Russian Military Emigration in Paraguay and Its Contribution to the Victory in the Chaco War (1932-1935)

Moseykina Marina Nikolaevna ORCID: 0000-0001-9279-4079 Doctor of History Professor; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; P. Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 6 Miklukho-Maklaya str., Obruchevsky district, Moscow, 117198, Russia moseykina-mn@rudn.ru

Yakusik Slobodiuk Ana Luba Postgraduate student; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; P. Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 6 Miklukho-Maklaya str., Obruchevsky district, Moscow, 117198, Russia 1042235118@pfur.ru

Introduction

Russian Russian emigration and the formation of the Russian world abroad remains an urgent and sought-after topic in historical scholarship. The spiritual and cultural heritage of the Russian diaspora is recognized as part of the Russian civilization. Over the past time, knowledge about the history of the Russian diaspora has accumulated, and its deep understanding in Russian and foreign historiography has taken place. The methodology of studying this phenomenon has significantly expanded with the use of "historical comparative studies, transdisciplinary approaches to the study of not only traditional areas of history" of emigration, but also such new directions as "historical memory, the history of everyday life, gender history." In recent years, there has also been a revival of the "biographical method" in research practices using "ego documents", which serve to "reconstruct the personal destinies of those people who interested the historian in their significance", "their value system in a specific historical context" ^{[1, pp.27-29]}. Russian Russian emigration brings up to date the topic of the history of Russian emigration in the context of modern challenges to preserve the traditional and family values of the Russian world, preserve the historical memory, cultural and spiritual heritage of the Russian community abroad.

There is an extensive historiography devoted to the history of the Russian diaspora of the twentieth century and the 1920s and 1930s in particular. The works of E. I. Pivovar^[2], Z. S. Bocharova^[3], I. V. Sabennikova^[4], A. V. Okorokov^[5] reveal the socio-political composition of emigration, the peculiarities of its adaptation in different countries of residence, the problems of international regulation of the legal status of Russian refugees abroad. In recent years, a general historiography of the history of Russian emigration in Latin America has also been formed, which includes the works of A. I. Sizonenko^[6], S. Y. Nechaev^[7], M. N. Moseikina^[8]. Special works on the Russian diaspora appear in certain countries, including Cuba^{[9, 10]}, Uruguay^{[11, 12]}, Mexico^[13], Chile ^[14], Brazil^[15], Argentina ^{[16, 17]}, where the authors are often emigrants themselves. An important place in this series is occupied by the topic of the formation of the Russian diaspora in Paraguay during the interwar period, primarily White emigration and its contribution to the development of military and engineering in this country ^{[18, 19, 20]}. Researchers are particularly interested in the personality of General I. T. Belyaev, a military anthropologist and ethnographer who did much to strengthen the national army of the country, but at the same time made a personal contribution to the protection and preservation of the Indian ethnic groups of Paraguay and South America, appreciating their role in the world cultural heritage.

Russian Russian historiography devoted to the history of Russian emigration abroad is very extensive, however, there is clearly insufficient special research on Russian diasporas in some Latin American countries and in Paraguay, in particular, which indicates the relevance and novelty of the topic.

The research was based on various types of published and archival sources (in particular, the materials of the personal fund of S.N. Somov (F. 6378) in the State Archive of the Russian Federation, devoted to the problems of colonization of Paraguayan lands by Russian immigrants).^[21].. The work also uses journalistic documents, the authors of which were emigrants themselves.^{[22, 23, 24]}

After the revolution and the Civil War in Russia (1917-1922), the main wave of Russian emigration was heading to Europe, but due to the deterioration of the socio-economic situation in European countries, North and especially South America were in demand, which at that time were in dire need of additional labor and therefore willingly hosted representatives of the Cossacks and white immigrants ("Rusos blancos").

At that time, Paraguay was a poorly developed agrarian country. In it, as in a number of other Latin American countries, the emphasis was on external migration and colonization of undeveloped lands with its help ^{[21, l.4 (vol.)]}. Starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, immigrants from Europe arrived in the country – the French, Italians, Germans ^[25]. In the 1920s, emigrants from Russia were sent here. It is important to note that the first contacts of the Paraguayan authorities with representatives of the Russian Empire date back to the pre-revolutionary period, when diplomatic relations were established between the two countries in 1909. But since there were not Russian embassies everywhere on the continent, the envoys from Russia who arrived here carried out their activities in two or more countries. So, on the eve of the February Revolution, the Russian envoy to Brazil, A. I. Shcherbatsky, was concurrently the envoy to Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and the head of the consulate in Mexico. After the Bolsheviks came to power, former employees of tsarist embassies abroad continued to represent the interests of old Russia for some time. In February 1921, the Council of Ambassadors was formed by emigrants in Paris, which for some time provided financial diplomatic missions in the countries where immigrants from Russia lived. He also had a representative in the League of Nations, whose function, among other things, was to protect the rights of Russian emigrants.

In Paraguay itself from 1904-1936. Representatives of the Liberal Party were in power, and the internal political situation was characterized by instability (two civil wars) and frequent changes of heads of state with the participation of the military. In 1920-1921, the President of Paraguay was Manuel Gondra, who approved, in particular, the immigration of settlers to the Paraguayan Chaco region. In 1921, a law (514/1921) was passed, known as the Mennonite Act, which laid the foundation for Mennonite colonization and gave a new impetus to the immigration of other settlers of European origin^[25]. One of the ideologists of this immigration law was Dr. Eusebio Ayala, a liberal politician who served as interim president from November 1921 to November 1923.

At that time, emigrants from Russia began arriving in Paraguay in small groups, although there is no exact data on the number of immigrants from Russia, since when transporting immigrants across the ocean, companies had so-called "collective passports" in their hands, which lacked statistics on the citizenship, date and place of birth of Russian immigrants, many of whom were included in the general migration lists ^[26] .

Russian Russian colonization associations were established in Belgrade, then in Prague and Berlin in 1924 with the aim of resettling Russian emigrants to Latin America. At that time, Ivan Timofeevich Belyaev, a former general of the Russian Imperial Navy and at the same time an anthropologist and linguist, a participant in the First World War and the Civil War, and a recipient of the Orders of Honor and St. George, was in France. After the defeat of the white movement, I. T. Belyaev, along with other officers of the Russian army, moved to Europe. From there, in 1923, he moved to Argentina, where he proposed the creation of a Russian colony in order to preserve the language and culture. But having failed to find support among his compatriots, Belyaev decided to move to Paraguay, about which he had already heard a lot, including about the Paraguayan army and its military achievements. As a scientist, Belyaev was also particularly interested in the indigenous peoples living in this country.

On March 24, 1924, I.T. Belyaev arrived in Paraguay accompanied by his wife, and later his relatives and other Russian families arrived. Here I. T. Belyaev was hired as a teacher of fortification at a military school. Russian Russian Hearth", a shelter for all Russians who had lost their homeland, was created in Paraguay by I. T. Belyaev, who became a professor at the Higher Military and Higher Naval Academies ^{[7, p. 80]}. After settling in Asuncion, he developed a land colonization project for Russian immigrants ^{[18, pp. 125-134]}.

Russian Russians In July 1924, the new President of the Republic of Paraguay, Jose Eligio Ayala, approved General Belyaev's plan to create a "Russian cultural core", which allowed for the immigration of "white Russians" to Paraguay. He authorized General Belyaev to invite specialists from Russia of various specialties and guaranteed that none of them would be deported from Paraguay.

General I. T. Belyaev himself soon began researching the Paraguayan Chaco on behalf of the Minister of War and Navy, Dr. Luis Riart. At that time, it was practically uncharted territory. I. T. Belyaev's very first trip to Chaco took place in October-December 1924. He was given specific tasks: " 1. A general assessment of the position of Bahia Negra and its immediate surroundings, the search for the most convenient place for the construction of Paraguayan barracks and forts; 2. Long-range reconnaissance of arrival points in Bahia Negra, as with from the north and from the west, in order to determine the most convenient places for the installation of defensive structures; 3. Drawing up a general plan for all conducted reconnaissance; 4. Give a lecture to Paraguayan officers about all the intelligence conducted, the details of the tasks performed, the issues that need to be taken into account in defense; 5. Work and cooperate with the commanders of the detachment, speaking in the role of Chief of Staff; 6. To provide upon return a detailed report on the work done and the needs for the implementation of projects" ^[26].

Under the leadership of General Belyaev, with the participation of Paraguayan soldiers, a detailed study of the area was conducted, maps were compiled, including the main landmarks that were key in establishing the future border between Paraguay and Bolivia. In total, from 1924 to 1930, General Belyaev made 11 expeditions to the Paraguayan Chaco, in all these expeditions he collected valuable information and compiled a large number of maps and topographic plans of the territory.

At the same time, he continued to invite Russian officers who had been recruited into the Paraguayan armed forces. In 1925, a group arrived that responded to the call of General I. T. Belyaev, who was sent to the south of the country, to the city of Encarnacion, located 360 km from the capital, in a mountainous area called Villa Moscow. Among the emigrants were 12 military technicians, road engineers, builders and geologists. From May 1925, they were recruited as specialists into the ranks of the Paraguayan army and Navy.

At the same time, in order to take an officer position in the Paraguayan army, it was necessary to pass a mandatory examination "on the type of weapon" of the military commission at the General Staff, which included instructors, three-quarters of whom were Germans. A Russian cavalry officer, S. Golubintsev, writes about a similar ordeal in his memoirs, pointing out that the facts of his personal biography, namely, combat experience of participating in two wars, played a role in his appointment to a military post. S. Golubintsev himself wrote about himself like this: "As part of the 11th Hussar Regiment, he participated in the Great War from 1917, and then, after the communist coup, he was in the White Army from 1918 to 1920" ^{[22, p.402]}. After passing the test, the Russian officer commanded Fort General Delgado for the first six months, then was assigned to serve in the border town of Encarnacion.

Meanwhile, General I. T. Belyaev himself received a position in the Ministry of War and the Navy just at the time when the Paraguayan armed forces were preparing for the defense of Chaco in the face of an impending war with Bolivia. The Bolivian authorities were actively preparing for a clash with Paraguay, involving Germans and Czech officers as military experts (it is known, for example, that since 1923 the Minister of War of Bolivia was a German general? Hans Kundt, a participant in the First World War) ^[22]. Under the circumstances, Paraguay was forced to respond to the growing threat from outside and prepare for a possible clash with Bolivia in the area.

Speaking about the state of the Paraguayan army, S. Golubintsev noted: "The Paraguayan army, like the whole country, which had 700,000 inhabitants at that time, is very small and has 5,000 people in its ranks. There were no separate regiments, and the entire infantry was consolidated into four three–company battalions, and the cavalry into four independent squadrons... From special units there was a small radio station and an aviation fleet, while without planes and pilots..."^{[22, p.400]}. The national fleet consisted of two gunboats and several armed boats. The entire army had one general and four colonels who studied in foreign schools.

Therefore, for Paraguay, the arrival of experienced military personnel from Russia, who had two wars behind them, was extremely important. For this purpose, I.T. Belyaev initiated the creation in France of a Colonization Center for organizing emigration to Paraguay with a biweekly publication called "Le Paraguay". The outbreak of the global economic crisis in the early 1930s became another challenge and a new challenge for Russian refugees who found it possible to respond to the call of the Paraguayan authorities. Going to South America seemed to be the only hope for a decent and better future. The invitation of the Government of Paraguay was very attractive, including regarding the establishment of a Russian colony in this country. In April 1934, the first contingent was sent "consisting of 210 white emigrants, Cossacks originally from the Don" ^[26]. After that, Russian officers and military engineers began to arrive in the country, who were recruited into various departments of the Military and Naval Ministries, the Directorate of Technical Works of the General Staff. According to various sources, by the spring of 1934, "thanks to General Belyaev, several hundred Russians had already settled into government service in Paraguay" ^{[28, pp.143-144]}.

The Russian military who found themselves in exile created their own professional organizations abroad, which allowed them to maintain corporate ties. The largest and most important of them was the Russian General Military Union (ROVS), established in 1924 by order of the General Wrangel and had its own departments in different countries. There were five departments in total. In 1930, the South American Department of the ROVS appeared, which was headed by Major General N. F. Ern, who lived in Paraguay. ROVS sub-departments existed in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay., Paraguay (led by Colonel V. F. Gessel) ^{[5, pp.106, 123]}. Engineer S. S. Bobrovsky (former professor at the St. Petersburg Engineering Academy, who arrived by personal invitation to work as an adviser to the Directorate of the National Engineering Department of the Ministry of Finance) He initiated the creation of the Union of Russian Technicians in Paraguay in 1926. Subsequently, Bobrovsky also asked the Minister of Finance to allow him to invite his compatriots interested in living in Paraguay, as a result, Russian specialists continued to arrive and together they became the founders of the National Department of Public Works, within the framework of which the road policy of Paraguay was defined.

The beginning of the 1930s was marked by the intensification of relations between Paraguay and Bolivia. On May 1, 1930, the League of Nations managed to restore a bilateral dialogue, after which lengthy negotiations began again. Despite the efforts made, on September 9, 1932, the Paraguayan-Bolivian war for the conquest of Northern Chaco began (this territory of the Paraguayan Chaco was permanently occupied by the Bolivian armed forces, trained by German soldiers.

Due to the outbreak of war, the Russian military decided to support the Paraguayan people. Largely due to the participation of Russian officers and military engineers, Paraguay, which by the beginning of hostilities, as noted above, did not have a full-fledged army, by its end had formed a regular army of 50,000 people, as well as a military fleet. There are no exact statistics on the Russian officers who participated in the Chaco war, but there is evidence that among them were 23 captains, 13 majors, 4 lieutenant colonels, 8 colonels and 2 generals – I. T. Belyaev and N. F. Ern^[29]. Twelve of them commanded regiments, battalions, companies and batteries. Among them were the chiefs of major headquarters and the division commander ^{[18, p. 52]}. 11 Russian doctors worked in hospitals (of which 2 military doctors worked at the military hospital in El Chaco, one female doctor worked at the National Orthopedic Institute). In total, according to various sources, up to 80 Russian professional military and engineers fought in the ranks of the Paraguayan army.

On December 27, 1933, at the height of the Chaco war, a white officer, S. L. Vysokolyan, who served in the Russian Imperial Army, arrived in Paraguay. The First World War. Upon arrival in the country, after learning about the Chaco war, he joined the Paraguayan army in March 1934 with the rank of captain, and took part in the Battle of Nanawa Fortress. Assessing this battle later, S.L. Vysokolyan said the following: "... The defense of Nanava and the behavior of its selfless defenders ... puts them on a par with the defenders of the most famous battles in world history - from Thermopylae and Saguntum to Verdun in France, Alcazar in Toledo and Stalingrad in Russia" ^[30].

S. L. Vysokolyan was one of the prominent Russian emigrants in Paraguay. He organized an artillery school here, headed the departments of physical, mathematical and economic sciences, was a professor at the Higher Military Academy, the Higher Naval Academy, and taught in the cadet corps. In 1936, he became an honorary citizen of the Paraguayan Republic and was awarded the gold medal of the Marshal F. S. Lopez Military Academy.

When the war broke out in July 1932, the Bolivians were confident of a quick victory. Their country was richer and more populated than Paraguay, and its armed forces were more numerous, had well-trained senior officers, reinforced by German soldiers. These advantages proved insignificant compared to the Paraguayans' determination to defend their homeland. The Paraguayans knew the geography of the Chaco better than the Bolivians and easily penetrated the Bolivian borders, capturing some Bolivian posts. Ignorance of the territory, poor roads and poor logistics prevented the Bolivian troops from advancing in the area.

One of the Paraguayan regiments was commanded by Russian Major Georgy Butlerov, who volunteered in February 1932 and joined the Paraguayan army with the rank of cavalry captain. At first, he was the commander of one of the squadrons under the command of Major Alfredo Ramos, who fought in the Battle of Saavedra in 1932. In early 1933, Major G. Butlerov was appointed commander of the 4th cavalry regiment "Aka Karaya", which heroically fought in two battles of Nanava. He was one of the most capable and brave Russian volunteer officers.

The Chaco War ended on June 12, 1935 with the signing of a peace treaty with territorial changes in favor of Paraguay. The consequences of the war for such a small country as Paraguay were severe: many Paraguayans died in the war, including six white Russian officers who gave their lives on the battlefield, the first of whom was Major Vasily Serebryakov, who fell in the Battle of Boquerón.

The Government of Paraguay has established awards for participation in the Chaco War – the "Cross of del Chaco" and the "Defender's Cross", which were awarded to 26 Russian officers for heroic and selfless actions in "defending their second homeland." Several streets in Asuncion are named today in honor of Russian officers in recognition of their contribution to the victory in the Chaco War on the side of Paraguay. As N. Y. Kudeyarova notes, "the victory of Paraguay in the bloodiest confrontation in South America in the twentieth century. It was achieved at the cost of a gigantic effort and thanks to the personal courage of the people who participated in it" ^{[32, p.33]}. By that time, there was another war in the memory of Paraguayans, which went down in history as the Great War (1864-1870) against the Triple Alliance (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay), in which Paraguay suffered a crushing defeat. However, the victory in the Chaka War "did not become a new starting point for the consolidation of national identity" [Ibid.]. On the contrary, it resulted in the strengthening of the role of the military in the country and the subsequent militarization, which led to the establishment of the long-term military dictatorship of A. Stroessner (1954-1989).

Conclusion

As the study showed, the process of adaptation of Russian military emigration in Latin America and Paraguay, in particular, was difficult. But gradually, many officers were able to put their professional knowledge and skills to use, and find jobs as specialists, translators, and teachers. Having successfully passed the stages of adaptation, Russian emigrants have contributed to the process of modernizing the armed forces and economies of a number of Latin American countries. This was especially noticeable in Paraguay, where professional military personnel from Russia arrived in the 1920s and early 1930s, with rich professional experience that proved to be in great demand in wartime conditions.

Russian Russian Diaspora in Paraguay, despite the fact that the idea of a "Russian hearth" in Paraguay could not be put into practice, nevertheless, it should be recognized that the Russian diaspora in this country has left a noticeable mark in its history. Representatives of the Russian emigration contributed to the formation of technical education in the republic, the training of senior officers, the development of engineering in the country and its practical implementation in various sectors of the national economy. At the same time, during the adaptation, Russians in Paraguay did everything to preserve their own ethnic identity through language, culture, the Orthodox faith, and the maintenance of historical memory of the heroic past of their homeland.