“We were carried in the cattle-boxes for a month”: memories of the special settlers' descendants in the narrative tradition of arkhangelsk citizens

The article is based on the oral memories of the descendants of special settlers - dispossessed peasants, who were expelled to the Arkhangelsk region, formerly part of the Northern Region, at the beginning of the 1930s. A historiographic review is made on the research topic, the concepts of dispossession in the USSR and the fate of the dispossessed peasants are considered in the regional context. The stories of the descendants of the special settlers analyzed in the article are semi-structured interviews, a type of individual in-depth interviews, during which we sought to discuss with the respondents a specific list of topics and aspects relating to dekulakization of their families, the expulsion and life in exile. These stories form hypertext, which includes a system of multi-genre verbal texts. We distinguish the stable motifs of oral stories recorded from the descendants of the special settlers. The article discusses the features of the family identity and the role of knowing about the fate of the relatives in this identity. The children and grandchildren of the special settlers have different attitudes towards the dispossession of their ancestors' family. This is due to the diversity of behaviors, choices and specific life circumstances. The interpretation is based on the idea of the variability of the process of special migrations, and its dependence on the local contexts and the method of family history.