The Lokot Republic (Russian: Локотская Республика) was a semi-autonomous region in Nazi occupied Russia under an all-Russian administration from 1941 to 1943. The name comes from a small settlement Lokot (Локоть) of Oryol oblast (now of Bryansk oblast). The "republic" covered the area of several raions of Oryol and Kursk oblasts. Anatoly Ivanov portrayed it in his novel Ethernal Call (Вечный зов) and the corresponding TV sequel, popular in the Soviet Union (but the fact was little known, if at all).
In 1941, engineer Constantine Voskoboinik was placed by the Nazi occupational authorities in charge of the Lokot region. Voskoboinik and his one time classmate, engineer Bronislaw Kaminski, both former political prisoners of the Stalin regime, began recruiting an armed force to fight off the Soviet partisans. The force, called the Russian National Liberation Army, gathered 10,000 men through recruitment and conscription, and managed to hold the territory of the Lokot Republic under its control. After the death of Voskoboinik, who fell in combat, Kaminski became both the burgomeister of the republic and the commander of the RONA. The republic had the support of Heinz Guderian and of the commader of Army Group Centre, Günther von Kluge.
The relationship between the Russian administration of the Lokot Republic and the occupational forces of the Axis carried on the character of a suzerainty, unlike other Nazi occupied eastern territories where the local administrations were under the direct control of Nazi officials. For a minimal tribute, the Republic was free to pretty much govern itself. There was enough autonomy to permit the Republic's police force to try and execute two Axis soldiers (believed to be Hungarians) for criminal behavior.
The Lokot region and surroundings were places of settlement of many exiled and those who served term in labor camps and hence were forbidden to live in larger cities. Therefore the idea of liberaion from Bolsheviks found noticeable support.
Collective farms were abolished, and a large degree of free enterprise was permitted. Schools were open, and a radio station along with a theater group was active in the city of Bryansk.
Newspapers published in the Lokot Republic were typical of all newspapers published on Nazi occupied Russian territories, featuring articles exposing Soviet crimes along with Nazi propaganda (which included the usual heavy dose of anti-Semitism). Kaminski's speeches as translated in the newspapers of the region underlined that the aims of Nazi Germany and Russia "are the same".
A notable aspect of the republic, seen from its survived newspapers, was its anti-Semitism.
Voskoboinik was killed by pro-Soviet partisans.
Whether Kaminski's pro-Nazi rhetoric was genuine or part of his tribute to the German suzerain is virtually impossible to determine. Unlike with General Vlasov and other Russian anticommunist leaders during this period, no reliable primary sources on Kaminski are currently known to exist. Historiographers can only rely on Soviet secondary sources (which paint Kaminski as a typical Quisling), a few apocryphal memoirs, and what survives of the Lokot Republic's archives, i.e. newspapers and propaganda literature - neither of which seem to provide enough insight or objectivity.
The Republic's life came to an end in 1943, soon after the war on the Eastern Front changed course at Stalingrad. Kaminski had to evacuate (over 30,000 persons, with families) to Lepel of Vitebsk oblast, Belarus. In August he set up a new, "Lepel Republic", where he and his RONA were folded into the Waffen SS as "Russian SS unit No. 1". Soon thereafter Kaminski was executed by the Nazi's, and the RONA was disbanded.
According to one secondary source, a group of Kaminski's men remained in the area of the former Lokot Republic and put up a fierce partisan resistance to the Soviet forces, remaining active even several years after the war (as did the Ukrainian Nationalist Organisation or "OUN" of Stepan Bandera).
