{"id":1062,"date":"2020-03-09T16:29:41","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T20:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/?p=1062"},"modified":"2020-03-09T16:29:41","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T20:29:41","slug":"the-crimean-tatars-and-ukrainian-nationhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/2020\/03\/09\/the-crimean-tatars-and-ukrainian-nationhood\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian Nationhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Quinn Sippola<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Russian invasion and subsequent\nannexation of Crimea in 2014 affected the geopolitical stability of the entire Black\nSea region. It also profoundly affected one of the major ethnic groups residing\nin the peninsula, the Crimean Tatars.  On\nTuesday, March 3, Dr. Austin Charron, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for\nRussia, East Europe, and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin, discussed\nthe Crimean Tatars, their historical experiences, and the ways they have\nadapted to Ukrainian nationhood before and after 2014.  Charron analyzed the effects of the Crimean\nTatars\u2019 displacement from their homeland and how the Crimean Tatars maintained\ntheir cultural identity between their expulsion to Central Asia in 1944, return\nin 1989, and subsequent inclusion in the new Ukrainian state created in 1991.\nIn his lecture on these topics, Charron drew extensively from his interviews\nwith Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) from the region with statistical\nanalyses to present a full understanding of the Crimean Tatars\u2019 current plight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charron first provided a brief\nhistory of Crimea and the Crimean Tatars, starting with the various groups of\npeoples who attempted to colonize the area. The peninsula was then a part of\nthe Crimean Khanate from 1441 to 1783. It was under the Khanate, Charron noted,\nthat the peoples of Crimea coalesced into a coherent, albeit still multicultural,\nethnic group known as the Crimean Tatars. Russia annexed the Khanate and, by\nextension, the Tatars in 1783, leading to Russian and then Soviet colonization\nand rule. Soviet leaders created an Autonomous Republic for the Crimean Tatars,\nCharron noted, while also encouraging them to develop their national culture\nwithin socialism. During the Second World War, however, the Stalinist state\ncategorized the Crimean Tatars as an enemy nation, and on May 18, 1944, just\nafter the Red Army liberated Crimea from Nazi occupation, all Crimean Tatars\nwere rounded up, placed on train cars, and deported, most to Uzbekistan. Nearly\nhalf–46%–died in transit to  their new\nhome.  For reasons that still are not\nentirely clear, Charron noted, Soviet authorities only allowed Crimean Tatars to\nreturn to their homeland in 1989, where other enemy nations had been allowed to\ndo so in the 1950s and 1960s.  When they\nreturned, the Crimean Peninsula was a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist\nRepublic, after Nikita Khrushchev had gifted the region to Ukraine in 1954. The\nreturn brought a quarter century of some stability, but the 2014 invasion and\nsubsequent annexation of Crimea saw tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars\nrelocated to mainland Ukraine as IDPs, leaving their home once more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why did the Crimean Tatars leave\nafter their hard-fought battle to return? Charron argued that the answer rests\nwith their support for Ukraine, the Ukrainian Government, and their embrace of\nUkrainian nationhood. In interviews with Crimean Tatar IDPs, Charron relayed\nthat he heard many reasons for this trust, ranging from the common enemy the\ntwo peoples have in Russia to the long history of cooperation between the\nUkrainian Cossacks and Crimean Tatars to the simple fact that the Ukrainian\nstate mostly left the Crimean Tatars alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This embrace of Ukraine can best be seen\nin the young generations of Crimean Tatars, who increasingly see themselves in\na sort of hierarchy of identities. They are Crimean Tatar first, Ukrainian\nsecond, and European third. Both Crimea and the Ukrainian mainland are seen as\nhome to the young generation, helping to create a fused multiculturalism in a\ncountry that is overwhelmingly Ukrainian. The fusion of Ukrainian civic\nidentity and Crimean Tatar cultural identity has led to an explosion of Crimean\nTatar culture in the cities of Kyiv and Lviv, two of Ukraine\u2019s largest cities.\nThe Crimean Tatar national dish, Chebureki, is sold in shops across the cities.\nAs Charron demonstrated, a \u201cCrimean Tatarification\u201d of Ukrainian cultural\nlandscapes has occurred since 2014, with paintings, holidays, and advertisements\nall commemorating the May 18, 1944 deportations of the Crimean Tatars. Posters,\nads, and other visual media have merged the Tryzub, the national symbol of\nUkraine, and the Tamga, the symbol of the Crimean Tatars, to show the\nconnection between the two groups. And in 2016, Crimean Tatar pop artist Jamala\nwon the Eurovision song contest representing Ukraine for her song \u20181944\u2019,\nwritten about the deportations. One of Charron\u2019s interviewees described this\nexplosion of culture as if \u201cIn the dance of Ukrainian society, (the) Crimean\nTatars have a leading solo\u201d. Ukrainian civic identity is also growing in the\nolder generations, with one of Charron\u2019s interviewees, an older Crimean Tatar\nman regarding how he used to know only the melody to the Ukrainian national\nanthem, but now sings the anthem loudly at the beginning of soccer matches he\nattends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charron ended his lecture with one\nthought that has increasingly been debated since 2014: will the Crimean Tatars\nreceive their own autonomous republic? Charron stated it is a possibility, but\nfor now remains just a dream. There have been talks about a possible symbolic\ndeclaration in the face of Russia’s control of the region, but not all support\nthe idea of Crimean Tatar autonomy.  In a\npoll conducted by Charron, he found that most Ukrainians and Russians held the\nCrimean Tatars in high regard, but when asked about the possibility of\nautonomy, only 38% of those Ukrainians and Russians polled would be in favor of\nCrimean Tatar autonomy. Charron believed that this high trust for the people but\nlow support for autonomy is due to past ideas of the Crimean Tatars, mainly\nthat if they were granted autonomy they would either declare independence or\nally themselves with Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future for the Crimean Tatars is unpredictable. Will the Tatars be able to once again return to their homeland and be self-governing? Will they stay on the Ukrainian mainland?\u00a0 Will Ukraine continue to accept the Crimean Tatars in the face of Russian collaboration from those still on the peninsula? No one knows. One thing is certain: the Crimean Tatars have created a new form of multiculturalism in a post-Soviet Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quinn Sippola is a first-year student at Miami majoring in History.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Quinn Sippola The Russian invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014 affected the geopolitical stability of the entire Black Sea region. It also profoundly affected one of the major ethnic groups residing in the peninsula, the Crimean Tatars. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":781,"featured_media":1063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lecture_reviews","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/781"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}