Operation Vesna (; russian: Опера́ция «Весна́») was a mass deportation of the armed opposition to the

Soviet power The political system of the Soviet Union took place in a federal single-party soviet socialist republic framework which was characterized by the superior role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only party permitted by the Co ...

in the occupied Lithuania carried out by the forces of the Ministry of State Security (MGB) on May 22–24, 1948. According to the February 21, 1948 decree № 417—160сс of the

USSR Council of Ministers The Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Совет министров СССР, r=Sovet Ministrov SSSR, p=sɐˈvʲet mʲɪˈnʲistrəf ɛsɛsɛˈsɛr; sometimes abbreviated to ''Sovmin'' or referred to as the '' ...

, deportations were to target the "

forest brothers The Guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an armed struggle which was waged by the Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian partisans, called the Forest Brothers (also: the "Brothers of the Wood" and the "Forest Friars"; et, metsavennad, lv, mež ...

" ( lt, žaliukai), members of their families, and "various helpers of anti-Soviet partisans, including

kulaks Kulak (; russian: кула́к, r=kulák, p=kʊˈlak, a=Ru-кулак.ogg; plural: кулаки́, ''kulakí'', 'fist' or 'tight-fisted'), also kurkul () or golchomag (, plural: ), was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned ov ...

." The official tally of the deported was 49,331 (other sources give the number 39,766 and 47,534). In addition to ethnic Lithuanians, Poles and Belarussians were deported as well. The exact numbers by ethnicity are unknown. Their official status was "

special settler Forced settlements in the Soviet Union were the result of Population transfer in the Soviet Union, population transfers and were performed in a series of operations organized according to social class or nationality of the deported. Resettling ...

s" (severely restricted in movement, but otherwise officially not deprived of other citizen's rights)."Этот день в истории: 1948 год — в Литве началась операция «Весна» МГБ СССР"
'' Eurasia Daily'', May 23, 2018

Grzegorz Motyka Grzegorz Motyka (born 1967) is a Polish historian and author specializing in the history of Poland–Ukraine relations. Since 1992 he served at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and at the Institute of National ...

br>"Operacja "Wiosna": wysiedlenie 50 tys. Litwinów zajęło Sowietom 48 godzin"
''

Gazeta Wyborcza ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the g ...

'', May 21, 2918 It was the largest Soviet deportation from Lithuania."Operation ‘Spring’, biggest Soviet deportation of 40,000 Lithuanians"
''LRT.lt'' ( Lithuanian National Radio and Television), May 23, 2019

Life in exile

The majority of deportations were to

Krasnoyarsk Krai Krasnoyarsk Krai ( rus, Красноя́рский край, r=Krasnoyarskiy kray, p=krəsnɐˈjarskʲɪj ˈkraj) is a federal subject of Russia (a krai), with its administrative center in the city of Krasnoyarsk, the third-largest city in Siber ...

(23,467),

Irkutsk Oblast Irkutsk Oblast (russian: Ирку́тская о́бласть, Irkutskaya oblast; bua, Эрхүү можо, Erkhüü mojo) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara, Lena, and Nizh ...

(11,495) and Buryat-Mongolian ASSR (4,038). About 25,000 worked in forest industry, and the rest in coal mines and

kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz., a contraction of советское хозяйство, soviet ownership or ...

es. About 11,000 children were deported with their parents. About 6,000 to 10,000 of the deportees were brought to

Igarka Igarka (russian: Ига́рка) is a town in Turukhansky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located north of the Arctic Circle. Igarka is a monotown established around a sawmill which processed timber logged in the basin of the Yenisei Riv ...

. Later more Lithuanians were moved from other places of Krasnoyarsk Krai to Igarka. In the first years, about 1,000 to 3,000 Lithuanians died in Igarka, mostly children and the elderly. There are three Lithuanian cemeteries in Igarka, one of them has 1,000 burials. Many "settlers" were arrested an put to

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

labor camps for various violations: trying to escape, singing Lithuanian "nationalist" songs, etc. During 1956–1961 most Lithuanians returned from Igarka to Lithuania. about 270 Lithuanians stayed in Igarka. The Lithuanian Union of Igarka was established in 1992."Igarka"
''

Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija The ''Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija'' or VLE (translation ''Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia'') is a 25-volume universal Lithuanian-language encyclopedia published by the Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing Institute from 2001 to 2014. V ...

'' The Lithuanian "special settlers" were kept in Buryat-Mongolia until 1958, after that the vast majority returned to Lithuania, but some stayed. They registered the society russian: Национально-культурное общество литовцев Бурятии, label=no.

Life in exile

References

Further reading