Sámi family in Norway. Image by Titopullo via Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0.
This article by Alisa Selezneva was originally published in Russian in Holod Magazine on February 19, 2025. Global Voices translated the article, edited it for clarity, and is republishing it with permission from Holod Magazine.
For nearly 100 years, “attempting to overthrow the state system” has remained a popular method for Russian security forces to justify the repression of citizens undesirable to the authorities. In 1938, these charges were leveled against a group of Soviet scholars as well as representatives of a small indigenous people of northern Russia — the Sámi. Several dozen individuals interested in Sámi culture and traditions were transformed into a terrorist cell that allegedly discussed overthrowing Stalin and planned a military coup to annex Russian territories to Finland. In reality, there was no attempted coup: the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) — the predecessor of the KGB — simply invented it.
Murmansk was the last city founded in the Russian Empire, in 1915. At that time, its population was diverse: migrants from central Russia who came in search of work, as well as German, Austrian, and Czech prisoners of war from World War I, and Chinese laborers. Alongside them, in the tundra of the Kola Peninsula, had lived an indigenous people for thousands of years — the Sámi, or, as they were called before the revolution, the Lapps.
The Sámi lived in territorial communities called “siidas,” each typically consisting of 100–150 people, though in rare cases, they could number up to 300. A siida’s territory included a winter settlement, salmon rivers, freshwater fishing lakes, hunting grounds, reindeer pastures, and coastal areas. Members of the siida helped one another, shared natural resources, hunted and herded reindeer together in winter, and dispersed across the tundra along predetermined routes in summer.
But the creation of the USSR changed everything. The new authorities imposed a transformation of the northern peoples’ way of life, forcing them to catch up with the “advanced peoples” of the Soviet Union. This meant the Sámi had to abandon their traditions and transition from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle.
One man who helped preserve Sámi culture was a self-taught scholar from Petrograd, Vasily Kondratyevich Alymov. Alymov had no formal academic background, but he was a quick learner, read widely, and compensated for his lack of professional education. In the young Soviet Russia, this was enough to work as an investigator. He didn’t remain in this role for long, later moving to the provincial statistical bureau and then to the regional planning commission. Alymov was a versatile individual — beyond his official duties and promotion of Soviet ideals, he published in local newspapers and studied the culture of the Sámi people.
Alymov’s reputation was so strong that he was often recommended to those wanting to learn more about the far north, and he was called the “walking encyclopedia of Murmansk and the entire region.” He was deeply interested in the Sámi. He frequently traveled into the tundra, met reindeer herders, studied their traditions, and assisted them when they needed something in Murmansk. In Sámi settlements, he conducted population counts, studied the structure of Sámi siidas, and developed theories on the origins and cultural development of the Sámi people.
Over 15 years, Murmansk newspapers published 130 of Alymov’s articles on Sámi history and culture. He wrote about the assimilation of the indigenous people into Soviet society, recorded birth and death rates, documented the memories of elderly Sámi, and retold their myths and epics. Alymov was instrumental in creating the written language of the Russian Sámi — before the 20th century, they had no alphabet of their own, and their language existed solely in oral form (Norwegian Sámi had developed a written script in the 19th century). With Alymov’s direct involvement, the Sámi first received a Latin-based alphabet, later replaced with a Cyrillic one.
Alymov’s influence in the region was so significant that in 1928 he was appointed head of the Committee of the North, an agency dealing with the affairs of northern peoples. However, he held this position for only a short time — on February 27, 1938, he, his wife, and his son were arrested on charges of counterrevolutionary activity.
NKVD investigators claimed that a group of Sámi, with the support of several Russians and Komi people, was planning an armed uprising to seize territories in Eastern Karelia and the Kola Peninsula, establish an independent Lopar Republic, and incorporate it into Finland. The NKVD insisted that the group had contacts in Finland aiding the “rebels.” Security forces labeled Alymov’s research activities as mere “cover.”
A total of 34 people were arrested. Most were Alymov's acquaintances and colleagues, such as Alexander Endyukovsky and Zakhar Chernyakov, instructors at the Institute of the Peoples of the North, who helped develop the Sámi written language.
Twenty years after their arrests, the military tribunal of the Soviet Northern Military District determined that all the accused had been wrongfully imprisoned.
The oldest suspect was 57, the youngest, 27. Each had some “suspicious” element in their biography — one had served in the White Army, another’s parents had been labeled “kulaks,” and Alymov himself had once been part of the Menshevik faction of the RSDLP, which had been declared enemies of the people after the revolution.
The “Sámi Conspiracy,” or the “Alymov Case,” was just one episode in the Soviet fight against “counterrevolutionary forces.” Similar accusations were leveled against Karelians, Komi, Mari, Mordvins, Udmurts, and Finns living in the USSR. Just as in Alymov’s case, indigenous peoples were accused of creating anti-Soviet organizations, engaging in sabotage, terrorism, and plotting coups, leading to persecution and repression.
Repressions against northern peoples were part of the NKVD’s “national operations” — a large-scale terror campaign against ethnic minorities. During the 1930s, approximately 335,000 people were persecuted in such operations, with nearly 250,000 executed in the name of combating “sabotage, insurgency, and capitalist intelligence agents.” The victims included Poles, Germans, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Finns, Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians, and others.
At his first interrogation, Alymov denied all charges. When asked if he had ever been abroad, especially in Finland, he stated that he had only traveled to Persia on business and vacationed in Turkey, but had never been to Finland or met any Finns. Regarding his interactions with the Sámi, he admitted knowing many and visiting the tundra. But when asked if any Sámi were hostile to Soviet power, he simply said, “There are none.”
However, just 10 days later, at a second interrogation, his testimony changed drastically. According to the official record of the interrogation, he confessed to joining a “counterrevolutionary nationalist Sámi organization” in 1935 that “counted on support from bourgeois Finland,” “advocated for the secession of the Kola Peninsula,” “sabotaged collective farms,” culled reindeer herds, set fire to lichen fields, and disrupted roads.
The interrogation records of other “Sámi conspirators” were nearly identical. As the investigation continued, more charges were added. Initially, Alymov was accused under two sections of Article 58 of the Soviet Criminal Code (treason), but, later, five more charges were added. By the time face-to-face interrogations were conducted, no one resisted: yes, they recruited; yes, they plotted a coup.
On October 22, 1938, Vasily Alymov and 14 others were found guilty and sentenced to death. All were executed at Levashovskaya Wasteland near Leningrad.
Following the Alymov Case, Sámi-language books ceased publication. Sámi language lessons disappeared from schools. It was safer to assimilate than to preserve one’s native culture. Only 40 years later did Sámi language lessons return to schools, and Sámi culture began to revive.
