The Armenians in Crimea have maintained a presence in the region since the Middle Ages. The first wave of Armenian immigration into this area began during the mid-eleventh century and, over time, as political, economic and social conditions in Armenia proper failed to improve, newer waves followed them. Today, between 10 and 20 thousand Armenians live in the peninsula.
In an ethnic and national sense, the Crimea has been a host to wide group of peoples. Historians and other scholars have dated the Armenian presence in the Crimea to the eighth century and have distinguished three distinctive stages of their settlement in the region. The Crimea was under the control of the Byzantine Empire during this time and some Armenian troops serving in the Byzantine military were stationed here. In the course of the next two centuries, Armenians from their homeland in the Armenian Highlands and other Byzantine cities came to settle here as well.[4]
As life grew more unbearable in Armenia proper following the destructive Seljuk raids of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, many Armenians were forced to migrate to Byzantium and elsewhere and with some of them eventually settling in the Crimea. They founded new homes in Kaffa (modern Feodosia),[5]Solhat, Karasubazar (Belogorsk), and Orabazar (Armyansk), with Kaffa at its center. The stability of the region allowed many of them to engage in agriculture and commercial activity. Even when the region came under Mongol control in the mid-thirteenth century, their economic life was left largely undisturbed. The Armenians' ties to commercial interests also greatly benefited the Genoese when they secured their economic domination there in the late thirteenth century.[6] The widening economic opportunities in the Crimea attracted more Armenians to settle there. According to Genoese sources, in 1316 Armenians had three churches (two Armenian Apostolic and one Catholic) of their own in Kaffa.[6]
As the foreign wars in Armenia continued unabated, greater numbers of Armenians chose to settle in the Crimea, to the degree that some Western sources began to refer to the region as Armenia Maritima and the Sea of Azov as Lacus armeniacus.[7] A rich literary tradition and the art of illuminated manuscript writing were created. The Armenian Church played a central role in Armenian social life, and in 1330 it counted 44 churches under its jurisdiction.[8] From the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries, the Armenians formed the second largest ethnic group after the Tatars. Many of them began to speak Tatar as their home language, writing it in Armenian script.[9]
The flourishing of the community came to an abrupt end, however, when the Ottoman Turks took the region in 1475. Many Armenians were killed, enslaved, or fled the peninsula and as many as sixteen Armenian churches were converted to mosques, as the Armenians were subordinated to the rule of the Crimean khanate, which remained an ally of the Ottoman Empire.[10] Despite this, there remained in the sixteenth century Armenian communities Kaffa, Karasubazar, Balaklava, Gezlev, Perekop and Surkhat. From 1778-1779, more than 22,000 Armenians resettled in Azov province and on the coast of the Dnieper and Samara, leading to gradual economic decline, in what was known as the Emigration of Christians from Crimea. In 1783, the Russian Empire conquered the Crimean khanate. Russian authorities encouraged the settlement of foreign colonists, including Armenians, into the Crimea. This led to a fresh wave of Armenian immigrants, reviving former colonies. In 1913, their numbers hovered around 9,000 and approximately 14,000-15,000 in 1914.[citation needed] The resettlement of Armenians on the peninsula lasted until the First World War and the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1923. The immigrants of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were largely from Western Armenia and the various regions of Ottoman Empire.
Soviet era
In 1919, there were 16,907 Armenians living in the Crimea. In 1930, in the newly established Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, there were two Armenian national districts, and on the peninsula there were approximately 13,000 Armenians.[11] According to the All-Union census of 1989, the number of Armenians living in the Crimea had dwindled down 2,794.[12] On May 29, 1944, Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union, Lavrentiy Beria, introduced a specious report to Joseph Stalin: "Armenians live in various parts of the peninsula. An Armenian committee, established by Germans, actively cooperates with Nazi Germany and is carrying out anti-Soviet [acts]." Later on, he suggested to deport all Bulgarians, Greeks and Armenians from Crimea. On June 2, 1944, he signed Directorate 5984, entitled "The Deportation of German satellites - Bulgarians, Greeks and Armenians from Crimea." This resolution deported 37,000 Bulgarians, Greeks and Armenians. The Armenians were sent to Perm Oblast, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Omsk Oblast, Kemerovo Oblast, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and Kazakhstan.[13]
In 1989, the communal life of the Crimea's Armenians was institutionalized with the formation of one of the peninsula's first national-cultural associations, the Armenian Luys (Light) Society. Later, after re-registration in 1996, it was renamed the Crimean Armenian Society. At present, the Crimean Armenian Society consists of 14 regional offices, coordinated by the National Council of Crimean Armenians. The highest governing body is the National Congress, which convenes at least once every four years. Operational management of the society is carried out by the executive committee, which functions in the periods between meetings of the National Council. The society runs the Luys Cultural and Ethnographic Center and publishes a monthly newspaper, Dove Masis. The one-hour Armenian-language program "Barev" airs twice a month on Crimean television, and radio broadcasts are made five times a week. There are Armenian churches in Yalta, Feodosia and Evpatoria, while the first Armenian secondary school opened in 1998 in Simferopol.[citation needed]
Distribution
Armenians in the Crimea are currently concentrated in the cities of Simferopol, Evpatoria, Feodosia, Kerch, Yalta, Sevastopol, Sudak. The Armenia Diaspora Encyclopedia estimated that there were 20,000 Armenians living in the region as of 2003.[2]
Feodosia (Kaffa)
In the 1470s, Armenians comprised two thirds of the total population of Kaffa (numbering 46,000 out of 70,000).[14] Until 1941 Armenians in Feodosia formed more than 20% of the total population of the city. According to the Feodosia Office of Statistics, there are only 557 Armenians living in Greater Feodosia itself.[5]
Community life
The community has taken a very lively role in affairs concerning Armenia and Armenians and has contributed greatly to the region.[15] This is seen more prominently in the context of Turkish foreign policy interests in the Crimea.[16]
The Armenian community of the Crimea forms one of the most important centers of the Armenian Diaspora in the Black Sea region. Its members attach a great importance to Armenia and its foreign policy interests.
In Kaffa, there were a number of Armenian schools, dozens of churches, banks, trading houses, caravanserai, and craftshops. The town served as a spiritual center for the Crimean Armenians, and its stature grew so prominently that in 1438 the Armenians of Kafa were invited to send representatives to the Ferrara-Florence Cathedral (Florence ecumenical council).
The second largest Armenian population after Kaffa in the same period was Surkhat. The name Surkhat is probably a distorted form of the name of the Armenian monastery Surb-Khach (Holy Cross). There were many Armenian churches, schools, neighborhoods here as well. Other major settlements included Sudak, where until the last quarter of the fifteenth century and near the monastery Surb-Khach there was a small Armenian town called Kazarat. Armenian princes kept the troops there and on a contractual basis to defend Kafa.[18]
The social life of the Crimean Armenians surged in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They organized themselves into community organizations. Wealthy Armenians and the church tried to "raise" the nation to the level of modern civilization, and to carry out charitable activities. The sources of money and material welfare of the church were grants, wills and offerings.[19]
The church's role in the colonies was to some extent becoming secularized. In 1842, the Catholicos in Crimea lost his position to the Chief Guardian of the Crimean Armenian churches.[20]
↑ Maksoudian, Krikor (1997). "Armenian Communities in Eastern Europe" in The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 52. ISBN1-4039-6422-X.
↑ Своим постановлением №1322-4/05 от 19 мая 2005г. Верховная Рада Автономной Республики Крым решила считать 24 апреля Днем памяти жертв трагедии армянского народа. 22 апреля 2007г. состоялся круглый стол «Геноцид армян, без права на забвение». Организаторами и учредителями круглого стола стал Комитет армянской молодежи Крыма при поддержки Крымского армянского общества и Русского культурного центра. По словам председателя Крымского армянского общества Олега Габриэляна (Симферополь, 24 апреля 2007г.) «У армян нет чувства реванша к турецкому государству, мы хотим обозначить для себя и жителей Крыма, что армянская диаспора развивается»
Crimea is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukraine. To the east, the Crimean Bridge, constructed in 2018, spans the Strait of Kerch, linking the peninsula with Krasnodar Krai in Russia. The Arabat Spit, located to the northeast, is a narrow strip of land that separates the Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov. Across the Black Sea to the west lies Romania and to the south is Turkey. The largest city is Sevastopol. The region has a population of 2.4 million, and has been under Russian occupation since 2014.
Feodosia, also called in English Theodosia, is a town on the Crimean coast of the Black Sea. Feodosia serves as the administrative center of Feodosia Municipality, one of the regions into which Crimea is divided. During much of its history, the city was a significant settlement known as Caffa or Kaffa. According to the 2014 census, its population was 69,145.
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky was an Armenian- Russian Romantic painter who is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art. Baptized as Hovhannes Aivazian, he was born into an Armenian family in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in Crimea and was mostly based there.
The Crimean Khanate self-defined as the Throne of Crimea and Desht-i Kipchak and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary, was a Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441–1783, the longest-lived of the Turkic khanates that succeeded the empire of the Golden Horde. Established by Hacı I Giray in 1441, it was regarded as the direct heir to the Golden Horde and to Desht-i-Kipchak.
Staryi Krym is a small historical town and former bishopric in İslâm Terek (Kirovske) Raion of Crimea, Ukraine. It has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It is located in the Eastern Crimean Peninsula, approximately 25 km (15 mi.) west of Theodosia. Population: 9,277 .
Feodosia City Municipality, officially "the territory governed by the Feodosia city council", is one of the 25 regions of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, a territory recognized by a majority of countries as part of Ukraine and incorporated by Russia as the Republic of Crimea. Population: 100,962 .
Simferopol International Airport is an airport located in Simferopol, de facto the capital of the Republic of Crimea. Built in 1936, the airport today has one international terminal and one domestic terminal.
Armenians in Ukraine are ethnic Armenians who live in Ukraine. They number 99,894 according to the 2001 Ukrainian census. However, the country is also host to a number of Armenian guest workers which has yet to be ascertained. The Armenian population in Ukraine has nearly doubled since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989, largely due to instability in the Caucasus. Ukraine was home to the fifth largest Armenian community in the world before the invasion by Russia displaced millions of people.
The interest in Crimean legends started at the end of the 19th century. The legends were published with a purpose of attraction of attracting tourism. Field work and publications of Crimean folklore were mostly done by non-professional folklorists. Therefore, it often happens that principles of classification of collected material are not known, and national origins of legends are not differentiated either.
Djur-djur — waterfall is located on the Ulu-Uzen' river in the Crimean Mountains of Crimea. Waterfall height is 16 metres (52 ft). Djur-djur has not dried up ever, even in the dry years. Water from the waterfall falls into a small lake, and then comes into the river channel, which flows into the sea near the village Solnechnogorsk.
The Republic of Crimea is a republic of Russia, comprising most of the Crimean Peninsula, but excluding Sevastopol. Its territory corresponds to the pre-2023 territory of Autonomous Republic of Crimea, a subdivision of Ukraine. Russia occupied and annexed the peninsula in 2014, although the annexation remains internationally unrecognized.
The Aivazovsky National Art Gallery is a national art museum in Feodosia, Crimea, one of the oldest art museums in Ukraine. The first exhibition was privately organised by Ivan Aivazovsky's in his house in 1845. The basis collection included his 49 paintings. In 1880 an additional exhibition hall was attached to the house. The gallery became the third museum in the Russian Empire, after the Hermitage Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery. After Aivazovsky's death in 1900, the ownership of the gallery was transferred to the city according to his testament.
Crimea. The Way Home is a Russian propaganda television documentary about the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014. The film premiered both on Russian channel Rossiya 1 and on YouTube on March 15, 2015.
On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples is the law N 1107-I of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic signed on April 29, 1991 and updated by the July 1, 1993 law N 5303-I of the Russian Federation.
Saint Hripsime Church, is a working Armenian church located in Yalta on the Crimean peninsula, Ukraine and completed in 1917.
The de-Tatarization of Crimea refers to the Soviet and Russian efforts to remove traces of the indigenous Crimean Tatar presence from the peninsula. De-Tatarization has been manifested in various ways throughout history, ranging from the full-scale deportation and exile of Crimean Tatars in 1944 to other measures such as the burning of Crimean Tatar books published in the 1920s and toponym renaming.
Crimea is home to 6 of Ukraine's 19 nature reserves, the most valuable category of nature reserves. The Russian occupation of Crimea that began in 2014 affected the environment of the region.
Opuk is a mountain 183 meters high, located on Opuk cape, on the southern tip of the Kerch Peninsula, in Crimea, the highest point in the area. The Opuk massif was declared the Opuk Nature Reserve in 1998. The slopes of Opuk mountain are a combination of stepped ledges, steep precipices, chasms and stone placers.
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