History of the Jewish Autonomous Region

Neolithic sites of Malyshev culture on the territory of the Jewish Autonomous Region date back to the 6th millennium - the second half of the 4th millennium BC. e., Kondon culture - III millennium BC. e. The Early Iron Age includes the sites of the Ural culture (end of the 2nd millennium - the 7th century BC) and of the Polish (the 6th century BC - the 4th century AD) cultures ^[1] .

Since ancient times, Paleo-Asiatic , Tungus-Manchu , Mongol tribes lived in the Amur region .

By the middle of the 1st millennium, the Mohe tribes (the Nayfeld group), belonging to the Tungus-Manchurian language group, settled in the Amur region. In the years 628–926, this territory was the northern outskirts of the Bohai state. After its defeat by the Liao Empire , these lands were inhabited by the Jurchen tribes that laid the foundation for the Chinese Jin Dynasty . After the Mongol conquests, the peoples of the Amur Region remained in the shadow of historical events until the arrival of Russian explorers in the middle of the XVII century ^{[2] [3]} .

On June 15, 1643, “according to Tsar Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fyodorovich of All Russia, decree” , an expedition consisting of 139 Cossacks was sent from Yakutsk , headed by the written head of Vasily Poyarkov . In the 17th century, 3860 daurov , 1240 plowed tungus, 1260 deer tungus lived in the Amur region ^[5] . Poyarkov noted in the report the natural wealth of the region: “those zemlyans are crowded and grain-fed and sable, and there are a lot of every beast, and those rivers are fish, and sovereign warriors in that zemlenitsa will not have any bread grain” ^[6] . An important role was also played by the campaigns of Erofei Khabarov in 1649-1652. The first settlement on the territory of the future EAO was the Kosogorsky prison, founded in 1656 by Onufriy Stepanov ^[7] . A number of settlements were founded by Nicephorus of Chernigov ^[8] .

The territory of the present EAO was part of the Albazin Voivodeship (1651–1689) ^[7] . According to Vladimir Kabuzan, in the 1680s there were about 800 Russian peasants, Cossacks and industrialists in the Amur region. Subsequently, for about 150 years, the left bank of the Amur was under the control of the Qing Empire under the Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689 ^{[9] [10]} .

In the middle of the XIX century, the active development of these lands began, in which the position of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia Nikolai Muravyov played an important role. In 1851, the Trans-Baikal region was formed with its center in Chita . In 1853-1856, military rafts along the Amur River were organized, within the framework of which the Trans-Baikal Cossacks began the settlement of the region and its economic development. In 1856, they set up Ust-Sungaria and Khingansky (Bureinsky) posts, and in 1857-1860, the existing settlements were founded - Pashkovo , Radde , Pompeevka , Puzino , Ekaterina-Nikolskoye , Mikhailo-Semenovskoye , Voskresenovka , Ventselievo , Soyuznoye , Golovino . In 1863, they advanced north, creating a number of villages, including Samara , Babstovo , Bijan , Kukelevo ^{[7] [11]} .

Amur military rafting and the creation of a network of settlements with a permanent population made it possible to secure this territory for Russia. In 1858, Aigunsky was concluded, and in 1860 - the Beijing Treaties. These documents officially secured the border line between Russia and China . The territory that went to Russia received the administrative name “ Amur Region ” ^{[6] [12] [13]} .

December 20 ( December 8 according to the old style ) in 1858, the Amur Region was created. By decree of the emperor of December 29, 1858, the Amur Cossack army was created. It included the Amur Equestrian Cossack Brigade consisting of two regiments and the Amur Cossack Pedestrian Battalion. In the territory occupied by the battalion, where the autonomous region was subsequently located, in 1869 there were 24 villages for 1014 yards and 5661 people ^[14] .

The life of the first Russian immigrants in this area was difficult: the harsh climate, the attacks of gangs of Chinese robbers ^[15] . The first educational institution in the region (Cossack school in the village of Radde) was opened in 1860 ^[16] . In the 1870s, the flow of resettlement to the Amur Region increased due to government permission for the private development of gold mines ^[17] .

On June 16, 1884, the State Council established the Amur Governor General as part of the Trans-Baikal, Amur, Primorsky Regions and Sakhalin Island . The governor-general was appointed by the emperor, military governors who headed the regions obeyed him. Most of the territory of the future region was part of the Amur District of the Amur Region, formed in 1884 ^[18] . In 1899, two dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church were created in the Far East. The current territory of the EAO became part of the Annunciation-Amur diocese ^[19] . By the early 1920s, 24 Orthodox churches and camp churches and 20 chapels were operating in the territory of the present EAO. All of them were destroyed by 1936 ^[20] .

In the report of the military governor of the Amur Region, Lieutenant General Konstantin Gribsky for 1900 indicated ^[6] :

... Amur Cossack army, occupying the coastal strip of the river. The Amur from the village of Pokrovskaya to the village of Zabelovsky (in the territory of future autonomy - from the village of Storozhevoy to the village of Zabelovsky) was divided into three sections, the third section included the village districts of the Amur foot Cossack battalion:

• Catherine-Nikolsky - 7 villages, 576 households, 4476 people;
• Mikhailo-Semenovsky - 14 villages, 624 yards, 4908 souls;
• Raddevsky - 4 villages, 148 households, 1157 souls.

The settlement of the Amur Region was significantly affected by the construction of the Amur Railway . The labor of convicts and workers who arrived from the central provinces of Russia ^{[21] [6] was} also used at its construction. In 1912, the Tikhonkaya station was built - the future capital of the region and the city of Birobidzhan ^[22] . In the same year, the first industrial enterprise was opened - Tunguska Timber Plant No. 8, which supplied lumber for the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway ^[23] .

During the Civil War from 1918 to 1921, military operations were conducted mainly outside the territory of the present EAO. But from May 1921 to October 1922, the Amur Region became the scene of violent clashes between the Reds and the Whites. Japanese and American interventionists acted here. The fighting in the region ended in the summer of 1922 with the victory of the Reds and the establishment of Soviet power. The most famous event of this period and one of the largest battles of the final stage of the Civil War was the Volochaevsky battle of February 5-14, 1922 ^[24] . However, the battles with the Cossack detachments that left for China and occasionally crossed the Amur continued until 1927 ^[7] and occasionally even until 1929 ^[25] .

Reliable information about Jews in this territory until the second half of the 18th century does not exist. If they lived there, they were extremely small and got there by accident. The first Jewish communities arose in Siberia at the beginning of the 19th century. Most Siberian Jews were exiles and their descendants, and then retired cantonists were added to them ^[26] . The first archival documents about the Jews of the Far East date back to 1875, there were only a few dozen of them. However, these figures did not include Jews living illegally there ^[27] .

In the early 1880s, the proportion of Jews in the Amur Region was approximately 2%. On this territory there were not only anti-Semitic protests and pogroms characteristic of the European part of Russia at that time , but also domestic anti-Semitism. However, the policy of the local authorities towards Jews was discriminatory and restrictive - in full accordance with the then applicable law. In particular, Jews were prohibited from settling in the 100-verst border zone with China ^[28] . In addition to legislative restrictions, there was also widespread arbitrariness of anti-Semitic-minded local authorities ^[29] . Doctor of Historical Sciences Victoria Romanova notes that in the face of a shortage of labor and financial resources in Siberia and the Far East, the restrictive policy towards Jews, who did not pose any threat to either the local population or the state system, had no reasonable justification ^[30] .

According to the census of 1897, out of 120 male Jews of the Amur Region who fell into the category of “independent population”, there were 10 merchants, 9 merchants, 41 peasants, 26 military personnel, 11 private servants and 9 were engaged in the manufacture of clothing. In total, according to the census, there were 394 Jews in the Amur Region (0.33% of the population) ^[31] . The duties of a rabbi in Khabarovsk were performed in the second half of the 1880s by a “ learned Jew ”, senior architect of the Office of Construction and Road Units under the Amur Governor General Samuil Iosifovich Ber ^[32] .

The October Revolution gave a new impetus to the development of this territory ^[33] . The abolition of the Pale of Settlement allowed a large number of Jews to move to free lands within the former empire. The Bolsheviks saw the solution of the Jewish question in Russia in the “Sovietization” of the Jews, namely in diverting them from the activities considered to be bourgeois (finance, trade, petty crafts) and introducing them into physical labor. The revolution undermined the traditional economic foundations of the Jewish population and this was a serious blow to the Jewish poor of the European part of the country, deprived of livelihoods. Due to the fact that as a result of the civil war, large-scale industry in Russia was paralyzed, the Sovietization of the Jews could only be realized through “agrarianization,” that is, the conversion of Jews into peasants. To do this, it was necessary to stimulate the resettlement of Jews to the land that was available in Russia in abundance and suitable for agriculture ^{[34] [35]} .

The feasibility of creating an autonomous unit for the Jews of Russia was noted by Lenin in 1919. Created in January 1918, the Jewish Commissariat under the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities was involved in the search for free land for the resettlement of Jews ^[36] . The issue of the formation of Jewish autonomy in the USSR was discussed in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (B.) Since 1923. An appropriate commission was created under the leadership of Alexander Tsyurupa ^[37] .

In order to organize and support the Jewish resettlement movement, in August 1924, by a resolution of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, a Committee on the Land Organization of Jewish Workers was created, headed by Peter Smidovich . In December of that year, a Public Committee was created for the land system of working Jews under the leadership of Yuri Larin . The task of the latter was to mobilize the public, primarily foreign, to support land management projects ^{[38] [39]} .

Initially, the mass migration of Jews to the Crimea and the Sea of ​​Azov was supposed, there was a project to create national autonomy in Belarus ^{[40] [41] [42]} . However, for a number of reasons, state policy changed in the mid-1920s. On July 8, 1926, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) decided “to investigate the question of the possibility of creating, in addition, an array in Altai, sending a competent commission there in the Soviet Union” ^[6] .

Gennady Kostyrchenko in the book “Secret policy of Stalin. Power and anti-Semitism ”wrote ^[43] :

... The fact that the Crimean Jewish autonomy was never created is explained, first of all, by the fact that back in the spring of 1927, the resettlement of Jews to the Far East was chosen as an alternative. This option of solving the Jewish question in the USSR then seemed to the Stalinist leadership optimal, especially in terms of propaganda.

In this way, the problem of employing tens of thousands of ruined and unemployed as a result of curtailing the NEP policy of Jewish merchants, handicraftsmen and artisans was radically solved, and the severity of anti-Semitism by the resettlement of Jews from the urbanized European part to an almost uninhabited area, on the contrary, decreased ^[44] . At the same time, it was planned to improve the demographic situation of the sparsely populated region and strengthen the border with China ^{[45] [46]} . Active supporters of the Far East project were CEC Chairman Mikhail Kalinin and KomZET Chairman Peter Smidovich. The head of the OZET, Yuri Larin, was an opponent of this option; he believed that severe environmental conditions and considerable isolation from the central regions were of little use for the townspeople who were turning to agriculture for the first time ^[47] .

The organized settlement of this area after the revolution began in 1925. According to the census, at the end of 1926 the population of the district was 34 195 inhabitants, including Russians - 30 417 , Koreans - 3178 , indigenous people - 600 people ^[48] .

On March 28, 1928, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted a resolution “On securing for KomZET for the needs of continuous settlement of free land by working Jews in the Amur strip of the Far Eastern Territory” ^{[49] [50]} in the amount of approximately 4.5 million hectares ^[51] . In April-May 1928, trains with the first Jewish immigrants began arriving at Tikhonkaya station ^{[6] [16]} . On July 7-8, 1928, the first Jewish village council, Birefeld, was created in the Birsk experimental field and several villages in the Yekaterina-Nikolsky district ^{[52] [53]} .

Professor Boris Brook from June 22 to August 7, 1927 conducted an expedition to examine the territory of the region ^{[54] [49]} . After that, he wrote that the region is wild, uninhabited, with a harsh climate, and therefore people who need to be relocated need to be healthy, strong, brave, ready to endure and endure a lot ^[55] . Nevertheless, Brooke praised the project for the creation of Jewish autonomy in the area ^[56] .

In 1928, the journey from Moscow to Khabarovsk took 9 days for a fast train, and about 2 weeks for a mail train. Trains with settlers, consisting of freight cars with bunks, could go up to a month. One wagon was designed for 5 families. It was assumed that the settlers will be engaged mainly in agricultural labor: land plots in the area of ​​Birefeld or Catherine-Nikolsky were planned 4 hectares per capita. The state loan was supposed to be from 400 to 600 rubles per family ^{[57] [58]} . The first Jewish school in the region opened in November 1929 in the village of Valdheim ^[59] .

The development of the region was helped by the American organization for Jewish land management assistance in the USSR, IKOR , which existed since 1924. In 1928, IKOR concluded an agreement with the Soviet government, on the basis of which it sent 250 thousand dollars to Birobidzhan, a lot of machines, tools and equipment. The development of the region was also provided by the Birobidzhan Committee in the USA (“Ambidjan”) ^{[60] [61]} . On the contrary, the international Jewish charitable organization Joint , which actively financed the “Crimean project”, categorically refused to allocate money for land management in the Far East ^[62] .

Despite significant efforts by the authorities and foreign aid, the development of the region went with great difficulties. The Khabarovsk District Committee of the CPSU (B.) In April 1928 noted the unpreparedness of local authorities to accept migrants. They lacked the necessary material resources for receiving immigrants, the required funds were not allocated by the center. There was not even clarity with the borders of the area allocated for resettlement. The main problems were lack of funding, mismanagement and poor organization of the resettlement movement, KomZET showed its incompetence in this matter ^[63] .

The Soviet leadership hoped that by 1933 the Jewish population of the Birsko-Bijan district would reach 60 thousand, and by 1938-150 thousand people. However, in the years 1928-1929 only 2,825 Jews arrived there, of which 1,725 ​​had left Birobidzhan by the end of 1929. Out of 19,635 Jews who came to Birobidzhan since 1928, 8185 remained to reside permanently by 1934, and 11,450 left. The project of resettling Jews from abroad there failed completely. In total, 500 foreigners arrived in the region, including 80 from Argentina and 150 from Lithuania. All the communes created in the Birobidzhan region by Jews from other countries fell apart, and most of their members left the USSR. The last major wave of outflow of foreigners took place after the famine that erupted in the USSR in 1933 ^{[64] [65] [66]} .

To overcome the crisis, the authorities decided to raise the administrative status to the autonomous region, without hiding that it was a communist response to the Zionist project in Palestine ^{[67] [68]} .

After the revolution, the territory of modern EAO became part of the Far Eastern Territory . From 04/06/1920 to 11/15/1922 she was part of the Far Eastern Republic - a separate state with a capital in Chita. Since 1922, this territory again became part of the Far Eastern Territory of Soviet Russia. In 1926, the administrative center of the Far East was moved to Khabarovsk , volosts were abolished, and districts were created instead. Including in the Amur Region, Catherine-Nikolsky and Mikhailo-Semenovsky - in the Primorsky Region ^[7] .

Jewish immigrants in the second half of the 1920s created a number of small settlements. On August 20, 1930, the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted a resolution “On the Formation of the Biro-Bijan National Region as part of the Far Eastern Territory ”, which included Ekaterina-Nikolsky, Birsky, Nekrasovsky, the current Kur-Urmi, Mikhailo-Semenovsky districts ^[7] .

The boundaries of the district were described in the Regulation as follows:

... from the mouth of the Tunguska River up the Amur River to the confluence of the Gryaznaya tributary with the Second Amur Channel, further along the northern and western faces of the pasture lands of the city of Khabarovsk to the Amur River and further up the Amur River until the Khingan River flows into it, near the village of Pashkovo , from here up the Khingan River to the Nameless Key, from this place the border makes a sharp turn to the east and goes along the Small Khingan ridge , between the Kuldur , Kamenushka and Sagdy-Bir rivers from the south; reaching the headwaters of the Small Khingan ridge to the headwaters of the Beridzha River (the right tributary of the Solakum , Yaurin and Tirma rivers from the north and the left tributaries of the Bira River - Urmi ) the border in the north-east direction reaches the right peak of the Kosmun River (which also constitutes the right tributary of the Urmi river), going along which the border reaches the Urmi River, which further serves as the northeastern border of the described region until the Urmi River flows into the Tunguska River and along the latter to its mouth ...

By a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of May 7, 1934, the indicated national region, founded in 1930 , received the status of an autonomous Jewish national region ^[69] .

In 1931, the village of Tikhonkoye was renamed the working village of Birobidzhan (its population at that time was 830 people ^[70] ), and on March 2, 1937 the working village received city status. The population of the district by 1930 was 37583 people, on its territory there were 248 settlements, including 9 with a predominantly Jewish population. The district was directly subordinate to the executive committee of the Council of Workers, Peasants, and Red Army Deputies of the Far Eastern Region ^{[6] [71]} .

On July 20, 1934, the All - Russian Central Executive Committee decided to "form as part of the autonomous Jewish national region:

• Birobidzhan district with a center in the working village of Birobidzhan ;
• Birsky district with a center in the working village of Bira ;
• Stalin district centered in the village of Stalinsk (formerly Stalinfeld);
• Blyukherovsky district with a center in the village of Blyukherovo (formerly Mikhailovo-Semenovskoye);
• Smidovichi district with its center in the working village of Smidovich (formerly In) ” ^[72] .

With the division of the Far Eastern Territory into Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories in 1938, the region became part of the Khabarovsk Territory ^[7] .

One of the factors that changed the attitude of the Soviet authorities towards this region was the international situation, including the introduction of the Japanese Kwantung Army into Manchuria in September 1931 and the creation of the puppet state of Manzhou-go in February 1932. The strategic importance of the Birobidzhan region as directly bordering Manchuria has grown sharply. The decision to create autonomy in May 1934 and an additional propaganda campaign helped to overcome the crisis and increase the number of immigrants ^[73] .

As of September 1, 1934, the share of Jews was 45% of the total population — the maximum percentage in the entire history of the region ^[74] . The construction of a number of large facilities in Birobidzhan, as well as roads and bridges, was launched. The publication of the newspaper Birobidzhaner Stern in Yiddish began , the Jewish State Theater opened, which in 1936 received the name of L. Kaganovich ^[75] .

Agriculture by 1932 was already fully state. There were 43 collective farms, 3 state farms, 4 machine and tractor stations in the region. Sown area has grown since 1928 from 17 to 36 thousand hectares. 108 tractors, 3 combine harvesters and 13 cars worked in the fields ^[76] .

The first regional congress of Soviets took place in December 1934 ^[76] . EAO state authorities were formed until the end of 1936 ^[77] . The first elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR took place in the region on December 12, 1937 ^[74] .

Jewish public in the West followed the Soviet project. It aroused particular interest in connection with the sharp increase in the persecution of German Jews and obstacles to their emigration to Palestine or the countries of Europe and the USA ^[78] . Jewish organizations sent proposals to the USSR government to accept Jewish refugees from Germany to the EAO, promising to support this project financially ^[79] . However, the reaction of the Soviet authorities to these proposals was twofold: although the decision of the Politburo of April 28, 1935 allowed the arrival of 1000 families from abroad, it was subject to extremely harsh conditions. Subsequently, it turned out that in Birobidzhan only 150-200 families are ready to accept, and only from Poland, Lithuania and Romania. In the future, this work was curtailed in connection with the growth of espionage and mass terror . In total, from 1931 to 1936, 1374 foreigners arrived in the EAO, part went back, and many of the remaining were arrested and sent to camps during mass repressions ^[80] . Perhaps the desire to relocate was also affected by the absence in the EAO of any legally operating religious organizations. In the EAO there was not a single synagogue, not a single existing religious building of any denomination, and there were no registered worshipers ^[81] .

On May 28, 1934, Mikhail Kalinin, at a meeting with the Jewish workers and intelligentsia of Moscow, said that the transformation of the region into a republic was a matter of time and that the government saw a national Jewish state in this project. The plans for the creation of a Jewish republic were disavowed by Stalin in November 1936 in a speech “On the Draft Constitution of the USSR”. In it, he described three conditions necessary for transforming an autonomous region into a republic: bordering an external state, having a national majority and a population of at least a million people. EAO did not comply with these requirements ^{[82] [83]} .

Mass repressions of the second half of the 1930s significantly affected not only the flow of foreign citizens, but also the local population. In 1936, the first chairman of the executive committee of the EAO, Joseph Liberberg , was arrested and shot in 1937, and Mikhail Kattel, who replaced him, was arrested in the same 1937 ^[84] . The first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU (b) Matvey Khavkin was sentenced to 15 years in camps and rehabilitated only in January 1956. Within a short period of time, the leadership of the autonomy was practically beheaded, since the leaders of the party and economic assets were arrested almost without exception ^{[85] [86]} . In the fall of 1938, 4,500 Koreans were deported from the territory of the region ^[7] . During this period, one of the most active perpetrators of repression, the head of the NKVD Directorate for the EAO, senior lieutenant of state security Alexander Lavtakov ^[87] and a number of other NKVD officers ^[88], were arrested and shot.

According to the 1939 census, the autonomy's population was 108,938 people, including 17,695 Jews (16.2%) ^[89] . Kostyrchenko writes that the Birobidzhan Project was nothing more than a propaganda action for strategic cover for the idea of ​​the complete assimilation of the Jewish population of the USSR ^[90] .

During the Great Patriotic War , more than 12 thousand inhabitants of the region were called up to the front, 7 thousand of them died or went missing, more than 7 thousand people. for courage, courage and heroism was awarded orders and medals of the USSR. 14 pax awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union , and four became full holders of the Order of Glory . More than 7 thousand residents of the region were awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor during the Great Patriotic War." On April 24, 1945, the former worker of the convoy plant in Birobidzhan, Lieutenant Joseph Bumagin , closed the body of the enemy machine gun ^{[7] [91]} .

In 1942, the construction of the Ushumun mine began in the region, in 1943 the Birakan paper mill, a spinning and weaving mill was launched in Birobidzhan, and in 1945 a decision was made by local authorities to build the Khinganolovo mill on the basis of the Malohingan tin ore deposit ^{[92 ]} .

After the war, the EAO leadership tried to get substantial financial assistance from the center. And on December 4, 1945, the first secretary of the VKP (b) regional committee, Alexander Bakhmutsky and the chairman of the regional executive committee, Mikhail Zilberstein, proposed to Stalin the creation of an independent autonomous republic subordinated to Moscow. Material and technical and human resources were allocated primarily by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of January 26, 1946 “On measures to strengthen and further develop the economy of the Jewish Autonomous Region”, but the status upgrade project was rejected as unreasonable, because Stalin took it as an attempt to take revenge for the closure of the Crimean project. However, organized resettlement, due to tensions around re-evacuated Jews in the south, was resumed from 1947 ^[93] . Total in 1946-1948. 6326 people arrived from the western part of the country ^{[94] [95]} . From 1945 to 1948, the American committee "Ambidjan" provided EAO assistance in the amount of more than 6 million rubles ^[60] .

The first Jewish religious community was established in Birobidzhan on November 26, 1946. This community ceased to exist by the beginning of 1985, a new community was not created until July 1997 ^[96] . In 1947, a synagogue was built; it burned down in 1956 ^[97] .

The repression against Jewish cultural figures since 1948 and the anti-Semitic campaign against the “cosmopolitans” have also affected the Jewish Autonomous Region. The head of the regional committee of the CPSU (b) Bakhmutsky, the chairman of the regional executive committee Levitin and many other prominent figures of the region were arrested and convicted ^[98] , and after the death of Stalin in 1953, they were rehabilitated ^{[99] [100]} . Researchers in the history of the region Gurevich and Ryanskiy write ^[7] :

Until the death of Stalin, what could be called the defeat of the EAO as a national center was happening. От этого она, увы, не оправилась и поныне. Много людей было уничтожено по национальному признаку, поставлен был крест на дальнейшем индустриальном развитии области как самостоятельного объекта, закрыты все еврейские школы, уничтожена местная литературная и музыкальная элита.

Территория ЕАО, как и другие отдаленные от центра страны территории, использовались для размещения так называемых спецпоселений . В 1950 году на территории автономии было расселено 2400 спецпоселенцев, находившихся под надзором 3-х спецкомендатур Министерства госбезопасности ^[101] .

Всего жертвами политических репрессий в Еврейской автономной области в период с 1922 по 1958 годы стали 6296 человек, в том числе 2557 репрессированных в административном порядке и 3739 репрессированных в уголовном порядке (из них 1087 расстреляны) ^[102] .

Совет Министров СССР в 1953 году принял постановление «О мерах помощи сельскому хозяйству ЕАО». В 1950-е—1960-е годы в области был построен целый ряд промышленных предприятий. Ведущими отраслями промышленности стали машиностроение, электротехническая, горнорудная, строительных материалов. В 1967 году на территории области действовали 21 совхозов, птицефабрика, 5 крупных колхозов, опытные сельскохозяйственная и мелиоративная станции, 2 рыболовецких колхоза, 3 строительно-монтажных управления треста «Хабаровскводстрой», 5 объединений и отделений «Сельхозтехника» ^[94] .

Указом Президиума Верховного Совета СССР Еврейская автономная область 30 сентября 1967 года была награждена орденом Ленина за успехи, достигнутые трудящимися в хозяйственном и культурном строительстве. Указом Президиума Верховного Совета СССР от 29 декабря 1972 года Еврейская автономная область награждена орденом Дружбы народов за успехи в хозяйственном и культурном строительстве и в ознаменование 50-летия образования СССР ^[94] . Согласно переписи населения, на 15 января 1970 года в области жило 172 400 человек ^[103] .

В 1972—1973 годах случилась самая снежная зима за наблюдаемую историю погоды в области. В ту зиму в лесах погибло около 70 % поголовья косуль. Последний уссурийский тигр был убит в ЕАО в 1982 году. С 2007 года тигры вновь стали появляться на территории области, предположительно они заходят из Китая ^[104] .

В 1981 году в Биробиджане было построено и принято в эксплуатацию здание Дома пионеров и школьников, в 1983 году введена в эксплуатацию автоматическая телефонная станция на 10 тыс. номеров. Здание областной филармонии с концертным залом на 700 мест было принято в эксплуатацию в 1984 году. Продолжилось строительство инфраструктурных, общественных и промышленных объектов. В 1987 году в столице области был построен первый 9-этажный дом ^[105] . Однако созданные в области промышленные предприятия отличались большой долей ручного труда и использовали устаревшие технологии, наукоемкий сектор в экономике отсутствовал ^[7] .

До 1990 года Еврейская автономная область была составной частью Хабаровского края (согласно Конституции РСФСР 1978 года автономные области входили в состав краёв). В декабре 1990 года III Съезд народных депутатов РСФСР внёс поправку в текст Конституции РСФСР , по которой существенно менялось административное деление Российской Федерации. Было провозглашено, что отныне автономные области входят непосредственно в состав Федерации ^[106] .

29 октября 1991 года областным Советом народных депутатов принята Декларация о государственно-правовом статусе ЕАО. В том же году Постановлением Президиума Верховного Совета РСФСР Еврейская автономная область была выделена из состава Хабаровского края в самостоятельный субъект Российской Федерации ^[106] . После преобразования всех остальных автономных областей России в республики в начале 1990-х годов Еврейская АО осталась единственной автономной областью в Российской Федерации ^[107] . 19 декабря 1991 года губернатором был назначен Николай Волков . В 2010 году его сменил Александр Винников .

31 марта 1992 года был подписан Федеративный договор о разграничении предметов ведения и полномочий между федеральными органами государственной власти и органами власти Еврейской автономной области ^[108] .

Став в начале 1990-х одним из самостоятельных субъектов федерации, ЕАО к концу 1990-х превратилась в один из самых бедных и депрессивных регионов России ^[109] . Из-за низкого уровня жизни (хуже ситуация в РФ только в Тыве и Ингушетии ) ЕАО занимает 1-е место в России по количеству уехавших в Израиль относительно общей численности местного еврейского населения (например, в период с 1994 по 1998 год в Израиль уехало 59,6 % расширенного еврейского населения ЕАО от численности на 1994 год) ^[110] .

Проблема титульной нации и проекты преобразования ЕАО

В 1996 году в области были зарегистрированы флаг и герб . 18 октября 1997 года был принят Устав области, согласно которому государственным языком в ЕАО признан только русский , а идиш считается одним из языков народов ЕАО ^[111] . В марте 1992 года в Биробиджане, ранее не имевшем ни одной православной церкви, был зарегистрирован первый приход ^[112] .

По уставу ЕАО от 18 октября 1997 года государственным языком в ЕАО признан только русский, а еврейские языки имеют статус языков одного из народов ЕАО ^[113] .

По данным переписи 2010 года в ЕАО с общим населением в 176 558 человек и еврейским населением в 1628 человек владение идишем указали 97 человек (6 % от еврейского населения области), владение ивритом — 312 человек (19 % от еврейского населения области), владение еврейским языком без уточнения — 54 человека ^[114] . Население области в целом и евреи в частности не используют идиш как разговорный язык, хотя в ЕАО и присутствует определённый интерес к культуре идиша ^[115] (однако на 5 фестивале еврейской культуры в 1999 году некоторые участники заявили, что культура идиша в ЕАО умирает ^[116] ).

В 2009 году Центробанком России была выпущена в обращение 10 миллионов десятирублевых монет, посвящённых 75-летию образования Еврейской автономной области ^[117] .

Существует проект присоединения ЕАО к Хабаровскому краю ^{[118] [119]} . Другое предложение — присоединение ЕАО к Амурской области с образованием Амурского края ^[119] . Против упразднения ЕАО выступает еврейская общественность ^[120] . Полпред президента России в Дальневосточном федеральном округе Виктор Ишаев является сторонником объединения ЕАО и Хабаровского края ^[119] , но считает его в настоящее время преждевременным ^{[121] [122]} . Проект упразднения ЕАО продолжает активно обсуждаться ^{[123] [124]} .

Евреи-переселенцы, прибывшие в Приамурье в 1920—1930-х годах, и их потомки никогда не составляли большинства населения ЕАО, а после масштабной репатриации в Израиль в 1970—1990-х годах стали очень небольшим меньшинством. Пика своей численности еврейское население ЕАО достигло в 1937 году — 20 тысяч, после чего постоянно снижалось. Ныне в Израиле живёт более 15 тысяч репатриантов из Еврейской автономной области, из них более 5 тысяч в городе Маалот , составляя около половины его жителей. Ежегодно в Израиле проводится встреча репатриантов из ЕАО. В 2008 году ЕАО на этой встрече 25—27 июня представлял мэр Биробиджана Александр Винников, директор Института комплексного анализа региональных проблем Ефим Фрисман и другие ^{[125] [126]} . Доля титульной нации постоянно уменьшается (1,0 % в 2010 году) ^[127] , однако название и статус автономной области пока сохраняется.

На 2007 год еврейское присутствие в ЕАО крайне незначительно и ограничивается городом Биробиджан и близлежащим селом Валдгейм ^[83] . Низкая доля титульной нации и общая малая численность населения ЕАО привели к появлению проектов упразднения области. Как, например, заявил Евгений Примаков :

Среди местных СМИ и некоторых еврейских общественных организаций существуют противники проектов упразднения ЕАО ^{[128] [129] [130] [131] [132] [133] [134] [135]} и сторонники дальнейшего её развития как самобытного еврейского административного образования ^[136] . Проект упразднения ЕАО продолжает активно обсуждаться ^{[124] [137] [138]} .

В августе 2013 года правительство РФ запустило программу привлечения в ЕАО евреев, в рамках которой в ЕАО приехал 1 еврей ^{[139] [140] [141]} .

• Jewish Autonomous Region: Encyclopedic Dictionary / ed. ed. V.S. Gurevich, F.N. Ryanskii. - Khabarovsk: RIOTIP, 1999 .-- 366 p. - ISBN 9785885701914 .
• Jewish Autonomous Region: textbook / ed. F.N. Ryanskii. - Birobidzhan: IKARP FEB RAS, 1992. - 160 p. - 10,000 copies.
• Gurevich V.S., Tsap V.A. About the Jewish Autonomous Region - seriously and with a smile . - Khabarovsk: Omega-Press, 2010 .-- 187 p. - (Library of the Birobidzhan Jewish community "Freud").
• Brooke B.L. Birobidzhan. - Moscow: Central Board of OZET, 1928. - 47 p.
• Jewish Autonomous Region / ed. I. Popkova. - Khabarovsk, 2004.
• Calendar of significant and memorable dates in the Jewish Autonomous Region for 2009 / comp. O. V. Redkina. - Birobidzhan, 2008.
• Tutunina R.P. et al. Administrative-territorial structure of the Jewish Autonomous Region of 1858-2003. - Khabarovsk: RIOTIP, 2004. - 352 p. - ISBN 5-88570-171-7 .
• Zhuravlev V.N. In a single formation. Pages of history . - Birobidzhan: RIOTIP, 2007 .-- 274 p. - ISBN 5-88570-092-3 .
• Zhuravlev V.N., Brener I.S. Memory book and lists of victims of repression in the Jewish Autonomous Region . - Birobidzhan, 2011 .-- 478 p. - 1000 copies.
• Romanova V.V. Power and Jews in the Far East of Russia: the history of relations. - Krasnoyarsk: Claretianum, 2001 .-- 292 p. - (Jewish Communities of Siberia and the Far East, Issue 7). - 300 copies. - ISBN 5-94491-018-6 .
• Kostyrchenko G.V. Stalin's Secret Policy: Power and Anti-Semitism. - 2. - M .: International relations, 2003. - 784 p. - ISBN 5-7133-1071-X .
• Agapov M. G. The origins of Soviet-Israeli relations: the “Jewish national center” in Soviet policy in the 1920s and 1930s. - Tyumen: Vector Beech, 2011. - 322 p. - 500 copies.

• List of chapters of the Jewish Autonomous Region

• Bibliography on the history of the region
• Database “Scientific Siberia: nature, history, economics, culture, science of Siberia and the Far East (1988-)”