Why the Roma National District Was Not Founded in the RSFSR and What it Could Have Been Like

The author analyzes the activities of Soviet policy towards the Roma population with a focus on state involvement in agricultural cooperation and the creation of Roma collective farms in the Volga region in the 1930s. During that period, even small national groups gained autonomy in the form of republics, districts, and even regions. Therefore, the question of why territorial autonomy for Roma was not founded in the USSR seems quite currently relevant. Meanwhile, in 1936-1937 in the RSFSR, as part of the policy of settling the Roma, the project for creating the Roma national district in the Kuibyshev region was seriously discussed and considered. The circumstances and reasons for the failure to implement the project of creating the Roma national district in the Volga region are clarified across the article. The basis for the research is the archival materials of the fund of the All-Union Resettlement Committee of the Russian State Academy of Economics (fund 5675) introduced by the author into scientific use for the first time. The sources allow revealing the circumstances of the discussion and preparatory work on the creation of the Roma national district. The funds contain significant information and reports with a detailed description of the Roma collective farms, including those containing ethnographic material. The author concludes that the project of creating the Roma national district was of strategic importance for the Soviet leadership and the authorities made great efforts to implement it. By early 1937, all the necessary conditions for the establishment of the district had been created. However, the reluctance of the lower power structures to host the Roma population, the outbreak of large repressions, the abolition of the All-Union Resettlement Committee, and the change of trends in the national policy prevented the implementation of the project.