The Korean Deportation and Life in Central Asia 169cabbage or potatoes [distributed] in the pres ent time. During the harvest
campaign [spring], many kolkhozniks became ill.^100Koreans were “administratively settled,” but under the authority of the
NKVD. To survive, Koreans had to be clever and from time to time use their
guile. Requests for a transfer to Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan were re-
jected outright. Thus, Koreans asked for transfers to Uzbekistan based on
reuniting families that had been separated due to the deportation. For
example, Antosha Li (Anton) requested that the Uzbek NKVD allow him
to go to Kazakhstan to be re united with his brothers and uncle. Shrewdly,
he asked to bring his entire family to Uzbekistan rather than for his lone
resettlement to Kazakhstan. V. Kim’s Pravda polvek spustia provided many
accounts similar to this one of relatives requesting to be re united, but only
in Uzbekistan. Other Koreans in Kazakhstan requested allowances to
transfer to Uzbekistan, using the pretext of superior Uzbek schools and
institutes.^101 Weather conditions vary greatly from Kazakhstan to Uzbeki-
stan. Much of Kazakhstan is steppe mixed with desert, with very long
Siberian winters. Uzbekistan (the region near Tashkent) and Kyrgyzstan
have relatively mild winters and good soil. These requests for transfer to
Uzbekistan highlight Koreans as socialist “model moderns,” that is, social-
ist middlemen minorities.
The deportation in 1937 effectively began the end of Koreans’ indi-
genization programs and recruitment into Soviet institutions as national
cadres. Korenizatsiia did not end for the national minorities with autono-
mous territories, and especially those with union republics such as the
Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and Kirgiz: their indigenization programs continued
until the end of the USSR. At first, the Korean Pedagogical Institute was
transferred from Nikolsk- Ussuriisk to Kzyl Orda, Kazakhstan. But by fall
1939 the Korean institute was closed.^102 Throughout Uzbekistan, Korean-
language instruction continued for one to two years, depending on the
kolkhoz and the city. Pyotr Pak was deported to Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
He finished his sixth class in Korean in 1937–1938 and then all instruction
in his kolkhoz in Samarkand was changed to the Rus sian language.^103
Nikolai Shek studied for two years (1937–1939) before receiving lessons in
Rus sian.^104 Korenizatsiia for the Koreans did not seem to fall into any neat
categories a fter 1930. The program si mul ta neously promoted and repressed
Koreans due to their “national profile.” Raisa Nigai’s work as a Korean del-
egate while awaiting her family’s deportation is a fitting example of these
contradictions. In addition, the fact that the Koreans obtained national and
cultural rights throughout the RFE, but without the all- impor tant “territorial