Evgeny Valerievich Polyansky,
Postgraduate Student, Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Special Settlers in Igarka: Administrative Approaches and Governance Mechanisms in the 1930s
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2025-5-12
The article examines the mechanisms of governance over special settlers in Igarka during the 1930s as a local case study that reveals the specific features of administrative logic and power relations on the Soviet periphery. The focus is on the distribution of functions and authority among four key actors: the local civil administration, party structures, the OGPU−NKVD bodies, and major union-level economic organizations, which oversaw all of the town’s principal economic assets. Particular attention is given to the emergence of stable practices for managing the special contingent under conditions of institutional fragmentation, resource scarcity, and multi-tiered accountability. Drawing on archival sources, the article analyzes not only formal administrative structures but also everyday managerial decisions that shaped the regulation of labor, living conditions, and resource distribution among special settlers. Igarka is examined as a space of “urban exile”, where the special contingent made up a significant portion of the population and, in effect, defined the town’s social landscape-despite the fact that their special status was rarely emphasized in official documents. The analysis of the Igarka case reveals the contradictions between the repressive nature of special resettlement and the necessity of integrating settlers into economic processes. This perspective offers new insight into the functioning of Soviet power under the pressures of modernization and local constraints, while also clarifying the boundaries of regional actors’ autonomy within a centralized system of governance.
Publishing: 28/10/2025
The article has been received by the editor on 23/07/2025
How to cite: Polyanskiy E.V. Special Settlers in Igarka: Administrative Approaches and Governance Mechanisms in the 1930s // Historical Courier, 2025, No. 5 (43), pp. 136–149. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2025/ISTKURIER-2025-5-12.pdf]
Links: Issue 5 2025
Keywords: Igarka; special settlers; Main Administration of the Northern Sea Route (GUSMP); Komseverput’; governance; Soviet periphery; 1930s; economic agencies; administrative practices; party control