The Deportation of Serbian Families to Bărăgan an Ethnic and Statistical Study

The Bărăgan deportations took place on the Pentecost night of 17–18 June 1951 (Rusalii in Romanian, Духови / Duhovi in Serbian) and lasted until 1956. Their purpose was the forced relocation of the wealthy population (chiaburi), potentially hostile or Tito sympathizers from a radius of 25 km from the common border between the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia2 and the Romanian People’s Republic3 who could have become opponents of the communist regime. The study is based on the Reports resulting from the Order of the Minister of Internal Affairs no. 161 of 29 June 19544, that established who could return to their places of residence and who had to remain under compulsory residence. The aim was to identify ethnic Serbs born on the territory of the RPR who were deported, to create a database with them and their departure/residence status, statistics on the localities of departure and deportation, to create maps and to find the reasons for their deportation. The identification was based on the name of the head of the household, as most entries in these reports specify only the name of the father and the number of members with whom he was deported.