities and parishioners in these regions. As a result, it could be mentioned that Hungarian citizens (local revolutionary committees and student group members, military and security agency officials and so on) were selected to be deported by criteria such as their possibility of being participants of “counter-revolutionary events”. However, the principles of this selection still require a more detailed investigation.