  | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Guatemala City, Zacapa and Antigua Guatemala | |
| Languages | |
| Spanish, Russian | |
| Religion | |
| Russian Orthodox Christianity, other Christian, Islam [ citation needed ] and Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Russian people, Demographics of Guatemala |
Russian Guatemalans are Guatemalan citizens who have full or partial Russian ancestry.
The first Russian immigrants arrived in Guatemala in the late 1890s. Some Russians had already settled in Mexico. However, some immigrants preferred to go to Guatemala or Nicaragua because Porfirio Diaz was the president of Mexico. Also, some immigrants were socialist politicians who had good relations with Manuel Estrada Cabrera, who became President of Guatemala in 1898. The Russian immigration at this time, though, was insignificant. Many refugees of Russian, Greek, and Polish origin came after the First World War. [1]
In the late nineteenth century, some Orthodox Christian immigrants from the Levant came to Guatemala. In the early twentieth century, a wave of German immigrants and a smaller but still present wave of Russians and Greek, arrived in Guatemala. These Orthodox Christians settled with their families in Guatemala and preserved their Orthodox faith and traditions. [2]
During the government of Jacobo Arbenz, there was communist influence in Guatemala. This was carried out in part through the arrival of Soviet agents who came to Guatemala to create a communist core, a phenomenon that also occurred in other Latin American countries. The arrival of Communists revolutionaries like Ernesto Guevara also increased the influence of communists in Guatemala at this time. Communism was attractive for some Guatemalan politicians who had relations with Russia. Communism's greatest influence, though, was to poor people because communism was intended to eliminate private property and take away land from the United Fruit Company [ relevant? ]. [3]
The CIA twice attempted to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz from power. The first attempt was a failure, but the second attempt successfully placed Carlos Castillo Armas in charge. Armas returned the land to the Guatemalan landholdings and the United Fruit Company. Through the overthrow of Arbenz, the relations between Russia and Guatemala were almost dissolved, although the relations would see a resurgence during the Cold War. In the 1990s, many[ quantify ] retired soldiers left Russia to go to Guatemala and start a new life. [4]
The National Ballet of Guatemala emerged in 1948, led by the grandmaster Kiril Pikieris, and the Belgians Marcelle Bonge de Devaux and her husband Jean Devaux, both of whom were World War II refugees). Between 1949 and 1954, the Ballet of Guatemala was directed by the Russian master Kachurovski Leonide with his wife Marie Tchernova, who was also in charge of the National School of Dance. When the United States overthrew the government of Jacobo Arbenz, the Ballet of Guatemala was abolished because the Liberacionista Governing Board accused the Russian directors of being communists. [5]
On March 19, 1955, President Carlos Castillo Armas created the advisory committee of the Department of Fine Arts and Cultural Extension, which advised the School of Dance, with the intention of restarting the ballet in Guatemala directed by Claire Denis Carey and Joop Van Allen. [6]
At the end of the Cold War, a group of Germans and Russians introduced the Russian tradition of performing the Nutcracker. The work is presented annually in December at the Centro Cultural Miguel Ángel Asturias. [7]
CIA cryptonyms are code names or code words used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to refer to projects, operations, persons, agencies, etc.
Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the 25th President of Guatemala. He was Minister of National Defense from 1944 to 1950, before he became the second democratically elected President of Guatemala, from 1951 to 1954. He was a major figure in the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution, which represented some of the few years of representative democracy in Guatemalan history. The landmark program of agrarian reform Árbenz enacted as president was very influential across Latin America.
Carlos Castillo Armas was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who was the 28th president of Guatemala, serving from 1954 to 1957 after taking power in a coup d'état. A member of the right-wing National Liberation Movement (MLN) party, his authoritarian government was closely allied with the United States.
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was the result of a CIA covert operation code-named PBSuccess. It deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954. It installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala.
Carlos Enrique Díaz de León was the provisional President of Guatemala from 27 June to 29 June 1954. He was replaced by a military junta led by Elfego Monzón. Carlos Enrique Díaz was previously Chief of the Guatemalan Armed Forces under President Jacobo Árbenz.
General José Miguel Ramón Ydígoras Fuentes was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as president of Guatemala from 1958 to March 1963. He was also the main challenger to Jacobo Árbenz during the 1950 presidential election. Ydígoras previously served as the governor of the province of San Marcos.
Elfego Hernán Monzón Aguirre was a Guatemalan army officer who was President of Guatemala and leader of a military junta from 29 June 1954 to 8 July 1954, during the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état.
Operation PBFortune, also known as Operation Fortune, was a covert United States operation to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1952. The operation was authorized by U.S. President Harry Truman and planned by the Central Intelligence Agency. The United Fruit Company had lobbied intensively for the overthrow because land reform initiated by Árbenz threatened its economic interests. The US also feared that the government of Árbenz was being influenced by communists.
Decree 900, also known as the Agrarian Reform Law, was a Guatemalan land-reform law passed on June 17, 1952, during the Guatemalan Revolution. The law was introduced by President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán and passed by the Guatemalan Congress. It redistributed unused land greater than 90 hectares in area to local peasants, compensating landowners with government bonds. Land from at most 1,700 estates was redistributed to about 500,000 individuals—one-sixth of the country's population. The goal of the legislation was to move Guatemala's economy from pseudo-feudalism into capitalism. Although in force for only eighteen months, the law had a major effect on the Guatemalan land-reform movement.
The Guatemalan Labour Party was a communist party in Guatemala. It existed from 1949 to 1998. It gained prominence during the government of Jacobo Arbenz. It was one of the main forces of opposition to the various regimes that followed Arbenz's overthrow, and later became a constituent of the URNG guerrilla coalition during the later phase of the country's Civil War.
The National Committee of Defense Against Communism was a committee formed on 19 July 1954 in Guatemala by president Carlos Castillo at the request of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The Committee's primary goal was to fight alleged threats to the government of Guatemala by persons the Committee named as Communist subversives.
John Emil Peurifoy was an American diplomat and ambassador in the early years of the Cold War. He served as ambassador to Greece, Thailand, and Guatemala. In this latter country, he was serving during the 1954 coup that overthrew the democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz.
Mano Blanca, was a Guatemalan right-wing, anti-communist death squad, set up in 1966 to prevent Julio César Méndez Montenegro from being inaugurated as the president of Guatemala. While initially autonomous from the government, it was absorbed into the Guatemalan State's counter-terror apparatus and evolved into a paramilitary unit of the Guatemalan armed forces, and was responsible for the murder and torture of thousands of people in rural Guatemala. The group received support from the Guatemalan army and government, as well as from the United States. The group was officially known as the Movimiento de Acción Nacionalista Organizado which gives the acronym "MANO",. The group was variously known by its full name, by MANO, or most popularly by Mano Blanca, or "White Hand."
Operation PBHistory was a covert operation carried out in Guatemala by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It followed Operation PBSuccess, which led to the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in June 1954 and ended the Guatemalan Revolution. PBHistory attempted to use documents left behind by Árbenz's government and by organizations related to the communist Guatemalan Party of Labor to demonstrate that the Guatemalan government had been under the influence of the Soviet Union, and to use those documents to obtain further intelligence that would be useful to US intelligence agencies. It was an effort to justify the overthrow of the elected Guatemalan government in response to the negative international reactions to PBSuccess. The CIA also hoped to improve its intelligence resources about communist parties in Latin America, a subject on which it had little information.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has a history of interference in the government of Guatemala over the course of several decades. Guatemala is bordered by the North Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Honduras. The four bordering countries are Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize. Due to the proximity of Guatemala to the United States, the fear of the Soviet Union creating a beachhead in Guatemala created panic in the United States government during the Cold War. The CIA undertook Operation PBSuccess to overthrow the democratically elected Jacobo Árbenz in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état. Carlos Castillo Armas replaced him as a military dictator. Guatemala was subsequently ruled by a series of military dictatorships for decades. Between 1962 and 1996, Left-wing guerrillas fought the U.S. backed military governments during the Guatemalan Civil War.
The Anti-Communist University Students Committee, (CEUA) was a rightist, anti-communist organization in Guatemala, which was founded in late 1953, during the last year of the Guatemalan Revolution. Its founders and leaders were Mario Sandoval Alarcon, Lionel Sisniega Otero, Mario Lopez Villatoro, and Eduardo Taracena de la Cerda. Lionel Sisniega Otero was a broadcaster for the clandestine radio station that the liberation movement operated before Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán's resignation, together with Mario Lopez Villatoro and Jose Toron Barrios, who were both killed by the guerrillas in the 1960s. They fought against the government of Arbenz. Headed by a young activist, the group counted 50 members in the capital and a nationwide network of sympathetic students ready to risk arrest. After the coup in 1954 CEUA supported the government of Carlos Castillo Armas.
The Independent Anti-Communist Party of the West was a Guatemalan right-wing party founded in 1953. Led by Inez Nuño, it was the leading anti-Communist party in the Western part of Guatemala. PIACO fought against the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. After the coup in 1954, it supported the government of Carlos Castillo Armas, and subsequently collaborated with Ydígoras Fuentes.
The period in the history of Guatemala between the coups against Jorge Ubico in 1944 and Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 is known locally as the Revolution. It has also been called the Ten Years of Spring, highlighting the peak years of representative democracy in Guatemala from 1930 until the end of the civil war in 1996. It saw the implementation of social, political, and especially agrarian reforms that were influential across Latin America.
José Manuel Fortuny Arana was an important communist leader in Latin America. He became well known for his friendship with Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz, and was one of the main advisers in his government, which lasted from 1951–54. Árbenz was overthrown by a coup engineered by the United States in 1954, an event which drove Fortuny into exile, along with many of his comrades.
Colonel Carlos Aldana Sandoval was a Guatemalan military officer who was a significant figure in the popular uprising against the government of Federico Ponce Vaides in October 1944. At the time of the uprising, Sandoval held the rank of Major in the Guardia de Honor, a powerful unit of the military. Sandoval, one of the leaders of the plot among the military, was among those who felt that the plot should remain among the military: however, Árbenz insisted on including civilians in the process. Sandoval was able to persuade Francisco Javier Arana to join the coup in its final stages, but did not participate in the actual coup. Historian Piero Gleijeses stated that Sandoval was among the plotters who lost his nerve at the last minute.
Ancestral background of Guatemalan citizens | |
| Guatemalan native groups (Maya and others) | |
| Former and extinct | |
| Guatemalan mestizo | |
| Descendants of Europeans (white or Criollo) | |
| Descendants of Asians | |
| Afro-descendants | |
| Americas | |
| Former Russian Empire or the USSR |
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