The Great Terror Beyond the USSR. Postwar Soviet Deportations in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Balkans (1940s-1950s)

Abstract

This article analyzes the transformation of Soviet national policy in the postwar period, using the example of the spread of ethnic cleansing and mass deportations as an element of control over national regions and ideological pressure on society from the internal policy of the USSR to the external one, organizing these practices in the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe. The second part of the article examines the historiographical debates on the extension of Great Terror to the postwar period. The third part presents an analysis of national operations and their spread beyond the USSR. The final part presents an analysis of the Hungarian case, ethnic deportations from the Balkans, and mass deportations of the Hungarian and German populations from the Transcarpathian region of western Ukraine and Romania.